Nature and nurture represent two ways psychologists explain behavior. Despite debates, current understandings suggest the two may actually have an interactive relationship.
Nature and nurture provide two different suggestions for what influences or causes a person’s behaviors and characteristics to develop.
Nature suggests a biological or genetic cause behind how you act and who you are. Nurture proposes the environment and how you were raised majorly impact your behaviors and traits.
Traditionally, psychologists debated which had more influence, leading to the expression of nature versus nurture. More recent understandings of the two behavior influencers suggest they may influence each other more than originally thought, with a complex and unpredictable relationship to each other.
In psychology, nature refers to the innate characteristics and behaviors of a person. Common characteristics that psychologists have associated with nature include:
- body type
- personality
- development of mental health conditions
Psychologists who emphasize nature believe that most of your behaviors and personality characteristics develop due to the influences of your genes. In other words, you’re born with certain predispositions to act in certain ways as you grow and develop different mental health conditions.
Evidence suggests that most traits are heritable, meaning passed down from generation to generation. Further, they can get scored in terms of the likelihood of getting passed down.
For example, a
However, as opposed to solely managing the home environment and a parent’s unhelpful behaviors, addressing a child’s symptoms potentially reduces the likelihood of passing ADHD traits to future generations.
Despite predictions, there’s no way to predict how a person’s characteristics will develop in the presence of outside factors and influences, also known as nurture.
Nurture refers to all the outside influences that sway and shape a person’s behavior. It can include:
- socio-economic status
- parental involvement
- parenting styles
- family makeup
Psychologists who emphasize nurture suggest that several factors in your environment, from how your parents raised you to your economic status, influence your personality and behaviors.
Nurture can also play an important role in your mental health. It
A 2023 study supports these findings, indicating that environmental factors, such as housing quality and social support, are associated with decreased well-being and increased mental health symptoms.
Nature and nurture in psychology represent two explanations for behaviors, human characteristics, mental health, and personality.
While some characteristics, such as height, eye color, and skin tone, have a definitive genetic connection, others may be less clear.
This may lead people to intentionally or unintentionally favor one causal factor over the other due to external factors, such as:
- social
- political
- family upbringing
- economic status
- geographic location
For example, a person may say that a star athlete was born with a natural gift, neglecting the years of hard work and practice they put into the sport.
The following examples highlight the difference in how nature and nature typically explain a wide range of traits.
| Trait | Nature | Nurture |
|---|---|---|
| Athletic build | Everyone in their family has a lean, muscular build. | They spend several hours a day, multiple days a week in a gym and eat a healthy diet. |
| Intelligence | They come from a long line of college graduates. | They worked hard and studied to learn as much as they could. |
| Violent behavior | They were born that way. | Years of abuse or neglect caused them to act out violently. |
| General drive to succeed | Both parents were successful in their careers and determined to excel. | Supportive teachers, parents, and mentors helped encourage a strong work ethic. |
| Language development | People inherit traits that allow them to pick up easily on language. | Language comes from a child listening to and imitating parents and others around them. |
| Development of mental health conditions | Genetic differences account for the development of different conditions, such as depression, schizophrenia, or bipolar disorder. | Events and circumstances, such as introduction of alcohol in the womb and past trauma, can lead to the development of different mental health conditions. |
The nature versus nurture debate comes down to how a person or psychologist attributes different human characteristics.
However, current understandings suggest that neither nature nor nurture plays a more important role than the other in the development of personality traits, behaviors, or mental health. Instead, they have a complex relationship where
Likewise, some evidence
- anxiety
- depression
- bipolar disorder
- substance misuse or abuse
- an overall sense of well-being
For example, the
Nature and nurture describe two different thoughts on how your personality and behaviors develop. Nature suggests biological components, mainly genes, influence how you develop, while nurture suggests outside influences have a major impact.
Most modern theories suggest that a combination of nurture and nature accounts for human behavior, characteristics, and personalities. The interactions between the two influences may explain the numerous variations in how everyone acts.