THE

NATURE VERSUS

NURTUREDEBATE

• What is Personality?

• Do you think you have a unique personality?

• On a piece of paper write down your likes, dislikes and personality characteristics?

• How do you think your personality affect the choices that you make, the way you live your life, how you are as a

person individually and in a group?

• What do you think determines (“makes you to have or display”) these likes, dislikes and personality traits?

Is it your environment genes/dnaor

It seems as if it is easy to prove that our physical traits – how we look, what our facial features are like, what our body type is like, is the result of natural inheritance or our genetic code.

People may say: “You look just like your Father! Or “You look just like your grandmother!” or “I can see that the two of you are cousins!” See the

resemblancebetween my Dad

and I

Genes /Natural

inheritance

1960 – My Grandmother’s sister -Grace!

Creepier still…..

So it seems that our physical traits can be the result of NATURE right?

•However even physical traits may be the result of Environment – for example – How tall you are may have more to do with your environment than it might have to do with your genetic code!

•Certain environmental factors can have an influence on a person’s height. Even if your grandfather was super tall, and your dad was tall – if during the developmental stages in your childhood, you did not get the right types of food, vitamins and minerals – you may not grow to be as tall as your grandad and dad were.

• So perhaps it is not so easy to say that our physical traits are completely the result of genes or nature.

•And so when it comes to personality – we might have the same problem.

•How many of you would say that you have a fiery temper, or that you get angry very easily?•Would you say that one of your parents has the same kind of temper as you?•So it is fair to say that personality may also be a result of genetic inheritance, nature or DNA?

•How many of you would say that the reason that you think you have such a fiery temper is because people, have in the past, and even still take advantage of you and you react so angrily because you are mad that people do that?•How many of you would say that the reason you raise your voice and yell at someone when you are angry is because that is the way that you are used to. It happens like that at home?•So is it fair to say that personality may be the result of NURTURE or environmental factors?

•The Nature versus Nurture Debate has been going on for centuries.

•Most of the studies done on the Nature versus Nurture debate have been conducted on the study of twin behaviour.

•Biologically there are two types of twins – Identical Twins and Fraternal Twins

Two very important studies were done using twins to determine whether certain personality traits were the result of their genes or the result of their environment.

One was called: Happy Families: a twin study of humour (and it was conducted in London)

And the other was called: Sources of Human Psychological Differences: The Minnesota Study of Twins reared apart

http://twinsuk.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Cherkas.TwinResearch.pdf

http://web.missouri.edu/~segerti/1000H/Bouchard.pdf

Both studies came to these conclusions :

-the Minnesota study seems to argue that NATURE or genetics do influence personality

- The London Study seems to argue that there is a case that NURTURE influences personality.

TASK: Listen/read along to the summary of the

Bouchard-twin study in Minnesota

Jim (real name James)Lewis

Jim (real name James)Springer

“Thomas Bouchard of the University of Minnesota did the most famous research on genetic influences in humans. He studied identical twins separated since birth. Identical twins come from a single egg, fertilized by a single sperm, which splits after the egg starts to develop. Therefore identical twins are closer to being genetically identical than any other humans. By studying identical twins who were separated at birth and raised by different families, Bouchard could see which similarities might emerge despite a different family environment. These similarities might be those that are heavily influenced by a person's genetic heritage.Bouchard's data set was unique, probably a one-time event in history, because modern adoption agencies no longer break up sets of identical twins. Bouchard's project started when he read news reports of two identical twins reunited after a lifetime apart: James Lewis and James Springer were separated weeks after birth. When they were reunited, an extraordinary collection of coincidences emerged.”http://www.intropsych.com/ch11_personality/bouchards_twin_research.html

"When the two first met, Lewis described it as "like looking into a mirror." For starters, both had the same first name. They were physically identical. But when they got talking, the similarities were astounding. Both had childhood dogs named Toy. Both had been nail biters and fretful sleepers. Both had migraines. Both had married first wives names Linda, second wives named Betty. Lewis named his first son James Allen, Springer named his James Alan. For years, they both had taken holidays on the same Florida beach. They both drank Miller Lite, smoked Salem cigarettes, loved stock car racing, disliked baseball, left regular love notes to their wives, made doll furniture in their basements, and had added circular white benches around the trees in their backyards. Their IQs, habits, facial expressions, brain waves, heartbeats, and handwriting were nearly identical. The Jim twins lived apart but died on the same day, from the same illness."

http://blog.lib.umn.edu/reife014/myblog2/2012/04/twin-studies.html

Oskar Stohr and Jack YufeIn one case, identical twin babies (Oskar and Jack) were raised in extremely different cultures. The two were born in Trinidad and separated shortly after birth. After that, their childhoods were very different.

