Nature plus Nurture, an argumentative subject in the scientific world

Essay by Raegan RobbCollege, UndergraduateA, December 1996

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        The classic debated topic of nurture versus nature has been, and always will be an

argumentative subject in the scientific world. Some psychologists and scientists share the view

that our behavioral aspects originate only from the environmental factors of our upbringing.

While other opposing specialists argue the outlook in science that agrees with the naturalist idea.

This concept of naturalistic ideas supports the hereditary genetic framework, inherited from our

parents, is the sole determining factor in our behavioral characteristics. These two opposing

viewpoints have produced a multitude of ideas, theories, and arguments in the history of

psychology.

        John Broadus Watson, the father of American behaviorism, greatly reinforced the source

of nurture by studying learned and adaptive behavior patterns in our environmental surroundings

(Rathus p.13). During this same time of revolutionary ideas in psychology, American

psychologist, Arnold Gesell supported the opposite views of Watson. Gesell theorized that

'physical and motor growth and development is monitored and regulated by an automatic natural

process'(Rathus p.13).

Each of these ideas has persisted strongly in the world of psychology

from the nineteenth century on into the twentieth, but now a new and united psychology world

acknowledges both theories equally. It is imagined, today, that the explanation of our behavioral

characteristics originates from both our heredity, and the environment in which we were raised.

        This report supports the theory that both aspects of nurture, with the addition of nature

are involved in and explain our complete behaviors. Many studies and experiments have been

conducted in recent years of psychology to give this combined idea its appealing thesis. A great

deal of research and experimentation has been conducted in order to solve the puzzling results

that derive from situational differences in being raised. The different causes and effects of

various situations, focus on the actual importance, and...