My Environment Research Paper

Why are we the way we are? Are we born with a set destiny and personality or can our environments shape us? In some classes, hearing the nature vs. nurture argument was quite common and I never gave it much thought until a close friend of mine showed me how much someone’s environment can change them for better and for worse, and unfortunately his environment has changed him for worse. No one is born into gang violence, they’re brought in, and saying I was concerned would be a major understatement, so I decided to try and intervene, and to some avail he is now trying to get out. With some positive nurture, someone can change drastically from letting greed rule their life to becoming a model citizen. To me, nothing is as captivating as the …show more content…
For example, a good friend of mine went down a dark path after moving to North Tulsa which happens to be notorious for gang violence, garbage in garbage out I suppose. He put himself and others in danger, and I didn’t understand at the time that his environment was to blame. His home life was heartbreaking. Instead of getting loving parents in a safe neighborhood, he got a drug addict for a mother and an absentee father in a dangerous environment. I was terrified by the change in him, especially since I couldn’t understand it. Abuse can also play a huge role in how you turn out, I can’t help but wonder how different he and I would be if he grew up in a loving home and if I didn’t have my first stepmother around. So after hearing about the nature v. nurture debate, I decided to try to intervene in his life and set him on the right path, I figured that maybe with a positive source of encouragement and support, he would change his life for the better. He didn’t have anyone else, and everyone deserves love and support from someone because we can’t realize our full potential …show more content…
Unfortunately, my second cousin, Jeff, suffers from a plethora of mental disorders making him violent towards others, but I understood why Jeff was the way he was, he couldn’t help it. Everything he did was excused in the fact that he was mentally ill. I can’t help but wonder why though. Is it nature? Or how he was nurtured? Unlike Jeff, however I had difficulty understanding why my friend did what he did because unlike Jeff, my friend consciously made his decisions and I would question them because I was concerned for his well being. Seeing him go on this downward spiral made me rethink everything, I couldn’t imagine anyone wanted to live the life that he did, there had to be a reason. There’s always room to learn and grow, and to learn more I would turn to my psychology teacher to learn more about the effects that nature and nurture have on us because he has opened my eyes tremendously and opened new doors for me and I want to use what I learn to continually better myself. Whenever something happens i can't help but question why it did. I could analyze but never truly figure it out because we don't always know why we do the things we do and I find that fascinating. I can spend hours contemplating the nature v. nurture debate due to the actions of close friends and family, how