Nature vs. Nurture: Personality Our individual personality is made up of our various ways of behaving, thinking and feeling. These characteristics combine to give an individual a distinctive character. For years, psychologists all over the world have argued as to whether an individual’s personality is innate or learned. This argument directly correlates the argument of nature vs. nurture where nature represents the genetically inherited traits that affect our personality and nurture represents the acquired characteristics an individual obtains through interactions with the environment. Even though neither nature nor nurture can fully explain the acquisition of an individual’s personality, scientists are trying to figure out the effect of each side on various personality traits.
Nature
Many psychologists believe in the nature perspective of this argument, or that personality is something we are born with. Genetic predispositions are responsible for lots of the physical characteristics we have so why can’t it affect personality as well? The genetic information, in the form of DNA, we receive from our parents determines characteristics such as the way we look, life expectancy and our tendency to have certain conditions or …show more content…
Since our genes are so largely dependent on our parents, the personalities of our parents are often passed down to us. All of an individual’s genes and traits can be traced back to their parents in some way as proved in the Minnesota twin case studies. This conclusion shows that our parents have a much larger effect on our individual personalities than we originally thought. Even though everyone has a distinctive personality, several aspects of it can be predetermined by DNA which supports the nature perspective of this argument because it proves that our attitude, likes/dislikes and thinking are chiefly
Nature
Many psychologists believe in the nature perspective of this argument, or that personality is something we are born with. Genetic predispositions are responsible for lots of the physical characteristics we have so why can’t it affect personality as well? The genetic information, in the form of DNA, we receive from our parents determines characteristics such as the way we look, life expectancy and our tendency to have certain conditions or …show more content…
Since our genes are so largely dependent on our parents, the personalities of our parents are often passed down to us. All of an individual’s genes and traits can be traced back to their parents in some way as proved in the Minnesota twin case studies. This conclusion shows that our parents have a much larger effect on our individual personalities than we originally thought. Even though everyone has a distinctive personality, several aspects of it can be predetermined by DNA which supports the nature perspective of this argument because it proves that our attitude, likes/dislikes and thinking are chiefly