NATURE VERSUS NURTURE

The nature versus nurture debates concern the relative ignorance of an individual's intimadating
qualities ("nature", i.e. nativism, or innatism) versus personal experiences ("nurture", i.e. empiricism or
behaviorism) in determining or causing individual differences in physical and behavioral traits.

The view that humans acquire all or almost all their behavioral traits from "nurture" is known as tabula
rasa ("blank slate"). This question was once considered to be an appropriate division of developmental
influences, but since both types of factors are known to play such interacting roles in development,
many modern psychologists consider the question naive - representing an outdated state of knowledge.
[1][2][3][4][5]
Psychologist Donald Hebb is said to have once answered a journalist's question of "which,
nature or nurture, contributes more to personality?" by asking in response, "Which contributes more to
the area of a rectangle, its length or its width?" [6][7][8][9]

Scientific approach
In order to disentangle the effects of genes and environment, behavioral geneticists perform
adoption and twin studies. Behavioral geneticists do not generally use the term "nurture" in order
to explain that portion of the variance for a given trait (such as IQ or the Big Five personality
traits) that can be attributed to environmental effects. Instead, two different types of
environmental effects are distinguished: shared family factors (i.e., those shared by siblings,
making them more similar) and nonshared factors (i.e., those that uniquely affect individuals,
making siblings different). In order to express the portion of the variance that is due to the
"nature" component, behavioral geneticists generally refer to the heritability of a trait.

With regard to the Big Five personality traits as well as adult IQ in the general U.S. population,
the portion of the overall variance that can be attributed to shared family effects is often
negligible.[10] On the other hand, most traits are thought to be at least partially heritable. In this
context, the "nature" component of the variance is generally thought to be more important than
that ascribed to the influence of family upbringing.

In her Pulitzer Prize-nominated book The Nurture Assumption, author Judith Harris argues that
"nurture," as traditionally defined in terms of family upbringing does not effectively explain the
variance for most traits (such as adult IQ and the Big Five personality traits) in the general
population of the United States. On the contrary, Harris suggests that either peer groups or
random environmental factors (i.e., those that are independent of family upbringing) are more
important than family environmental effects.[11][12]

Although "nurture" has historically been referred to as the care given to children by the parents,
with the mother playing a role of particular importance, this term is now regarded by some as
any environmental (not genetic) factor in the contemporary nature versus nurture debate. Thus
the definition of "nurture" has been expanded in order to include the influences on development
arising from prenatal, parental, extended family and peer experiences, extending to influences
such as media, marketing, and socio-economic status. Indeed, a substantial source of
environmental input to human nature may arise from stochastic variations in prenatal
development

Heritability estimates
While there are many examples of single-gene-locus traits, current thinking in biology discredits
the notion that genes alone can determine most complex traits. At the molecular level, DNA
interacts with signals from other genes and from the environment. At the level of individuals,
particular genes influence the development of a trait in the context of a particular environment.
Thus, measurements of the degree to which a trait is influenced by genes versus environment
will depend on the particular environment and genes examined. In many cases, it has been found
that genes may have a substantial contribution, including psychological traits such as intelligence
and personality.[15] Yet these traits may be largely influenced by environment in other
circumstances, such as environmental deprivation.

A researcher seeking to quantify the influence of genes or environment on a trait needs to be able
to separate the effects of one factor away from that of another. This kind of research often begins
with attempts to calculate the heritability of a trait. Heritability quantifies the extent to which
variation among individuals in a trait is due to variation in the genes those individuals carry. In
animals where breeding and environments can be controlled experimentally, heritability can be
determined relatively easily. Such experiments would be unethical for human research. This
problem can be overcome by finding existing populations of humans that reflect the
experimental setting the researcher wishes to create.

One way to determine the contribution of genes and environment to a trait is to study twins. In
one kind of study, identical twins reared apart are compared to randomly selected pairs of
people. The twins share identical genes, but different family environments. In another kind of
twin study, identical twins reared together (who share family environment and genes) are
compared to fraternal twins reared together (who also share family environment but only share
half their genes). Another condition that permits the disassociation of genes and environment is
adoption. In one kind of adoption study, biological siblings reared together (who share the same
family environment and half their genes) are compared to adoptive siblings (who share their
family environment but none of their genes).

Some have rightly pointed out that environmental inputs affect the expression of genes (see the
article on epigenetics). This is one explanation of how environment can influence the extent to
which a genetic disposition will actually manifest.[citation needed]The interactions of genes with
environment, called gene-environment interaction, are another component of the nature-nurture
debate. A classic example of gene-environment interaction is the ability of a diet low in the
amino acid phenylalanine to partially suppress the genetic disease phenylketonuria. Yet another
complication to the nature-nurture debate is the existence of gene-environment correlations.
These correlations indicate that individuals with certain genotypes are more likely to find
themselves in certain environments. Thus, it appears that genes can shape (the selection or
creation of) environments. Even using experiments like those described above, it can be very
difficult to determine convincingly the relative contribution of genes and environment.