Nature VS. Nurture

                                   ::Exploring how nature vs. nurture relates to socialization:: 

        Nurture relates to socialization more than nature.  Nature is assumed to be how we behave, interact, react, and socialize based on biology.  I find that hard to study, because no one is exactly like their parents. Within a family, there are many different personality types.  When we are being created, we become a mixture of our entire family, so to say that we are who we are due to nature would be a hard case to defend.  I do believe that we become more susceptible to certain things that we could inherit from our family.  (ie: mood disorders) But other things I believe we develop due to nurture. (ie: aggression, eating disorders, etc.)  What I have to question is if I have two parents that suffer from depression, and I wind up having depression, is it due to nature or nurture?  Did I acquire depression from being around depressed people, or did I get it from being genetically predisposed?  I grew up with a friend who was adopted and never knew anything about her biological parents.  She grew up and behaved nothing like the mother or father that raised her.  She found comfort and a sense of self within a group of friends she had made that her adopted parents did not approve of.  So we can't rule out nature, we can rule out nurture, and we can say that socialization played a part of who she wanted to be and who she became.  All the aspects I analyzed led me to become more confused.

        The first clip provided for this exercise seemed to say that there is an innate part of us (nature) that allows us to become who we are and that in fact, parenting doesn't have a significant role in our development.  It goes as far as to say that the majority of nurture is based on the socialization that takes place outside of the home that shapes us.  Although I don't 100% feel a certain way about this debate, this clip closely relates how I feel about the issue.  Unfortunately, I feel I have become who I am based upon my own decisions, not the way my parents raised me.  They didn't raise me poorly.  I was raised in a happy home with good values, but ultimately, I chose to live the way I wanted to. (That sounds bad, but it's not :o) )

       The second clip looked at how nurture shapes our development.  They put children in a controlled setting and tested their progress.  In 8 weeks, abilities of children were improved.  That is a direct result that nurture can have a large say in who we become.

        I kind of went all over the place with my blog this week because I am torn on the issue, but in order for me to have a more concrete answer to how I feel, I would have to do actual research and testing of my own to draw my own conclusions.