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Oppolzer

Nature vs. Nurture, the age-old debate and one of the oldest mysteries in neuroscience and psychology. Do your genetics determine behavior/personality or does the environment?

"Nature" refers to the hereditary factors and genes that are innate from birth. These genetic codes determine our physical appearance, as well as our personality attributes. "Nurture" refers to a variety of factors, integrating the environment, experiences, and upbringings that establish behavior. Development is critical in childhood, and they relate to events experienced that are contributing factors to personality.

Do you think "nature" or "nurture" determines personality/behavior?

K_Michael

I believe that nurture has more to do with your behavior than nature, though both influence it. In a study where more agressive dogs were bred together, and calmer ones together, the behavior became more aggressive and more calm. Whether this is directly from genetics or as a response to being surrounded by a specific behavior, is in my opinion inconclusive. 

MayCaesar

Imagine a ship that sets sail from one port to another, carrying a load of wine. When it arrives to that port, some of the wine has been spoiled, while the rest of it can be sold.

What determines how much wine ends up being sold: the construction of the ship, or the weather conditions on the route of that ship? Obviously both play an important role. The construction of the ship determines the impact a given weather condition has on the wine, and the weather determines the impact on the wine with a given construction of the ship.

It is the same here. Nature determines how your organism reacts to and how it is conditioned by the environment. Nurture determines how the traits native to the individual evolve over time.

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For illustration, take two idealized children: one has a natural affinity to overcoming obstacles, while another prefers to avoid challenges. Let us call them A and B.

When A is raised in poverty, he has a goal to get out of poverty, and he enjoys the challenge in that. He works hard towards that goal, and eventually becomes very rich and successful.
When B is raised in poverty, he tries to escape the grim reality, early on finds escape in cigarettes and alcohol, closes in himself and loses any hope for getting out of poverty. His life is miserable.

On the other hand...

When A is raised in wealth, he is deprived of his challenges - so he creates artificial challenges for himself, bored out of his mind. He tries things like extreme mountain climbing or diving, and dies in one of the more daring attempts.
When B is raised in wealth, he is perfectly happy with his situation; he learns to preserve his wealth by investing it into safe ventures. He lives a happy and care-free life; he is totally in his element.

These are not the necessary outcomes, but they demonstrate how both nature and nurture can make or break a person. As such, I believe that the whole package should be considered, and not one of these two aspects chosen/preferred.

whiteflame

I don't know how we can determine what constitutes more of our personality or behavior, or for that matter the entirety of ourselves. Determining what constitutes a majority of ourselves in any respect is difficult, and understanding what contributes to each characteristic even more so. If we're talking about physical traits for which we are aware of specific genes and their effects, we can make some informed guesses, but doing so for personality or behavior seems impossible given the dearths in our knowledge regarding the functions of the vast majority of genes and epigenetic markers (which are also heritable). Only if we have a clear idea of what nature provides are we able to make claims about what nurture accomplishes, so the whole exercise of separating one effect from the other seems fraught with issues.

AmericanFurryBoy

If think its a mix of both genes and the environment.

AmericanFurryBoy

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