Role Of Genetics And The Environment example essay topic

Abstract The paper covers the debate of nature versus nurture. Within the paper there is an introduction in which the hypothesis is given and a literature review that provides the reader with previous studies done with nature versus nurture. The methods, results, discussion and recommendations from the research study are also provided within the paper. Introduction and literature review The research question is: When comparing Nature verses Nurture in children which one is stronger than the other?

The hypothesis is: Nature has a stronger correlation than nurture when it comes to individual differences between males and females. There is a big controversy between whether inherited genes or the environment influences and affect our personality, development, behavior, intelligence and ability. This controversy is most often recognized as the nature verses nurture conflict. Some people believe that it is strictly genes that affect our ways of life, others believe that it is the environment that affects us, and some believe that both of these influence us. A wide variety of characteristics have been considered in such debates, including personality, sexual orientation, gender identity, political orientation, intelligence, and propensity for violence or criminality (Wright, 1998). Human nature is the range of human behaviors that is believed to be innate rather than learned.

There is much debate over which behaviors are innate and which are learned, and whether or not this division applies equally to all individuals. Although 'nurture' may have historically referred mainly to the care given to children by their parents, any environmental (not genetic) factor also would count as 'nurture' in a contemporary nature versus nurture debate, including one's childhood friends, one's early experiences with television, and one's experience in the womb (Wright, 1998). Indeed, a substantial source of environmental input to human nature may arise from external variations in prenatal development (Wright, 1998). Either way, social scientists have been struggling for centuries deciding whether our personalities are born or made. Tests are done often on identical twins that were separated to see how they are influenced.

In the past twenty years, it has been discovered that there is a genetic component to about every human trait and behavior (Pinker, 2002). However, genetic influence on traits and behavior is partial because genetics account on average for half of the variation of most traits (Pinker, 2002). Researchers are finding that the balance between genetic and environmental influences for certain traits change as people get older (Pinker, 2002). Also, people may react to others in a certain way because of a genetically influenced personality and others may choose certain experiences because they fit best with our instinctive preferences. This means that people's experiences may be influenced by genetic tendencies. One-way researchers study the development of traits and behaviors is by measuring the influence of genetics through out ones life span, and it is found to be that the genetic influence on certain trait increase as people age (Pinker, 2002).

A research study was done to see whether a trait would show up in a child if it was environmentally influenced or genetically influenced. In the study child was given more negative attention than another was, and it increased the chances of the child having depressive symptoms and anti-social behavior. But these symptoms disappeared when accounted for genetic influences and how parents treat their children (Wright, 1998). All individuals in all different societies have similar facial grammar. Everyone smiles the same, and how we use our eyes to convey cognition or flirtatiousness is the same (Wright, 2002). No success has ever been scientifically demonstrated in re-assigning an individual's handedness.

Although an individual may change their external behavior (picking up scissors with the right and instead of the left, for instance), their internal inclination never changes. Even people who lose a limb, who physically do not possess the ability to pick up scissors with their left hand, will try to do so if they are 'left handed. ' The percentage of left-hand ers in all cultures at all times remains constant (Pinker, 2002). Extensive, multi-decade research on identical twins confirms that their behavior is similar even when they are raised separately (Pinker, 2002). Newborn babies, far too young to have been culturally influenced to do so, have measurable behaviors such as being more attracted to human faces than other shapes and having a preference for their mother's voice over any other voice (Wright, 1998). These facts suggest that some individual behaviors have a genetic basis; however, they do not prove that all behaviors have a genetic basis.

There are three types of gene / environment relations. The first one is called a passive correlation. It is to be explained as, for example, if a musical ability was genetic, and a child was passed a musical ability trait, than the child would most likely have musically inclined parents. The parents then would provide them with the genes and environment to promote the development of that ability (Pinker, 2002). The second one is called evocative. This happens when genetically distinct people evoke different reactions from peers and parents and others (Pinker, 2002).

