The Influence of Genetic Inheritance - Term Paper Example

and Currently, there is a hot debate on the issue of nature versus nurture. Both nature and nurture explain the reason for human character traits and personality. Nature depicts character traits as behaviours learned through genetic inheritance. On the other hand, nurture portrays human character according to influence from the environment; different people have different thoughts concerning the origin of human behaviour. Some say the behaviour, they have, is inborn others say behaviour is due to the effects of the environment. Extensive analyses are yet to identify the discipline explaining the reason for human behaviour. Some philosophers during the ancient times believed that the neonate possessed some inborn character traits. The philosophers noted that people recollect the knowledge, which remain dormant in the brain. However, some philosophers contradicted the old philosophers saying that the brain of a born child was like a blank slate. They believed that the human experience moulds their behaviour. Apparently, more philosophers stack to nature as the determinant for human behaviours. Even so, some philosophers stood concrete on their decision that the environmental influence influenced human traits. Nevertheless, conclusions have that interaction between nature and nurture typically explains human character traits. Psychology founding fathers for instance, John B Watson, Albert Bandura and BF skinner. Both psychologist discussed the psychology behind behaviour of people. Each father had different though. However, they relied on a similar platform which is behaviour develops either through nurture or nature. John B major theory of behaviour was behaviourism theory. Through the theory Watson explained that it is possible to mould behaviour of a child as a person pleases. Explains that when a child is born, he/she does not know anything. Therefore, a person can teach them any skill that the want. According to one of Watson’s famous quotes, he said that he can mould a child to a lawyer, doctor or anything he pleases. Bandura’s theory was social learning theory. He explained that a person can learn a behaviour through observing, he called it observational learning. He added that human beings think of consequences of a behaviour before developing it. Therefore, according to Bandura man is conscious of the behaviour he develops or he learns. Unlike bandura, Skinner believed that man did not consider the impact of behaviour they learn. Skinners explained his behaviour perspective using operant conditioning. He explained the theory using a caged mouse. How studied the mouse behaviour by giving it food after turning on the speaker. Therefore, whenever the mouse heard the speaker it knew it was time to eat. The same case applies to human being behaviour development. When a certain event evokes results to a certain behaviour continuously. Man will develop the behaviour every time they hear or see the phenomenon. Both nature and nurture influence how a child behaves today. A child will develop a certain behaviour according to how their parents raised them. If the parents raised them harshly, the child would tend to develop deviant behaviour. On the other hand, whatever a child learns on the environment will also influence their behaviours. It is clear that learn easily. Moreover, they study more effortlessly when they see. If the children see people engaging in certain behaviours, they will tend to develop those behaviours. For instance, the increase in drug abuse among the adolescent in America has increased. Statistics has that adolescents have involved themselves in substance abuse beyond the normal expectations. Many people may blame how the parents raised the children. Unfortunately, they lack to understand that the children learnt their behaviour either from their parents, relatives, peers or just by seeing in the television. The child will psychologically grow knowing that consuming drug is legal and accepted by the society. Therefore, parents should take of what their children are exposed to since it affects their psychological behaviours. Through nurture, a child a child might develop psychological behaviours according to the behaviours they see their parents. For instance, if a parent beats the child mother in front of the child the child will either grow knowing that battering women is accepted, or they will develop certain negative attitude towards the male child. Fortunately, some behaviours suit either nature or nature. However, approaches such as evolutionary behaviour in respect to the nature. Some philosophers for instance Bowlby argues that it is impulsive for a parent to form an attachment with an inborn without physically seeing each other. The inborn displays attachment behaviours, which ensures their survival. The bond between the parent and the child deepens as the child mature (Pressley, & Mccormick, 2006). Therefore, the genes will be common in the future lineage of the mother and the child. Some behaviourist contradicts with the allegations arguing that children learn how to form the attachment through a process known as classical conditioning. They add that children learn attachment through provision of love, play and food. Therefore, learning the attachment reinforces and rewards behaviour. As the children grow, they learn more attachments such as large friendship group. In the formed attachments, the children develop other behaviours (Freberg, 2010). Moreover, through nature, children can physically develop similar behaviours like their parents. It is also evident that members of similar families have similar genes. The conclusions are true since there are many people born as twins. The twins usually look alike. However, they resemble one of their parents. Psychologist argues that children develop physical development of the father if they look like the father the vice versa is also true. Therefore, when twins look like the father they will develop similar behaviours like the father. Chances are that stress is a typically, how human beings respond to the environmental pressures. Animals are not born with the responding behaviour therefore; they die when subjected to environmental pressures. However, some environmental pressures are encouraging for instance exam stress. Therefore, individual express and display behaviour according to what they experience in the environment. Nurture can explain the behaviour of aggression. According to Cooley (2006), through vicarious reinforcement individual model and imitate the behaviour. Additionally, if the model is similar to the individuals age and personality the individual will strictly imitate the behaviours. Contrary Collins (2009) believes that people with aggressive behaviours acquire the behaviour before they were born. Furthermore, they would not have possessed the aggressive behaviour if they did not have the genes. Unfortunately, it is wrong to assume that either nature or nurture alone cause