Mohammad Zainullah Khan

Heredity or environment?
does each have?

How much influence

The two factors which contribute to a persons personality are his

Deoxyribonucleic acid (genetic code) and the environment around him. But
the immediate question that arises is by how much? This brings us to the
centuries old debate of nature vs. nurture.
Nurture consists of the place of birth, the town he is brought up in, the style
of his upbringing and his personal experiences acquired over a lifetime. On
the other hand, nature consists of the genes one is coded with. It determines
a persons eye color, hair color, ear size, height and perhaps even his likes &
dislike.
Although there have been various studies conducted which have proved that
both nature and nurture play their part but we will try determining the extent
of each in the light of 3 case studies. The first conducted on identical twins,
titled The Case of Jack and Oskar. They were separated at birth, raised in
different areas and practiced different religions. They even had different
perspective towards Hitler, who was hated by the Jew twin while loved by the
catholic one. Aged 47, they were called together by scientists to see how
similar or different they indeed were. They both loved sports, spicy foods,
sweet juices and had several idiosyncrasies in common as expected due to
having the same genes (DNA). However there was more. One turned into a
workaholic while the other was a little feckless. One was liberal while the
other had a more conservative approach to politics. These findings removed
all doubts that either nature or nurture alone was responsible for personality
since they had the same genes but turned out to be different in a few ways.
Secondly, the incident of the old man in Ohio in 1938 helps to support the
stance. He had a daughter who mute and dumb. She became pregnant
(unmarried) and had a girl named Isabelle. But her father couldnt bear the
societys taunts and forced her to live in the attic. They were discovered 6
years later. Isabelle had turned introvert. She was unable to speak and only
made gesture and croaking sounds. Furthermore her behavior towards other
and especially males was similar to a wild animal avoiding encounter. This
leads us to think that nurture here was solely responsible for these traits. But

Mohammad Zainullah Khan

soon after she was rescued, she had therapy sessions and extra care.
Gradually her behavior changed and she started to understand the language.
So the nature (genes) was present but they were in their dormant stage, and
thus they needed to be stimulated.

Thirdly, the experiment by psychologists Skeels and Dye (1939) can help
further in our quest of nature vs. nurture. Here they picked 13 infants of
about 1 years from the orphanage and placed them with mentally
challenged women. They orphan children were thought to be dumb by birth.
To compare, they also handpicked a group of 12 children and left them in the
orphanage where they were not given proper attention and the surroundings
lacked toys (stimulating conditions). The mentally challenged women grew
close to their children and each child became attached to one in particular.
Surprisingly after 2 years, the children at the orphanage dropped by 30 point
in IQ while the other group gained an average of 28. Not only this but years
down the lane these children (adopted by mentally challenged women) had
better education, better wages and almost all were married in comparison to
the other group.
In light of these cases, we can draw the conclusion that although both nature
and nurture plays its own part in the personality but they need a stimulus. If
the stimulating circumstances are not present then their effects becomes
dormant and make them look non-existent. This was the case with Isabelle
who although had the genes but they were oppressed by nurture. And when
nature was given a chance, it allowed her to return back to a normal state.
Hence the one to which a person is more exposed to (upbringing) will
dominate over the other.

Submitted to : Dr. Cedric Aimal

Section : B