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Duraan Hinika
Psych 24
Professor Bhadha
10/9/14

Does nature or nurture play a greater role in development?
One of the most debated and argued subjects in psychology is the nature versus nurture debate.
Nature is the idea that we are most influenced by our genetic influences, and our inherited genes.
While on the other hand nurture refers to all the environmental influences that we receive.
Author Robert H. Wozniak says “The route through childhood is shaped by many forces, and it differs for each of us. Our biological inheritance, the temperament with which we are born, the care we receive, our family relationships, the place where we grow up, the schools we attend, the culture in which we participate, and the historical period in we live­­all these affect the paths we take through childhood and condition the remainder of our lives.” These factors tie in to the nature aspect. Nature and nurture both play a significant role in our lives. Some may believe that nurture plays a greater role in our development, but I believe that nature plays a slightly more important factor than nurture in our development.
Family psychiatrist, Stanley Turecki writes “Nature, we are starting to realize, is every bit as important as nurture. Genetic influences, brain chemistry, and neurological development contribute strongly to who we are as children and what we become as adults. A couple examples that could be relevant to back up what is said in this quote are examples of leadership qualities and risk taking. When we first enter this world, we do not automatically learn factors in life from

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our environmental influences. Our environmental influences are not always the best thing for us to lean on, because the environment that we live in is chaotic, and trying to learn from our environmental influences will not better us as a person. That is when the nature aspect of things comes into play.
As said above, nature is the idea that we are most influenced by our genetic influences, and our inherited genes. Some of the most important factors of our genetic influences are the relationships we have with family members and the care that we receive. I firmly believe that nature is more important than nurture because the majority of the time your family will look out for your best interest, and will teach you what you need to know to be successful in this life, and family fits into the idea of nature. On the other hand nurture, our environment, does not really care about each individual's best interest, it just provides the tools to be successful but does not give us a direction in which to take. Another reason that I believe that genetic influences overpower our environmental influences is because our genetic influences usually provide love, support, security, identity, and values to an individual. As individuals we gain all genetic influences from family members. Our family teaches us about what is right wrong wrong, not only in the family aspect of things but also in life. Our families also give us a sense of consistency and security. An oregon based psychologist and teacher, Jennifer Little says “Family life is where the child spends most of his or her learning time.” Another factor that families usually provide in a persons life is coping skills. Our families, more specifically our parents show us how to handle different situations in life by them reacting to different situations themselves. An example of this is what Will Smith said in an interview conducted by Oprah
Winfrey back in 2013, Oprah Winfrey interviewed Will Smith and his family in 2013 and Smith

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says “How you interact with people, how you talk, how you deal with stress, those things are where the lessons come from.” In general family members provide countless learning experiences in our life that would better us as a person. If we were to mess up in our family environment most of the time family members