Nature vs. Nurture Extra Credit The debate in psychology whether and to what extent our aspects of behavior are either genetic or learned characteristics has been going on for a long time. Genetic is the nature side of the argument. Learned refers to the nurture side of this long debate. Some people are so caught between the two extremes that they say it is both, but the argument of which is more important is still relevant. The first person to question this idea was Francis Galton.
Galton happened to be related to Charles Darwin himself. In the late 1800’s, Francis Galton believed intelligence was very much inherited and that when smartness ran through a family it was because of natural superiority. As people after Galton began to wonder
…show more content…
This is a very important statement because in short it means they are both equally important. Length and width are both needed to find the area of rectangle so in turn nature and nurture are needed to create someone’s personality. Continuing on the I.Q. debate from earlier, evidence shows that siblings that are adopted are just as similar as strangers are to each other. Whereas siblings that are blood related or twins have more similar IQ 's. Even if two identical twins were raised separately and fraternal twins were raised together, the identical twins are still more likely to have a closer I.Q. to each other. (Harcourt, 1). As far as the nature versus nurture argument goes, this evidence appears to be weighted toward the nature side.
Stress plays a big role in how much intelligence a single human being has. Stress can put so much pressure on a human body that it can go as far as causing damage to it. Also if a person were to come into contact with a toxin it can affect their intelligence and could cause development issues. If a child grew up surrounded by a positive and encouraging home-life, it can be seen in their better test scores than children grew up in a negative environment. And of course a person’s access to school and educational materials while affect someone’s long-term intelligence (Genetic and Environmental Impacts,