An Argument for Nurture

Photo courtesy of Verde Magazine

For decades psychologists have theorized and debated on the exact process which fosters our development as humans, eventually settling on two possibilities; nature and nurture. Research has revealed that both factors have a major influence on the person you eventually become in life, but there surely remains one force with an even greater impact on your growth than the other. When looking at the world around us it becomes apparent that each separate individual is different, unique in their experiences, skills, and personality. And, while one may attribute everyones’ respective uniqueness to specific genetic/biological backgrounds (nature) they do not, in theory, share with anyone else, cases such as the Twin Study demonstrate that identical backgrounds can generate far different, separate people based on the environment in which they are allowed to grow. The very process of development is an inherently singular concept, and growth in humans is categorized by the refinement of an individual person; our fundamental development cannot be related to anyone else's', meaning that nurture, as opposed to nature, is the driving force behind who we are.

The Twin Study, as previously mentioned, is an excellent viewpoint into the nurture argument, as it observed exactly how nearly identical people could develop differently if allowed to mature in isolated environments. The subjects of said study, three identical, adopted (to different sets of foster parents) twin brothers, were put through the experiment without their or their parents’ knowledge, and were periodically interviewed/observed throughout their lives as young children. 19 years after their birth, two of the brothers met by chance, eventually discovering their third lost sibling, and went on to garner national fame in light of their seemingly incredible story. When interviewed for TV or other types of media, the brothers presented as incredibly similar; talking, sitting, and acting in similar fashion to one another. Each of them smoked the same brand of cigarettes, had all participated in wrestling in high school, and gravitated towards similar interests; favorite foods, colors, and their attraction to women. When reflecting on their period of fame, however, the brothers and their family agree that an aspect of what could be publicly observed about the triplets was a performance, and that, while the brothers shared many inherent similarities as a result of their nature, their various nurturings had in fact produced three different people.

Primarily, the brothers differed in the types of parents they had, the socioeconomic class they were brought up in, and their relative comfort in social settings. Brother A had grown up with considerable wealth with two working parents, both of which were successful and, as a result of said success, unable to spend as much time with him growing up. As a result, he was highly educated, but was generally introverted. Brother B occupied the middle-class throughout his development, and had both parents present in his life. His father, though, was described as a dictator of sorts, and was the parent least present in the lives of the triplets after they reunited. To compensate for the damage sustained by brother B as a result of his father’s coldness, the triplet was incredibly extroverted and kind; he loved his remaining family deeply. However, he was also prone to instability, manic depression, and bouts of extreme, unregulated anger. Later in life, when the triplets had a falling out as a result of their shared business troubles, brother A abandoned the group to pursue life individually, and brother B took his own life as a result. Brother C, who had lived in a low-class family, had two immigrant parents, and experienced the lowest levels of education of the three. His father, however, was remarkably kind and compassionate, and became a father-figure to the other brothers after the triplets reunited. Brother C was an ambivert; he was more sociable than brother A but did not feel the need to socially compensate as much as brother B. Even though the triplets shared a number of surface similarities, who they truly were as people was a product of their upbringing or nurturing.

Multiple psychologists’ theories support the results of the Twin Study as well, one example being Piaget. Jean Piaget studied the stages in which children thought and grew to think about the world, specifically how their perception differed from that of an adult with a fully developed brain. His theory revolves around the process by which our brains develop, and that said process was born out of life experiences and conscious discoveries. In other words, the transition between a child’s and an adult’s brain is entirely dependent on the environment and range of experiences available to a developing mind, as children must construct their understanding of the world by way of their nurturing. As defined by Piaget, it is impossible to assign our primary growth to our nature, as we do not begin life knowing how to sustain ourselves or act in a socially acceptable manner, and that learning, as well as the process of being nurtured, is what generates our personality. In relation to the Twin Study, Piaget would most likely state that the twins were separate individuals because they had constructed different perceptions of the world around them as a result of their upbringing. The experiences available to them were different, so the life lessons and struggles they faced were inherently dissimilar.

Another prominent psychologist whose theories may be applied to the Twin Study is Erik Erikson, who, like Piaget, developed his own stages of development in the minds of children, extending his research into our growth as adults. Erikson believed that every human goes through 8 primary stages of development which relate to the types of life experiences available to people in a certain age range (an example would be how one stage reflects on the experiences of children between ages 14 and 18 as they enter a specific period of growth in high school, a set of experiences that an adult of 30 simply does not have access to). As a result, no one stage can last forever, and Erikson theorized that it is our job as creatures capable of evolution/self-improvement to develop specific skills in relation to our current stage of growth, and that if we fail to do so before we exceed the given age limit we would be forced to move into the next stage of our life without properly developing. Some of the initial stages, including identity, experimentation, and rebellion, would have manifested themselves differently for each of the triplets. Brother C lived in a socially nourishing environment where he was more comfortable/free to explore his identity, experiment with which things and experiences made him happy or brought him fulfillment, and rebel against his parents as most teenagers do. Brother B, who lived in a dictatorship-like household, would have had to explore his identity on his own, be punished for experimenting with things like drugs and related life experiences, and face extreme repercussions for attempting to rebel in any capacity. Brother A would similarly have had to explore his identity without much emotional support from his parents, experiment without them consistently demonstrating concern for his safety, and rebel into a void of only semi-present parental-figures. Each of the triplets’ separate experiences allowed for them to develop various ideas about how life worked, how they should act, and the kinds of skills they would need to utilize to survive socially throughout the rest of their existence. While they started with a similar hand in regards to their temperament, they each learned how to live life differently, and therefore generated different personalities.

It has become increasingly apparent that the degree of influence our nature has over us is limited solely to the initial challenges and norms we face towards the beginnings of our development. Our temperament, or base-level mannerisms, are established as necessary components of our being, but the true essence of who we are is clearly established in the kinds of lives we are allowed to live. As displayed by the triplets, they found community in a group with an almost identical nature/background, but found unifying as business partners to be incredibly difficult because of how truly distinct each brother was. Their process of development forced varied experiences upon them, so they were nurtured to see life itself as something entirely different from how their siblings may have perceived the world. While nature most certainly plays a role in the makings of who we are, it is undoubtedly our nurturing that facilitates the development of individual members of the human race.