The phrase “nature versus nurture” was invented by Francis Galton. The Nature versus Nurture debate has been one of the oldest arguments in the psychology world. It is one of psychology’s biggest questions that despite the hundreds of years that this controversy has seen, a solid and proven answer has still remains a mysterious. This debate is about the scientific, cultural, and philosophical debate about whether human culture, behaviour, and personality are caused primarily by nature or nurture. As of the present, we know that both nature and nurture play very important roles in human development, but we have not known yet whether we are developed majorly because of nature or due to nurture. Many experiments, studies, and discussions
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Some psychologist such as Albert Bandura, B.F Skinner and John Watson theory and experiments have supported the nurture side of the debate. In Bandura’s famous Bobo doll experiment (Bandura, 1961) it is seen that social learning theory states that aggression is a learnt from the environment through observation and imitation. Skinner (1957) also believed that language is learnt from other people via behaviour shaping techniques. John Watson (1924) attempted to challenge nature beliefs by asserting that if given a dozen of healthy infants and his own world to nurture them, he would be able to take each infant and train them to be any type of specialist he might select-doctor, lawyer or even a thief. Our environment, or our experiences in an environment, are said to develop us. Those that take the nature said of the debate believe that the environment that humans are in, or were raised in, moulds them into who they are. If a father has aggressiveness in his genes he may pass aggressive tendencies on to his children. However, if his child is raised in a healthy, positive environment where the aggressive genes are not provoked, the child may not manifest the inherited aggression. On the contrary, if a mother passes on her very peaceable traits and genes on to her child, and the child is raised in a hostile environment, s/he may be provoked to display
Some psychologist such as Albert Bandura, B.F Skinner and John Watson theory and experiments have supported the nurture side of the debate. In Bandura’s famous Bobo doll experiment (Bandura, 1961) it is seen that social learning theory states that aggression is a learnt from the environment through observation and imitation. Skinner (1957) also believed that language is learnt from other people via behaviour shaping techniques. John Watson (1924) attempted to challenge nature beliefs by asserting that if given a dozen of healthy infants and his own world to nurture them, he would be able to take each infant and train them to be any type of specialist he might select-doctor, lawyer or even a thief. Our environment, or our experiences in an environment, are said to develop us. Those that take the nature said of the debate believe that the environment that humans are in, or were raised in, moulds them into who they are. If a father has aggressiveness in his genes he may pass aggressive tendencies on to his children. However, if his child is raised in a healthy, positive environment where the aggressive genes are not provoked, the child may not manifest the inherited aggression. On the contrary, if a mother passes on her very peaceable traits and genes on to her child, and the child is raised in a hostile environment, s/he may be provoked to display