Nature-Nurture Debate

Introduction

The development of a child begins with learned attributes, such as language, expressions, etc., and biological attributes such as height, skin color, and hair color. The debate begins with the idea that if you were to take the offspring from a family and place that offspring into a family with very different lifestyle or attributes from the original family, which features would the offspring develop while growing up. It asks the question, does a child develop psychological attributes from their genetics or how they were raised. This debate has gone on since 350 A.D. and has never been settled due to the facts that support both sides of the argument.

Nurture

The idea behind the nurture side of the debate is that children develop psychologically by the parent with which the offspring is nurtured by. For instance, there is a story of a boy in Uganda that was raised by monkey's from ages 3-6. He was cared for and nurtured by the monkeys in the near by jungle. He was found by a tribeswoman while he was scavenging in the trash with other monkeys, looking for food. He was accustomed to walking on his knee's, eating raw meat, and communicate with the monkeys. John's story explains how psychologically, it is possible to learn different than normal human characteristics in the ways of life. Furthermore, animals adopted offspring from other species all the time. The stories range from a peacock a goose to a chicken raising puppies.

Nature

Now the nature side of the debate believes that children develop psychologically from their genetics and biological attributes. Simply put, we develop based on the genes we inherit and the early these actions show, the more connected to genetics it is. For instance, the connection between a newborn and its mother is connected to evolution and that we are biological inclined to make that connection with our mother. This is also the idea behind how intelligence is passed down from generation to generation due to natural superiority.

Conclusion

I am no expert on the situation but I feel confident saying that it is easy to say both nature and nurture play a role in psychological development. However, they play crucial roles in different aspects of psychological development. I believe that the nature side develops more of the intelligence at an early stage and how we grow physically plays a role in our psychological development, while the nurture side assists in temperament and behavior. Although both sides have strong supporting facts, I think it has to be to the extreme of one side taking all the credit, both work together in harmony.

Works Cited

Ferguson, Euan. “He Was a Wild Child. Really Wild.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 9                    

                Oct. 1999, www.theguardian.com/world/1999/oct/10/euanferguson.theobserver.

McLeod, Saul. “Saul McLeod.” Nature Nurture in Psychology, Creative Commons , 1 Jan. 1970,                       

                www.simplypsychology.org/naturevsnurture.html.

PaytonJaneSesh. “Nature vs. Nurture: The Debate on Psychological Development.” YouTube,                 

               YouTube, 11 June 2011, www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPZsrLAkpKM.