Question

If you were a researcher who believed that individual differences were primarily determined by nature (i.e., inherited and hard-wired) what arguments would you use to support your belief? If you were a researcher who believed that individual differences were primarily determined by nurture (i.e., shaped by one’s upbringing and environment) what arguments would you use to support your belief? Be specific.

Answer 1

Solution:

1. The individual differences are mainly because of the inheritance that people carry from their ancestors. There are the majority of the elements for many people who are similar to their immediate parents and because of which the children share a lot of similarities with the parent and also there are similarities in the nature of the parent and the child as well. This is mainly because of genetic orders and this is clearly responsible for bringing in some of the genes from parents to their children and as a result of which we see some of the individual differences being similar to their genetic fathers.
   
   It is not necessarily true that all the differences can be attributed to genes alone because there are certainly many other factors that are responsible for ensuring that there are significant individual differences among the people. Such factors can be anything from anywhere and as a researcher, it is the duty of the researcher to determine such factors.
   
   Hence, this is why I strongly believe that the majority of the individual differences between people are because of their inheritance.
   
   
2. If I believed that the majority of the differences in the human beings that account for individual differences is because of the way and surrounding in which the person is brought up then my arguments would be that it is possible that majority of the traits of the person are because of the inheritance of the person however we cannot completely allot such differences to inheritance alone.
   
   There are several instances where people have shown to be completely different from their inheritance with appropriate training and coaching. Hence, even though the inheritance has important effect on the person and her individual differences the environment and surroundings in which person stays for a considerable amount of time will have a more and final impact on the people's behavior and showcase their individual differences as dictated by their surroundings, coachings, etc.
   
   Hence, if a person is well surrounded, has access to learning opportunities then it is possible that the person can have different individual differences than what her inheritance suggested.