| |
| |
|
Faith411.com - Psychology |
|
|
|
Vital information and articles related to Psychology.Nature VS Nurture - Theories of Personality in 21st Century
Nature vs Nurture theories have wasted a lot of energy of human beings. Plato is considered first to realize that you are made of not only flesh but also an intellectual soul. The issue may be much older... In Greek Mythology, when gods created man, they endowed him with divinity. However, the man started challenging them. They feared his potentials and decided to deprive him of the might. "Where to hide the divinity?" was the big question They considered heights of icy mountains, limits of shining stars and pits of the earth. But every place was accessible to man's capabilities. Then they decided to hide it within the man himself. Since then the man has been climbing icy mountains. He has navigated deep seas. He has traversed moon. His machines have even touched Mars. But he is still looking for his 'lost paradise'. Man, it is inside you! They call it personality now. It is 'scientific' to ask how it comes into being. Is it inheritable? Is it natural? Is it outcome of environment? Have you any will to change your behaviors or you are bound to follow the dictates? Nature vs Nurture theories focus upon these issues. The new discoveries in genome and quantum physics have revived the debate. Incidentally, more they discover, more they bewilder. The abstraction continues intensifying. How to Define Nature VS Nurture Theories There are three distinctive schools of thought. 1- Personality is Natural This group believes that your personality is result of evolutionary process. You inherit behaviors due to complex interaction of genes. They control your behaviors. So you don't have a free will to act otherwise. 2- Personality is Nurtured This group argues that you don't get your personality inherited. Your mind is a blank slate at your birth. It is your environment, education and culture that make up your behaviors. There are differences on the issue of 'free will' to change your behaviors. 3- Personality is Spiritual This group claims that your personality is result of neither nature nor nurture. It is gift of some deity. They are split on the issue of 'free will'. Nature VS Nurture Theories and Evolutionary Psychology-Darwin's theory of evolution led William Hamilton, George Williams and many others to the idea of personality evolution. They proposed that like physical organs, your personality is result of natural selection for survival of the fittest. You do as your genes dictate. They suggest that fear of death, fear of injury, fear of snakes, shyness, addiction, criminality and sexual orientation are main examples of inheritable behaviors. Steven Pinker (2004) includes religiousness, liberalism and conservativeness in the list. William Paley considers cognitive capabilities, temperaments and cheating behaviors inheritable. However, there is strong criticism on this approach. 1- There is no single universal behavior which can be proved evolutionary. Even fear of death, that seems natural to all, is overridden in crusades, suicides and suicide bombings. 2- You are made of 25,000 to 30,000 genes. They are merely twice to the number in a fruit fly. Chimpanzees share 95% of your genetic characteristics. However, they don't share even 10% of your behaviors. 3- People don't differ in behaviors as they do differ in skin pigments. Extroverts, introverts, optimists, pessimists, criminals, liberals etc are found in all societies and cultures. Even identical twins (with 100% similar genes) and fraternal twins (with 50% similar genes) behave differently in most of the cases. 4- No genome scientist has related genes or a set of genes with any kind of behaviors. 5- There are a good number of living organisms and fossils which suggest intermediary stages to the physical evolution. However, no such intermediary stages are available for personality evolution. Nature VS Nurture Theories and Physics The discoveries in physics have always provided new meat to the nature vs nurture theories. The conclusions of Newton and Einstein helped the people to believe that future events can be predicted with the help of true knowledge of matter and natural laws. This led psychologists to suggest that your future behaviors can be predetermined. The whole mechanism of psychometrics follows this hypothesis. However, quantum physics has changed the situation altogether. Evidence proves that you can't make two (almost) simultaneous measurements of observables correctly. For example: 1- Position and momentum of a particle 2- Position and direction of a particle 3- Time and frequency of a sound wave 4- Wavelength and magnitude of a sound wave The list goes on... The quantum physics has shaken determinism. So much so the scientists have to devise "Heisenberg uncertainty principle" which challenges that any physical event can be predicted precisely in time and space. Do you think that particles are too small to affect big events? Reconsider it. What would happen if Hitler had died in his young age of cancer, which can occur with a slight genetic mutation? Nature VS Nurture Theories and Reality "What was the first cause?" Aristotle had asked centuries before It has been proved that the universe is not result of infinite series of collaborating causes and events. There was a first event; the big bang just 13.7 billions year ago. What was its cause? There can be only two answers: 1- There was no preceding cause, or 2- There was a first Causer When you affirm the first statement, you agree that there might be other events which don't have preceding causes. The birth of personality is one of them. However, if you agree with the second statement, then you are siding with the spiritual school of thought. What About Environment? It plays very important role in making of your behaviors. However, any behavior that you acquire is amendable. Secondly, it is not only environment that influences you, the vice versa is also true. You can count hundreds of names who influenced their environments, cultures and societies. The best advice is to believe in your personality. Use your free will to develop and refine your behaviors. Utilize all out capabilities to collect small successes daily to build bigger one in future. Your way of thinking and style of doing shall determine your destination. Meanwhile, let the counsels of nature vs nurture theories to continue with their confusing debates. Psychometrics? Some believe in them and others reject them altogether. However, reality lies in between. Saqib Ali Ateel unlocks secrets of personality, intelligence, aptitude and testing at http://www.personality-and-aptitude-career-tests.com/art
