Question

Your personality is uniquely yours. No one has ever been exactly like you, and there will never be anyone just like you again. Considering the nature versus nurture debate (i.e., the debate regarding the influence of biology/heredity versus the influence of environment on the development of people's traits), please respond in writing to the following: "In your opinion, how much of your personality is influenced by your genes (i.e., what you have inherited from your parents), and how much of it has been shaped by your environment? Please support your answer with at least two brief personal examples.

Answer 1

People are the products of their environment such as, parenting, family, friends, education, employment, culture, religion, socio-economic status etc. Most of one’s personality, attitudes, values and worldview would be influenced and shaped by one’s environmental factors. Although one’s genes would have some basic information regarding one’s personality and abilities, it would be one’s environment that would finally determine one’s personality. That’s why famous psychologists John B. Watson challenged the world with his famous quote, ‘give me a dozen well-formed and healthy infants and I would make them whoever you want them to become’. This brings out the importance of one’s environment. One of the most important things that I believed was that just because my parents are not educated well and not very intelligent as per the modern intelligent measures, I doubted whether I would be able to get through my studies but one of my teachers suggested that people make their own lives and with hard work I could change my intelligent level and complete my education. Today, I have come a long way fighting through that difficulty with the help of my environment. Secondly, my parents do not mingle well with people from other cultures but I don’t have any issues and I treat everyone equally. Thus, the experience and the exposure in one’s environment would help one overcome one’s deficiencies in the genes.

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