And the third association is called an active correlation. This is when people actively select experiences that fit with their genetically influenced preferences (Pinker, 2002). This doesn't mean that there are no environmental influences on behavior, because, for example, it is found to be that a loss of a parent during childhood promotes alcoholism in women (Pinker, 2002). It is shown that genetics play a big role on influences in people and society. Leadership is a big quality that everyone has and has a wide range of variations.

Heritability is what researchers call 'the degree to which behavioral variations within a population can be accounted for by genes (Wright, 1998). Heritability is what is found to make up a lot of one's personality. For a while, scientists have been trying to draw a line between heredity and leadership also. There is no single leadership personality. Even intelligence can go so far with leadership. It also involves how people make decisions, and how they give and carry out rules, how they are involved with a group, how they inspire and respect others.

The list of characteristics is endless. Although genes seem to play as a map for a person's life, researchers caution that genes act only as an influence (Pinker, 2002). Anyone who has enough will or a strong enough experience could affect the way they act or react for the rest of their life. In other words, if an environmental background is changed, the amount of variation that is due to genetics can change. In many cases the difficulty of creating situations suitable for testing environmental and genetic influence on traits has been compensated for by finding existing populations that reflect the experimental setting the researcher wishes to create (Pinker, 2002). One way to do this is to do studies with twins.

Some studies compare identical twins to fraternal twins, while others study identical twins that are reared apart (Wright, 1998). For example, many twin studies have made use of identical twins (who have the same genetic makeup) who were raised in separate environments in order to control for genetic effects: that is, any variation between twins is clearly attributable to the environment, allowing the researcher to quantify the effects of the environment by measuring variance of a trait between twins (Wright, 1998). Identical twins raised separately may have experienced quite different environments; yet many studies have often been found that they live similar lives, have similar personalities and similar levels of intelligence (Wright, 1998). On the other hand, even identical twins who are raised together often differ in significant ways. Twin studies are rendered on sets of twins; these include both identical twins and fraternal twins. They are conducted to determine the comparative influence of heritability and environment (Morris and Maisto, 1999)".

These studies determine the heritability of a trait: to what extent the differences among individuals are due to genes, rather than to environmental factors such as upbringing, nutrition, and schooling" (Wright, 1998). "Recent twin research showed that the genetic contribution to happiness and stability are about 50% and 80%, respectively, while life events have only a transitory effect on happiness" (Segal, 1999). Adoption studies are somewhat similar to twin studies because they are conducted for related reasons. These studies consist of monitoring and testing children who are adopted. For them, researchers study the IQs in children, their birth parents, and their adoptive parents.

These studies also partially support the nurture side of the debate. Some of these studies have shown that heritability is about 48% influential in most humans (Hamer and Copeland, 1998). Some researchers have rightly pointed out that environmental inputs affect the expression of genes. This is one explanation of how environment can influence the extent to which a genetic disposition will actually manifest. Even using experiments like those described above, it can be very difficult to determine convincingly the relative contribution of genes and environment. Twin studies have highlighted another complication to the nature versus nurture debate.

The effects of nurture can be further divided into shared and non-shared (Pinker, 2002). Shared environmental factors are those experienced by siblings raised together. Non-shared environmental factors are not shared by siblings (i.e. unique experiences). In many cases non-shared environmental effects have been found to out-weigh shared environmental effects (Pinker, 2002). That is, environmental effects that are typically thought to be life-shaping (such as family life) have less of an impact than non-shared effects, which are harder to identify. One possible source of non-shared effects is the environment of pre-natal development.

Random variations in the genetic program of development may be a substantial source of non-shared environment (Pinker, 2002). In certain cases, both heredity and environment could possibly play a roughly equal role in humans. The mental disorder schizophrenia is one of these circumstances. Schizophrenia has been proven to be very hereditary; furthermore, it is most common among people living in the poor rundown areas (Kagan and Havermann, 1980). Hence, humans with schizophrenia may have this brain disorder for a number of reasons related to both heredity and environment.