The mother took Oskar back to Germany, where his grandmother raised him as a Catholic and a Nazi youth. Jack was raised in the Caribbean as a Jew, by his father, and spent part of his youth on an Israeli kibbutz.But similarities started cropping up as soon as Oskar arrived at the airport. Both were wearing wire-rimmed glasses and mustaches, both sported two-pocket shirts with epaulets. They share idiosyncrasies galore: they like spicy foods and sweet liqueurs, are absentminded, have a habit of falling asleep in front of the television, think it's funny to sneeze in a crowd of strangers, flush the toilet before using it, store rubber bands on their wrists, read magazines from back to front, dip buttered toast in their coffee... Bouchard professed himself struck by the similarities in their mannerisms, the questions they asked, their "temperament, tempo, the way they do things." (Holden, 1980)

http://www.intropsych.com/ch11_personality/bouchards_twin_research.html

Bouchard did not find outstanding similarities between identical twins on such standard measures as IQ tests or standardized personality tests, but he did find striking similarities were mannerisms (such as wearing rubber bands on the wrists, or reading magazines backwards), personal choices (such as choice of names for pets or children, or choice of clothing styles), and expressive social behavior (shyness or social ease, laughter, facial expressions and posture). These are exactly the sorts of things many of us refer to as personality, so in that sense Bouchard's findings can be interpreted as strong support for genetic influences on personality.

http://www.intropsych.com/ch11_personality/bouchards_twin_research.html

However there have been other twin studies that seem to point in an opposite direction – that of twins who are raised together in the same environment but yet develop very different and unique personalities. Even within the case of Oskar Stohr and Jack Yufe – they developed different worldviews and ideas about what it right and wrong, ethical or not ethical. Consider this excerpt:

Let’s look more closely at the case of Oskar and Jack. Do they have any differences?Well, for one, they had opposing political views–Jack is politically liberal, Oskar is conservative. These contrasting values certainly played a role in their relative ambivalence towards each other when they first met.Our political views and values do appear to be strongly affected by our upbringing, as do our attitudes and religious beliefs. These are aspects of a child that a family environment can often influence. Although the effects of a shared environment are relatively small, we cannot say that genetics are the only factor contributing to our behavior.Even so, the specific aspects of our environments that shape us are still not clear; the research is continuing to evolve. We often like to think that our experiences are what define us. We feel influenced by our surroundings, and we feel that we can influence the things around us through our personality and behavior.http://alfre.dk/identical-identical-twins/

Also consider this case:

“An interesting case to consider is that of Brian Dugan, a man who admitted to abducting, raping, and killing a 10-year-old girl in 1983. His defense lawyers used brain scans and the testimony of prominent neuroscientists to argue that Dugan's brain had been hardwired to commit violent acts, that it was in his nature to kill and he was unable to control his behavior.

This argument falls in sharp contrast to the idea on which laws are based, that all people have free will and can choose whether or not to follow the law. The environment may influence the ease of that choice--a starving man might have little regard for laws against theft if it means he can eat--but ultimately the individual has the ability to choose. To say that nature has the most influence in determining personality, then, provides a scapegoat for a person when he does something considered unlawful or morally unacceptable: I couldn't help it, it's in my nature. Like an animal, such an individual would exist outside the realm of right or wrong, innocent or guilty, because he would be acting purely on instinct. How could that person justifiably be punished? The converse, saying nurture has the most influence in determining personality, similarly frees a person from accountability for his actions by placing blame on those who raised him.”http://www.brighthub.com/science/genetics/articles/75468.aspx

YOUR TURN•What is your opinion? Remember that this course is all about developing your skills to argue and express your thoughts in

an expert manner! Think about the following discussion points on the next slide and make a

note of what you think and how you can “back up” your idea when you try to convince someone else

of your thoughts on the subject.

•Do you think personality traits are the result of NATURE or are they the result of NURTURE?

•Why do you think the NATURE versus NURTURE argument is debated in the first place, in other words – why is it important to figure whether nature or nurture is more dominant in determining a person’s personality? Do you think it is possible to answer this question definitively? Or is it possible to have a clear indication of whether nature or nurture determines a person’s personality? Why?

•Do you think it is possible to change your personality? Why or why not? And if so how would you go about making those changes?

•If you are not a twin, would you rather be an identical or a fraternal twin? Why? What do you think would be some of the challenges of being a twin? If you are a twin, write a couple of sentences about the experience. Is it fun? Difficult? If you have other siblings,is your relationship with your twin different from the relationship with your other siblings? If so, what makes it different?

austinahiv.blogpsot.com

These slides as well as complete versions of the Minnesota Twins study, the Happy Families Study and few other very interesting articles on the topic can always be found here.

Leave a comment on your thoughts if you can – it will be very interesting to read what everybody is thinking.