Tuesday 20 January 2009

Nature vs Nurture

In fact, there are two theories of what determines the human behaviour: "nature" theory and 'nurture' theory. The first one states that human behaviour is determined by the genetic predispositions while the second one says that people behave in a certain way because of their environment and the way they were brought up.

My opinion is that at the beginning of our lives when we have little experience of social interactions and every social event is kind of 'new' to us ( e.g. making a best friend for the first time or going to school for the first time) we tend to behave in a way our genom 'tells' us to do. Of course, some of our actions are controlled by parents and social norms which we are taught from the earliest childhood. Then, after gaining some experience from our socialising, our 'genom' model of behaviour overlaps with the 'gained' model. After gaining some social models of behaviour we just use them depending on what the situation is.
As for qualities such as sense of humour, kindness, loyalty i think they are mostly determined by the genom but however can be modified by our environment ( but NOT a lot). This point is argueable: many men, many minds. That is just a thought that comes from my life experience: i mostly have the same qualities as my father does. And with my social behaviour changing from time to time, i find my qualities remaining the same throughout my life.

So, that's it. I am still a bit confused with this question.