behaviour. Psychologists support that interaction of the two by gene-environment also results to behaviour traits (Cardwell, & Flanagan, 2003). The passive, active and evocative relationships depict certain ways in which a child may be musical. The passive relation is a relationship whereby a parent transmits musical genes to her child. Therefore, the relations leads to the construction of a musical environment for rearing the children. The evocative relationship is whereby, a child has a singing talent but receives training from teachers, therefore, and the child is subject to encouraging and rewarding behaviour (Cardwell, & Flanagan, 2003). The active relationship is whereby the children identify with their genes then left to choose for themselves. In a diathesis-stress model, a genetic proneness interacts with the environmental pressure to evoke psychological disorders or behaviour. The more the underlying genetic proneness, the less stress required to evoke behaviour and vice versa. Additionally, an individual with a greater vulnerability towards behaviour does not mean they will develop a psychological disorder (Nevid, 2009). Therefore, a psychological disorder can run tin a family that is, the whole family may have the disorder knowingly or unknowingly. The disorder might affect both the psychological and physical development of the child. It will affect the psychology because the child will not think in the normal pattern (Elder et al., 2009). For instance, if the family has bipolar disorder a child will have many thoughts such that they engage in self-behaviours such as overthinking which is not recommended for children or anyone. Overthinking may lead to stress and depression; moreover, a person may also develop thoughts of suicide. People should not blame such people they should change them instead of condemning their behaviours because they developed from their parents, and it runs in the family. They also might develop physical developments such as isolation (Freberg, 2010). The people might isolate themselves from others not because they do not like engaging in other people activity but because they develop the behaviours from their family. It is, therefore, imperative not to judge such people. Eating disorder commonly known as anorexia nervosa is a behaviour, which helps in distinguishing between nature and nurture. Anorexia nervosa is a situation where an individual is unable to eat leading to weight loss, which is inappropriate considering height and age. Affected people often exercise or diet too much due because they fear gaining weight even if they are underweight. Some psychologist argues that genetic is responsible for causing anorexia since there is a high possibility of having anorexia if an individual is a first degree related to people having eating disorder. In relevance to Cardwell, & Flanagan, (2003), people are having; first-degree relationships with anorexic women are ten times more likely to develop the disorder. Abraham (2004) concludes that its nature for one to have anorexia nervosa. Moreover, eating disorder was more in women compared to men. However, people related to a man having anorexia have a high risk of developing the disorder. Moreover, the MZ twins genetically have a high concordance rate than the DZ twins. Nevertheless, there is a drawback concerning the twins since twins sharing the same environment may have developed the behaviour due to environmental factors (Elder et al, 2009). Another drawback is that almost all first-degree relatives have shared a common environment during their childhood. Therefore, they may have experienced similar upbringing from their parents. Therefore, the environmental factors would have influenced much of their behaviours hence opposing to the genetic factors contributing to anorexia. The concordance rate is never 100 percent therefore; there are other factors, which influence behaviour other than the genetic factors. Many people especially the female youths believe that having a slim body defines beauty. Therefore, many young girls are dieting on how to have and maintain a slim body. The girl’s reaction is similar to a nurture theory suggesting that the ideal notion of beauty is the core cause of anorexia in most western countries. Having a slim body is a socio-cultural opinion presented by famous people such as models, actors, musicians and among others. Young women attempt to imitate the popular icons (Shaffer, 2009). However, the socio-cultural opinion is common among the industrialised; most non-industrialized countries prefer a huge rounded body. Therefore, eating disorder is common in western countries. However, some psychologist insists that anorexia among the western countries is as a result of genetic influence. However, Abraham (2004) provides more evidence supporting the nurture. He suggested that the society has become healthy conscious since 1950 and that there is a 30 percent increase in the number of women dieting from the same year. The debate about nature and nurture has been there for years. However, there are no discipline beats the other since people the people debating provide concrete evidence supporting their claim. Those supporting nurtures believe that the human behaviour develops according to what they experience and learn. They suggested that learning is seemingly the reason behind human behaviour. Contrary, people supporting nature argue that people’s behaviour develop due to genetic influence. They also believe that a child is born possessing some behaviours such as sucking. However, the bottom line is both nature and nurture have an influence on human behaviour but humans decide how they will behave. REFERENCE Abraham P. Bottom of Form Top of Form Bottom of Form Top of Form Bottom of Form Top of Form Top of Form Top of Form Top of Form Bottom of Form Top of Form Bottom of Form Top of Form Bottom of Form Top of Form (2004). Nature vs. nurture: what makes you special? [Upper Saddle River, N.J.], Pearson Prentice Hall. Cardwell, M., & Flanagan, C. (2003). Psychology A2: the complete companion. Cheltenham, Nelson Thornes. Collins, M. (2009). Genetics and sports. Basel, Karger. Cooley, C. H. (2006). "Nature versus Nurture" in the making of social careers. [Place of publication not identified], [publisher not identified]. Elder, R., Evans, K., & Nizette, D. (2009). Psychiatric and mental health nursing. Sydney, Mosby Elsevier. Freberg, L. (2010). Discovering biological psychology. Belmont, Calif, Wadsworth, Cengage Learning. John T. Top of Form Moore, D. S. (2007). The dependent gene: the fallacy of "nature vs. nurture". New York, Henry Holt. Nevid, J. S. (2009). Psychology: concepts and applications. Boston, Houghton Mifflin Co. Pressley, M., & Mccormick, C. (2006). Child and adolescent development for educators. New York, Guilford Press. Shaffer, D. R. (2009). Social and personality development. Australia, Wadsworth/Cengage Learning. Bottom of Form Bottom of Form Bottom of Form Bottom of Form Bottom of Form Read More