Self-Control - Nature or Nurture?

To answer your question, I would have to say that there is no brain abnormality for having a habit that you enjoy. Maybe drug use is just a psychological issue instead of biology creating this urge. I do not think that people who like to go to the gym have a bigger section of the brain. I think I would go as far as saying that most habitual behaviors have to do with environment more than genetics. If you belong to a family that goes to the gym and values physical fitness then you would probably be more likely to want to go to the gym every day. This can also be related to drug use. If you have grown up in a family that doesn't think of drugs as a bad thing, then you probably will not either and follow in the footsteps of your relatives. The controlling can be both, which is the problem that no one can answer. Nature or Nurture?

You were talking about how self control may be related to something in the brain. From other articles I've read and things I've learned in various classes I would say the brain has a lot to do with self control. There are certain parts of the brain that are involved in decision making, and certainly they vary from person to person, which "nature" would determine. When I think about impulsiveness, I think of a study some researchers did with children and marshmallows. They gave children a marshmallow and told them if they waited to eat it they could have another one. Then they left the child alone in a room with the marshmallow. Some children resisted the temptation to eat it and got their second marshmallow. Others couldn't wait that long and ate it right away. In this study they followed these children and found that the children who had resisted eating the marshmallow later in life got higher scores on ACT tests and were more likely to go to college. Do you think these children were taught self control or it was inherent to them?

I agree that drug abuse has to do more with the behavioral aspect rather than the inheritance aspect. I think that drug addiction just hooks the brain just like working out for example. An avid exerciser experiences the feeling of success, and that happy feeling after a workout, it's the same with using a drug. Drugs make one feel better by getting that mental high, and working out makes one feel better by getting that physical high.

i agree that drug use have to do with who you are surrounded with and the environment you live in, not something genetic or inheritance.Also, going to the gym everyday have to do with your surroundings not that you have bigger brain than others. if you live in a community of violence and drug addicted you will be more like to fall for those habits.

I agree that missing the environmental causes is pretty strange for a drug study, and a pretty big miss, but I do not agree that the environmental factors are more important than biological factors when it comes to drug addiction. I would need evidence to make a claim that one is more important thant the other, and based on everyhting I have seen, it is indistinguishable to tell which has a greater effect on drug addicition, behavioral or biological attributes. And to reply to the other question, just becasue we lack self control at times doesn't necesarilly mean we have a abnormality, becasue if everyone lacks self control at times, that would mean we are all abnormal, which would become the norm. You picked a very good subject to talk about that really provokes a lot of thought.

I agree that drug addiction is not really something genetic. I feel that drug addiction comes from the area you grew up and what you saw or was taught was right. If the people you hang around with are doing it, your most likely to start doing it too. Genetics plays a role in the addiction but I don't think it is the main cause. Brain abnormalities shouldn't be the answer to things people enjoy or things that make people feel good about themselves. People can keep researching what the actually cause is but I feel as if no true answer will be decided upon because people have their own opinions on nature vs nurture.

I think that it is a choice for people whether to choose drugs or not for the majority of the explanation. Genetics are always down in there and can play a role with whether or not we do make those decisions. However through nurture these decisions can be altered into knowing that drugs are a terrible thing for you. So with the differences between the two siblings no causation comes from their correlation.

I find it interesting to bring drug-abuse into the Nature v. Nurture debate. The one thing that keeps coming up for me throughout this Nature vs. Nurture debate is that of free-will. Every single thing you do or not do in your life is the direct result of a choice you've made, including using drugs. Even when other factors come into play, and unforeseen circumstances call for a change of plans, you still decide how to change them.
I would call this basic ability to choose a part of Nature, while I understand that factors (namely from parents/guardians) can have huge impacts on this, e.g. instilling self-control, self-discipline, and a strong moral foundation for your child, vs. "teaching" (rather leading by example) poor judgement, LACK of self-control/discipline, and rather "going with the wind" and allowing for self-destructive behavior to penetrate one's life.
What was brought up in class, however, was the idea that "nothing we do is really a choice, but rather a result of the infinite influences we experience every day." This may make sense, at first, but I've found it to be self-contradictory, i.e. logically, it makes no sense. If everything we do is a direct result of 'some other influence' instead of our own choice (free-will) we would then be acting upon others' choices and free-will, thus creating a web of action-reaction phenomena. For example, one might say that the reason I slept in today instead of getting up early is not because I 'chose' to do it, but rather, I was influenced to do so by the infinite number of forces acted upon me every day. However, these 'forces' or influences include my own decision to stay up late last night, which was a result of my friend's decision to come stay over, which was a result of her roommate's decision to go home for the weekend- leaving my friend alone, which may have been the result of her parent's decision to throw a party and invite their daughter home for the weekend, so on and so forth. Although there is evidence that someone else's actions influence mine own, there is no evidence that they determine neither my actions nor my decisions. The fact that our actions are results of other peoples' actions (and choices) does not prove the nonexistence of free-will, rather it makes a claim to the existence of a "unique playing field" on which we all choose to conduct our lives. (Becher, 2008) Everyone has free-will, but no two people have the same free-will, due to the external influences they experience day-to-day.
Therefore, a drug-abuser may have had a bad break-up or bad friends, as you mentioned, in which case that web of decisions could be traced through a whole chain of others' decisions. The question remains then, can we trace a "psychological disorder" back through a chain of decisions as well, following the same logic, or is that strictly a fact of Nature?

I think that people often have traits that would allow them to become drug addicts. They may have a rebellious attitude, an addictive personality, or they may be someone with very little self control. I would say that it is more environmental, which, in a way it is, but it is almost impossible to not be exposed to drugs/alcohol at some point. Sure, if someone with an addictive personality lived in a box, they may never become addicted to drugs. That is not the reality of the world though. I view it as a sliding scale. If someone is highly predisposed to drug addiction, there is a pretty high chance of them become a drug addict or alcoholic. But if someone has none of these qualities, there is most likely a very low chance. People who are in the middle, with a somewhat addictive personality, then I think environment may play a larger part.

I am 50/50 on the topic. I think it has a lot to do with behavior and things that happen to you in life but I also think that some kinds of addictions could have something to do with issues in our brains. I have talked to people with parents who are alcoholics who are not alcoholics because they see what it id doing to their parents I have also seen people who are. I think more so it has to do with the environment you were brought up in but I think to something in your brain is telling you this is an ok way to be. I think this is a really good topic and you wrote it very! Very good points!

I do believe that drug abuse is primarily at the nurture end of the spectrum with a small bit of nature involved. I look at it as if individuals do have some addictive trait in their genes that may serve as the spark in the equation but I also consider the environmental factors and to me they seem more relevant. I believe that everyone has the capability to get addicted. In the right situation and correct environmental factors, I think that this is when one may be the most prone to establishing an addiction. I think one having an addiction trait in their genes might make it more likely, but the ultimate cause comes from the environment.