The Nature versus Nurture Debate

Nature versus Nurture …

Initially my thoughts about the nature versus nurture debate, tended towards nurture. In my PBWiki post I discussed the concept of Children see, children do, Albert Bandura was a psychologist who studied aggression in children and adolescents. He conducted the Bobo doll experiment. Although the experiment is filled with flaws and was never proven to be exact, the concept was valid and I believed was important in understanding our students. As I was thinking about the nature versus nurture debate, I began to question my own ideas. Why is it that we attribute negative  behaviours to nurture? Drugs, alcohol, smoking, violence, negative relationships. We don’t attribute positive behaviours, friendly, social, caring, to nurture? 

So I decided to question my own ideas …

Paula Bernstein was adopted as a baby. She grew up in a suburban New York. She grew up in happy home environment with a loving family. She even wrote an article called Why I don’t want to find my birth mother.

Elise Schein was also adopted as a baby. She always knew she was adopted, however it seemed natural. Her next door neighbours were adopted and she also had two cousins who were adopted. She grew up with a loving family. So in 2003 while in Paria, Schein surprised herself by inquiring with the adoption agency about her biological parents. The information she received was life changing. The letter said Elyse Schein was born on October 9, 1968, the younger of twin girls. 

In 1987 Bernstein was grappling with depression. She felt lost and thought that maybe her biological parents would be able to explain her illness. After making inquiry’s with the ado coindence ption agency Bernstein didnt hear anything until 2003. The agency rang and told Bernstein her twin was looking for her. They gave her the number of the Schein and a social worker. Bernstein is quoted as saying “I think in the excitement of the moment and perhaps it was a Freudian slip, I dialed Elise’s number”  

This information comes from the article Twins separated in the name of science

The SIBS study includes a significant percentage of adoptive families because of the unique research opportunity they offer. In families in which all members are related by birth, behavioral scientists cannot separate genetic from environmental influences on psychological characteristics. Scientists know that certain traits, including academic achievement, personality features, and risk of psychological disturbance, tend to “run in families.” But do these reflect a common genetic heritage or do the traits reflect the fact that siblings grew up together in the same family? One way to find out is to look at families with no common genetic component and see if the effects are still there. Adoption – Adoptive Families.

I found this to be a really interesting video. Bernstein and Schein both agree that nature has more to do with it than nurture. They discuss their lives, they are similar, they both love the same film and studied similar things at university.

I can understand why they believe that this is because of nature, and yes it does seem like a massive coincidence, but in the same thought … How many twins do you know that ‘do’ the same thing? I have two very close friends who are twins, I’m not friends with their twins. They live very separate lives and have done very different things with their lives. And then as I think and type about this, I wonder if they choose to do different things because they are twins and a way of defining who they were was to be different to each other?

Scientists believe that studying twins can help us to understand the nature versus nurture debate. During Hitler’s reign in Germany, many awful and painful medical experiments were performed on twins to help discover more information. http://remember.org/educate/medexp.html

And while the experiments were awful, is separating twins to study them any better? When does science give way to humanity?

At the end of the day … I’m left with more and more questions. But I think that it is better to keep asking questions than take just the first answer, especially in education.

Nature versus Nurture …