MORE RESOURCES:
Psychology - Google News |
|
|
|
RELATED ARTICLES
Fairies and Mental Health Schizophrenics hallucinate alternate realities. People who claim to have been abducted by aliens are accused of having Fantasy Prone Personalities. How Big of a Problem is Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder? Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder - "ADD" or "ADHD" - affects between five to ten percent (5% - 10%) of all children in the United States, and three to six percent (3% - 6%) of adults. About 35% of all children referred to mental health clinics are referred for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, making it one of the most prevalent of all childhood psychiatric disorders. Hypnotic Myths Even though hypnosis has been around officially since the 1700s (Franz Anton Mesmer), there are still questions as to its validity and benefits. For the most part, these questions stem from fear and ignorance. Rediscovering the Mind From the viewpoint of a modern microbiologist, we hear the call for integration and common sense in sciences that are all too often devising separate stakes and battlements to pontificate from, on high. The 'experts' thus proving their ignorance because the result inevitably is specious ego and puffery. Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) At a Glance Most narcissists (75%) are men.NPD is one of a "family" of personality disorders (formerly known as "Cluster B"). You, I and We Our life in society hovers around the concept of 'You-I- We'. The first stage is 'You-You' which is called 'dependent' stage. Posttraumatic Stress Disorder: Nightmare After The Ordeal Sarah is a 28 y/o accountant who had a traumatic past that she kept to herself. At age 15, she was grabbed by a masked man while she was jogging in a park. The Myth of Mental Illness "You can know the name of a bird in all the languages of the world, but when you're finished, you'll know absolutely nothing whatever about the bird? So let's look at the bird and see what it's doing - that's what counts. I learned very early the difference between knowing the name of something and knowing something. Short Story: The Next Level of Humanity "Hey Mac, have you ever been thinking of someone and then-bang! - The telephone rings and it's them on the phone?""Pinkus, why are you always asking me stupid inane questions that have absolutely no relevance whatsoever to the job at hand?"Mac smiled and laughed loudly. It was the kind of laugh that could boil the water in your fishbowl. Why Other Children are Rejecting Your Child IntroductionDeveloping healthy peer relationships is critical for the normal development of a child. Peer relationships have been found to be an important predictor of positive adult adjustment and behavior. The Offspring of Aeolus - On the Incest Taboo Incest is not such a clear-cut matter as it has been made out to be over millennia of taboos. Many participants claim to have enjoyed the act and its physical and emotional consequences. Four Cognitive Skills for Successful Learning The word "cognition" is defined as "the act of knowing" or "knowledge." Cognitive skills therefore refer to those skills that make it possible for us to know. Accepting New Ideas Much of the time when a new idea comes to us, we handle that idea and move on, without ever becoming consciously aware of the process. During the times when we are consciously aware of the process of handling a new idea, we often reject that idea without understanding why we rejected it, or sometimes without even understanding that we did reject it. Human Psychological Issues in the Recruitment of Suicide Bombers Swedish Scientists did a study and found that young men with low intelligence scores were more likely to commit suicide."Researchers from Sweden's Karolinska Institute analyzed test scores for 987,308 armed forced recruits and then cross-referenced the data with those who subsequently committed suicide over 26 years - a total of almost 3,000. Fallacies About the Inner Child Over the past 10 years I have helped individuals who have been plagued by the memories of past events to permanently release the disruptive energy imprints of such memories from their energy bio-fields.A special and interesting case of such release pertains to situations where an individual has within them a construct that is referred to as an "inner child" that is still in need of nurturing or healing. Biometrics ABSTRACTBiometric identification refers to identifying an individual based on his/her distinguishing physiological and/or behavioural characteristics. As these characteristics are distinctive to each and every person, biometric identification is more reliable and capable than the traditional token based and knowledge based technologies differentiating between an authorized and a fraudulent person. HypoManiacs Often Misunderstood Are you a Hypomaniac? If you are you have some definite advantages over others. Hypomaniacs are often superstars in their fields, but they are often misunderstood by those who work so hard to profile personalities and put individuals into neat little boxes. Eating Disorders and the Narcissist Patients suffering from eating disorders binge on food and sometimes are both anorectic and bulimic. This is an impulsive behaviour as defined by the DSM (particularly in the case of BPD and to a lesser extent of Cluster B disorders in general). Why Does It Seem That There Are More Children With ADHD Than Ever Before? Even though the percentage of people with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder is likely the same as in the past, there are three likely reasons why it seems that "there is more ADHD" than ever before: First, we become more aware of problems like this as parents than we were as a children. We have grown up now and we are more concerned about these issues since we have our own children. What is the Theory of Multiple Intelligences? Part 2: Cultural Influence Howard Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences developed as he worked with brain injured adults and autistic children. He identified distinct portions of the brain that control specific human abilities or talents like analysis, classification, speech, self-awareness, etc.
|
|
Philosophy Articles Home Page | Philosophy Articles Site Map | Psychology Sites | News | Faith411.com Home Page EZmatic.com | IgoJo | UpBee | Blue Ryder | Health | ZippyGo | Ken J Wagner Faith411.com - all Vital information and articles related to Philosophy. |
| © 2006 |