.".. Because of our genes, we have our limitations... ". (Tudge, 2000). This is also an important fact to explore connected with human mentality. "Heredity sets limitations and tendencies while environment takes over to encourage or discourage the development and operation of our inborn traits" (Kagan and Havermann, 1980).

Moreover, this debate is by no means completely resolved (Dempsey and Zimbardo, 1978). Methods The research study consisted of 11 participants. Out of the 11 participants 9 participants were females and 2 participants were males. There were 10 married participants and 1 divorced participant. There were 11 parents and two of the parents were also stepparents. Out of the 11 participants 2 were grandparents.

The total number of children for all 11 participants was 27. The number of male children was 16 and the number of female children was 11. With the two participants that were grandparents they have 1 male and 2 females. The instrument used was a questionnaire that consisted of sixteen questions. Some of the questions were yes or no questions and some of the questions were short answer questions. The short answer questions covered many different areas that dealt with the nature versus nurture controversy.

The questions dealt with such topics as gender based toys, displaying gender roles, gender based clothing, the child or children's favorite color or colors, group size for playing time and how the parent or parents react when the child or children is hurt either physically or emotionally. There were many varied responses to the questions. Most of the answers that were provided do support the hypothesis, which states that nature has a stronger correlation than nurture when it comes to individual differences between males and females. The researcher asked on an individual basis the participants in the research study who were co-workers and two students from the University of Arizona South. I gathered the data from each participant a couple days after handing out the questionnaires. This allowed the participants to have no pressure placed on them to have it done in a certain time frame.

Also, allowing the participants to have a considerable amount of time it gave the participants to give complete and well thought out answers to the questions that were in the survey. I developed the questionnaire based on questions that broaden the topic of genetics playing a vital role in human nature. I explained the study to the participants by stating to each individual that this was a research study being done for a particular class at the University of Arizona South and that the answers the participants would provide would be confidential and anonymous. Confidentiality was maintained by mixing up the questionnaires that way the questionnaires would not be in the order of how the questionnaires were returned to the researcher.

The questionnaires did not contain any names, which allowed for the participants to be anonymous. The data was analyzed by comparing the participants' answers to each other to see how the answers would correlate with the original hypothesis. Results and Discussion By analyzing the responses from all eleven participants the results showed that male and female children are influenced by genetics, also know as nature. The results showed that the participants' child or children in the study are influenced by genetics and the environment does play a minor role in the development of children. The findings from the research study help strengthen the literature review of previous studies that have been done on the issue of nature versus nurture. Two things the researcher would have liked to do differently is one to have more participants involved in the research study.

Secondly, the researcher would have liked to have questions that covered topics that deal with each participant's childhood and how they were raised within their family of origin. Recommendations Further research topics that would help explain the nature verses nurture issue is research studies done on childhood experiences and research studies done with families who were raised in a gender-neutral environment. In conclusion, it is safe to say that the role of genetics and the environment equalize people's traits and behavior. You cannot blame either one because without one, the other would not be activated. Genes affect a lot of your personality and behavior but the environment mutates and molds the way people are going to act.

This will always be an ongoing controversy because it is nearly impossible to pin point accurately where the role of genes and the environment steps in.

Bibliography

Dempsey, D. and Zimbardo P.G. 1978.
Psychology & You. United States of American: Scott, Foresman and Company. Hamer, D. and Copeland, P. 1998.
Living With Our Genes: Why They Matter More Than You Think. New York: Doubleday. Kagan, J. and Havermann, E. 1980.
Psychology: An Introduction. 4th ed. New York: Harcourt Brace Javanovich, Inc. Morris, C.G. and Maisto, A.A. 1999.
10th ed. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, Inc. Pinker, S. 2002.
The Blank Slate. New York: Viking Penguin. Segal, N L., Ph. D. "New Twin Studies Show... ". Psychology Today Oct. 1999: 54- 59 and 69-70.
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A plaque on both their houses". New Statesman 27 September 1999.
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