Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Nature Vs nurture - Theories of Personality in 21st Century

Nature vs look after theories have wasted a lot of energy of human beings. Plato is considered first to realize that you are made of not only flesh but also an intellectual soul.

The issue may be much older...

Darwins

In Greek Mythology, when gods created man, they endowed him with divinity. However, the man started spellbinding them. They feared his potentials and decided to deprive him of the might.

Nature Vs nurture - Theories of Personality in 21st Century

"Where to hide the divinity?" was the big question

They considered heights of icy mountains, limits of shining stars and pits of the earth. But every place was accessible to man's capabilities.

Then they decided to hide it within the man himself.

Since then the man has been climbing icy mountains. He has navigated deep seas. He has traversed moon. His machines have even touched Mars. But he is still seeing for his 'lost paradise'.

Man, it is inside you!

They call it personality now. It is 'scientific' to ask how it comes into being. Is it inheritable? Is it natural? Is it outcome of environment? Have you any will to convert your behaviors or you are bound to consequent the dictates?

Nature vs look after theories focus upon these issues. The new discoveries in genome and portion physics have revived the debate. Incidentally, more they discover, more they bewilder. The abstraction continues intensifying.

How to Define Nature Vs look after Theories

There are three distinctive schools of thought.

1- Personality is Natural

This group believes that your personality is consequent of evolutionary process. You inherit behaviors due to involved interaction of genes. They operate your behaviors. So you don't have a free will to act otherwise.

2- Personality is Nurtured

This group argues that you don't get your personality inherited. Your mind is a blank slate at your birth. It is your environment, instruction and culture that make up your behaviors. There are differences on the issue of 'free will' to convert your behaviors.

3- Personality is Spiritual

This group claims that your personality is consequent of neither nature nor nurture. It is gift of some deity. They are split on the issue of 'free will'.

Nature Vs look after Theories and Evolutionary Psychology
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Darwin's law of evolution led William Hamilton, George Williams and many others to the idea of personality evolution. They proposed that like corporal organs, your personality is consequent of natural choice for survival of the fittest. You do as your genes dictate.

They propose that fear of death, fear of injury, fear of snakes, shyness, addiction, criminality and sexual orientation are main examples of inheritable behaviors. Steven Pinker (2004) includes religiousness, liberalism and conservativeness in the list. William Paley considers cognitive capabilities, temperaments and cHeating behaviors inheritable.

However, there is strong annotation on this approach.

1- There is no singular Universal behavior which can be proved evolutionary. Even fear of death, that seems natural to all, is overridden in crusades, suicides and suicide bombings.

2- You are made of 25,000 to 30,000 genes. They are merely twice to the whole in a fruit fly. Chimpanzees share 95% of your genetic characteristics. However, they don't share even 10% of your behaviors.

3- People don't differ in behaviors as they do differ in skin pigments. Extroverts, introverts, optimists, pessimists, criminals, liberals etc are found in all societies and cultures. Even identical twins (with 100% similar genes) and fraternal twins (with 50% similar genes) behave differently in most of the cases.

4- No genome scientist has connected genes or a set of genes with any kind of behaviors.

5- There are a good whole of living organisms and fossils which propose intermediary stages to the corporal evolution. However, no such intermediary stages are ready for personality evolution.

Nature Vs look after Theories and Physics

The discoveries in physics have all the time in case,granted new meat to the nature vs look after theories. The conclusions of Newton and Einstein helped the citizen to believe that future events can be improbable with the help of true knowledge of matter and natural laws. This led psychologists to propose that your future behaviors can be predetermined. The whole mechanism of psychometrics follows this hypothesis.

However, portion physics has changed the situation altogether. Evidence proves that you can't make two (almost) simultaneous measurements of observables correctly. For example:

1- Position and momentum of a particle

2- Position and direction of a particle

3- Time and frequency of a sound wave

4- Wavelength and magnitude of a sound wave

The list goes on...

The portion physics has shaken determinism. So much so the scientists have to devise "Heisenberg uncertainty principle" which challenges that any corporal event can be improbable surely in time and space.

Do you think that particles are too small to sway big events?

Reconsider it.

What would happen if Hitler had died in his young age of cancer, which can occur with a wee genetic mutation?

Nature Vs look after Theories and Reality

"What was the first cause?" Aristotle had asked centuries before

It has been proved that the universe is not consequent of infinite series of collaborating causes and events. There was a first event; the big bang just 13.7 billions year ago. What was its cause?

There can be only two answers:

1- There was no preceding cause, or

2- There was a first Causer

When you affirm the first statement, you agree that there might be other events which don't have preceding causes. The birth of personality is one of them.

However, if you agree with the second statement, then you are siding with the spiritual school of thought.

What About Environment?

It plays very foremost role in making of your behaviors. However, any behavior that you procure is amendable. Secondly, it is not only environment that influences you, the vice versa is also true. You can count hundreds of names who influenced their environments, cultures and societies.

The best guidance is to believe in your personality. Use your free will to develop and refine your behaviors. Use all out capabilities to procure small successes daily to build bigger one in future. Your way of mental and style of doing shall settle your destination.

Meanwhile, let the counsels of nature vs look after theories to continue with their confusing debates.

Nature Vs nurture - Theories of Personality in 21st Century

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