Nature versus Nurture: Heredity, Environment and Nonnormative Influences
Nature versus Nurture?
Typically, when discussing influences that shape how we go to be whom we have become, we generally talk about heredity versus the environmental forces that have surrounded us. Generally, we have been taught that what is inherit from our parents, grandparents and previous generations, shapes us in one way while our environment plus our experiences shape us in other ways. This polarizing way of viewing the phenomena of human growth and development can sometimes be helpful, if we want to keep things fairly simple. However, once we make the choice to more deeply explore the profound questions that surface when we attempt to thoroughly understand all …show more content…
From the moment of conception, a combination of both genetic and environmental forces mold and shape our existence. “Today many developmental scientists have come to regard a solely quantitative approach to the study of heredity and environment as simplistic” (Papalia & Martorell, 2015, p. 63). The environment’s capacity to assist in constructing general health cannot be diminished. For example, the socio-economic status that we enjoy or endure in our formative years can have an enormous impact on inherited predispositions. If we are predisposed to diabetes, for example, the eating habits that we develop at an early age can precipitate or delay the onset of the disease. If we are born into an economically disadvantaged family, and we have inconsistent access to nutritious food for long periods of time, our predisposition to diabetes can take on a whole range of severe …show more content…
My father, Tulio, died at the age of 27 from complications due to drug and alcohol abuse. Three years later, my mother, Lucia, married a cousin whom she had not seen since she was a child, Mario. Four years later, Mario died at the age of 42 from complications with leukemia. At this point, I was 13 years old. Eventually, my mother succumbed to a metastasis of cancer that originated in her cervix when she was 42, leading to her death at the age of 50. I was 29 years old at the time of her death. As I have matured, I have become keenly aware of how choices that I have made, and continue to make, can and do allow me to have some control over the course of hereditary
Nature versus Nurture?
Typically, when discussing influences that shape how we go to be whom we have become, we generally talk about heredity versus the environmental forces that have surrounded us. Generally, we have been taught that what is inherit from our parents, grandparents and previous generations, shapes us in one way while our environment plus our experiences shape us in other ways. This polarizing way of viewing the phenomena of human growth and development can sometimes be helpful, if we want to keep things fairly simple. However, once we make the choice to more deeply explore the profound questions that surface when we attempt to thoroughly understand all …show more content…
From the moment of conception, a combination of both genetic and environmental forces mold and shape our existence. “Today many developmental scientists have come to regard a solely quantitative approach to the study of heredity and environment as simplistic” (Papalia & Martorell, 2015, p. 63). The environment’s capacity to assist in constructing general health cannot be diminished. For example, the socio-economic status that we enjoy or endure in our formative years can have an enormous impact on inherited predispositions. If we are predisposed to diabetes, for example, the eating habits that we develop at an early age can precipitate or delay the onset of the disease. If we are born into an economically disadvantaged family, and we have inconsistent access to nutritious food for long periods of time, our predisposition to diabetes can take on a whole range of severe …show more content…
My father, Tulio, died at the age of 27 from complications due to drug and alcohol abuse. Three years later, my mother, Lucia, married a cousin whom she had not seen since she was a child, Mario. Four years later, Mario died at the age of 42 from complications with leukemia. At this point, I was 13 years old. Eventually, my mother succumbed to a metastasis of cancer that originated in her cervix when she was 42, leading to her death at the age of 50. I was 29 years old at the time of her death. As I have matured, I have become keenly aware of how choices that I have made, and continue to make, can and do allow me to have some control over the course of hereditary