You’ve all seen Trading Places, right? So, where do you put you $1?
Assuming the question is: “Is it temperament or upbringing which dictates one’s propensity to conform to socially acceptable behavior?” I’d say upbringing. There are no guarantees how someone will turn out on the individual level, but in general people grow up with whatever ethical system best yield their desires. They learn how to behave to get what they want more frequently.
But of course, that’s kind of a natural thought process. Maybe I need to change my answer.
The two are tied together closely and that is why it is a hard problem. If you are an identical twin who is gay and schizophrenic and prone to addiction but who was separated at birth from the other twin, you have will tend to have both nature and nurture in common even if you you never met your twin. These studies have been done a lot although why some people go around separating identical twins at birth is beyond me.
It is still a commonsense problem though and I think some of the science is dubious to unethical at best even though I have a degree in this area. Ask any parents of multiple children and you will usually find that the kids were born quite different and showed it at a very early age even when they got they got the same upbringing, environment, etc.
Nurture arguments have some merit once the difference between environment is strong enough but there is a whole crackpot school of thought that thinks it means most everything and that simply isn’t true. Nature wins in the final showdown.
Both/neither.
Neither by itself; it’s not additive, it’s multiplicative, like the area of a square. Nurture needs a nature to act upon; nature doesn’t get to express itself except in a context.
Both. Like length AND width.
I haven’t actually; I had to look it up.
I say “both”. Much, perhaps most of what makes us what we are is inborn; but that inborn nature is heavily shaped by our environment as well.
Both. The effects of one cannot be easily disentangled from the effects of the other, if at all.
Both.
Both.
I’m adopted. My parents realized when I was young that I was musically inclined, while neither of them could find a beat if it was a neon hammer knocking their heads. It could have been left at that, but they nurtured my ability by providing me outlets to grow. I started reading young. They could have said “that’s nice”, instead I had my own library card in pre-school and Mom took my there as often as I wished.
Nurture decides what you do with what nature gave you.
Now I need to watch that movie again. So funny.
I like that.
As the oldest of 5 (16 year age spread, one female in the timeline center) from a non-broken home, I can see a lot of similarities that are probably derived from the attitudes derived (learned?) from the most sympathetic parent or even older sib.
The 2 youngest, both impulsive, addictives types, like me, are both dead. The sis and remaining bro, both with advanced scientific degrees, much calmer, laid back. One a big deal in a big business, the other a stay-at-home mom with a sewing business.
Me, a gypsy, fortune-hunter that never quite hit it, government slave about to retire.
As I voted, “something else”.
While I fully acknowledge that both N & N are typically the main driving elements which form a human being’s personality, I also feel that there can be something ineffable at work as well, something which transcends both. In other words it is possible for someone to overcome both their upbringing and innate predilections (be they genetic or otherwise).
Bolding mine.
Here, IMHO, is the crux of the problem. Some folk just will not be stopped from trying, trying, trying, all the time. Some, just don’t try very hard.
Effort and some basic level of innate ability can overcome a lot. Given some level of talent/ability, not giving a damn can trash a lot.
Where opportunity, ability, and attitude/stick-to-itiveness collide is where all our nice predictive models kind of go to shit. IMHO, there’s just no predicting what will happen, especially given the effect of outside moderators and pure chance.
Both, absolutely.
But my experiences with people who were adopted at birth have been enough to convince me that nature has a greater influence on personality (barring extreme situations like abuse, neglect, etc). I think twin studies prove the same…
Jeezus, everybody knows it’s both, but now you have an internets gun to your head and you *have *to choose. Now git to choosin’!
I would have said both, with an emphasis on nature if you asked me a week ago. But the other day I listened to this episode of Radiolab (go to New Normal? Episode, the third one down the page) and its story about Baboon’s.
The story itself will tell you why I changed my mind and would now say both with a heavy emphasis on Nurture. But to try and summarize it. Baboon’s are enormously aggressive and violent animals. But there is one Baboon tribe that had such a radical shift in its social hierarchy a while back that they have re-adapted to be non violent. More importantly, this tribe has continued in this peaceful lifestyle for decades, and has incorporated new members into its tribe who have also become nonviolent.
I am doing a bad job of summarizing, but take a listen to that episode. It’s interesting. The rest of the show is interesting too, in particular the segment on foxes and how domesticating them has led to genetic changes which is why I am still saying it’s both only with a heavier emphasis on Nurture.
Yes, I do make most of my decision about the nature of humanity and the universe based on radio programs. Why do you ask?