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Nature VS Nurture - Theories of Personality in 21st Century
Nature vs Nurture 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... In Greek Mythology, when gods created man, they endowed him with divinity. However, the man started challenging them. They feared his potentials and decided to deprive him of the might. "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 looking 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 change your behaviors or you are bound to follow the dictates? Nature vs Nurture theories focus upon these issues. The new discoveries in genome and quantum physics have revived the debate. Incidentally, more they discover, more they bewilder. The abstraction continues intensifying. How to Define Nature VS Nurture Theories There are three distinctive schools of thought. 1- Personality is Natural This group believes that your personality is result of evolutionary process. You inherit behaviors due to complex interaction of genes. They control 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, education and culture that make up your behaviors. There are differences on the issue of 'free will' to change your behaviors. 3- Personality is Spiritual This group claims that your personality is result of neither nature nor nurture. It is gift of some deity. They are split on the issue of 'free will'. Nature VS Nurture Theories and Evolutionary Psychology - Darwin's theory of evolution led William Hamilton, George Williams and many others to the idea of personality evolution. They proposed that like physical organs, your personality is result of natural selection for survival of the fittest. You do as your genes dictate. They suggest 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 criticism on this approach. 1- There is no single 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 number 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 related genes or a set of genes with any kind of behaviors. 5- There are a good number of living organisms and fossils which suggest intermediary stages to the physical evolution. However, no such intermediary stages are available for personality evolution. Nature VS Nurture Theories and Physics The discoveries in physics have always provided new meat to the nature vs nurture theories. The conclusions of Newton and Einstein helped the people to believe that future events can be predicted with the help of true knowledge of matter and natural laws. This led psychologists to suggest that your future behaviors can be predetermined. The whole mechanism of psychometrics follows this hypothesis. However, quantum 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 quantum physics has shaken determinism. So much so the scientists have to devise "Heisenberg uncertainty principle" which challenges that any physical event can be predicted precisely in time and space. Do you think that particles are too small to affect big events? Reconsider it. What would happen if Hitler had died in his young age of cancer, which can occur with a slight genetic mutation? Nature VS Nurture Theories and Reality "What was the first cause?" Aristotle had asked centuries before It has been proved that the universe is not result 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 important role in making of your behaviors. However, any behavior that you acquire 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 advice is to believe in your personality. Use your free will to develop and refine your behaviors. Utilize all out capabilities to collect small successes daily to build bigger one in future. Your way of thinking and style of doing shall determine your destination. Meanwhile, let the counsels of nature vs nurture theories to continue with their confusing debates. Psychometrics? Some believe in them and others reject them altogether. However, reality lies in between. Saqib Ali Ateel unlocks secrets of personality, intelligence, aptitude and testing at http://www.personality-and-aptitude-career-tests.com/art
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Alternative Medicine Nature VS Nurture - Theories of Personality in 21st Century Nature vs Nurture 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. Treatment Modalities and Therapies Narcissism constitutes the entire personality. It is all-pervasive. Being a narcissist is akin to being an alcoholic but much more so. Alcoholism is an impulsive behaviour. Narcissists exhibit dozens of similarly reckless behaviours, some of them uncontrollable (like their rage, the outcome of their wounded grandiosity). Narcissism is not a vocation. Narcissism resembles depression or other disorders and cannot be changed at will. Dredging the Truth To seek and find truth requires that we communicate within rather than without. When we communicate outside, with other people, truth is always watered down by differing perceptions, consensus, and compromise. People have different understandings. Accepting New Ideas Much of the time when a new idea comes to us, we handle that idea and move on, without ever becoming consciously aware of the process. During the times when we are consciously aware of the process of handling a new idea, we often reject that idea without understanding why we rejected it, or sometimes without even understanding that we did reject it. The Myth of Mental Illness "You can know the name of a bird in all the languages of the world, but when you are finished, you'll know absolutely nothing whatever about the bird? So let's look at the bird and see what it's doing that's what counts. I learned very early the difference between knowing the name of something and knowing something." How Big of a Problem is Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder? Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder - "ADD" or "ADHD" - affects between five to ten percent (5% - 10%) of all children in the United States, and three to six percent (3% - 6%) of adults. About 35% of all children referred to mental health clinics are referred for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, making it one of the most prevalent of all childhood psychiatric disorders. Narcissistic Personality Disorder Tips FIVE DON'T DO'S Traumas as Social Interactions ("He" in this text - to mean "He" or "She"). Achieving an Ambidextrous Mindset History lends us an ideal of ambidexterity: Leonardo da Vinci, Harry Truman and James Garfield were all known to be physically ambidextrous, but to what does that translate? In modern times, ambidexterity isn't a hot topic, but in fact, we are all - to a degree - ambidextrous. Kids and Lifebooks: Tips for Social Workers Every child who is adopted from foster care deserves a clear, detailed record of his or her life prior to adoption. While a foster child is waiting for a forever family, a lifebook can help her to make sense of the past and prepare to go forward. What is Narcissism? A pattern of traits and behaviours which signify infatuation and obsession with one's self to the exclusion of all others and the egotistic and ruthless pursuit of one's gratification, dominance and ambition. We are in the End Days; Oh, Really Now? Some think the world is coming to an end, they cite signs in the Revelations and current world events. The world is not going to end, in all the written history and much of course which maybe somewhat a modified version of what actually happened nothing has ever been perfect and the doom and gloomers of those past periods too were out in fill force. Most of the history we read in the history text books is certainly taken out of perspective of the reality of the time shows us that nothing ever was fine and that what we have here is working and it appears to be working quite well in retrospect. We are in a better place than we have been in any of the written historical record. The World did not end then and it will not end this time. Solution Focus Process: Solution Talk vs. Problem Talk Pt 2 It is crucial that interviewing with helpee progress toward solutions. In addition to Exceptions and Miracle questions, Coping and Scaling questions are also useful and effective methods of moving helpees from problem talk to solution talk. What is the Treatment for Bipolar Disorder? How do we treat bipolar disorder? Specifically, how do we treat mania or depression associated with bipolar disorder? The treatment of these two clinical states is not the same. Why Other Children are Rejecting Your Child Introduction Serial Killers Countess Erszebet Bathory was a breathtakingly beautiful, unusually well-educated woman, married to a descendant of Vlad Dracula of Bram Stoker fame. In 1611, she was tried - though, being a noblewoman, not convicted - in Hungary for slaughtering 612 young girls. The true figure may have been 40-100, though the Countess recorded in her diary more than 610 girls and 50 bodies were found in her estate when it was raided. A Look at The Brain The endless, immeasurable brain. It does seem like more we discover about it, the more mystery we create. Perhaps the most intriguing of all is the child's brain. In certain ways, children are the most brilliant people in the world. They have the ability to absorb more information than we can conceive of as adults. You, I and We Our life in society hovers around the concept of 'You?I? We'. The first stage is 'You-You' which is called 'dependent' stage. As a child, we are dependent on others for our needs and expect help and support from others. The dependence can be either emotional or physical. The second stage is 'I I', where in we attain relative freedom and corresponding changes are noticeable in terms of speech, behavior, movements, preferences, interests and perceptions.In this stage we act with absolute freedom both mentally and physically. The feeling of 'Me-Mine' will be at a high point during this stage. Typical thought processes will be as follows: The Undeniable Power of Suggestion How exactly is the Human Psyche effected by the trivial "power of suggestion?" When a thought or seed is planted into the human mind, the psyche responsively triggers a lingering product of that thought. For example, urban legends have been circulated throughout history; in doing so, a mindset is incorporated into the psyche, creating a deceitful illusion that cannot distinguish fact from fiction. Metaphors of the Mind (Part II) Storytelling has been with us since the days of campfire and besieging wild animals. It served a number of important functions: amelioration of fears, communication of vital information (regarding survival tactics and the characteristics of animals, for instance), the satisfaction of a sense of order (justice), the development of the ability to hypothesize, predict and introduce theories and so on.
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