The concept of nature versus nurture is something that has been argued in psychology for a very long time.  This idea of nature versus nurture questions whether people’s personalities have to do with the way they are raised and the environment that they have grown up in, or if everyone is born a certain way.  Many different psychologists have argued both sides and each side has different evidence that support them.  Several studies have been done to test the theories and the consensus that has been reached by both sides is that it’s neither nature of nurture that determine your personality, it’s a mixture of both.  One or the other could be dominant for certain people, but for the most part they both affect the way your personality develops.

I know in my life, both nature and nurture have played a part in the development of my personality.  My personality is definitely a good mix of both of my parents, but I share a lot of the same traits with my mother.   We are both very careful and put a lot of thought into things before we do something.  We both share the same ideas and opinions because we think very similarly.  On the other hand, my father and I share some traits as well.  We are both very much “game heads” and extremely competitive and driven.  We work hard in everything we do until we get what we want.  Me having similar personalities to my parents is definitely nature.  Both of their personalities were passed to me through genetics, which supports the concept of nature.

Supporting the nurture side of it, there are definitely different events in my life that have influenced my personality and who I am today.  Different things have created fears that wouldn’t have been fears if the events hadn’t happened.  I am scared of squirrels, but I am also scared of being left by someone I love.  These two things are extremely different, but are fears because of different events that occurred in my life.  I am afraid of squirrels because when I was taking a walk in the woods once and a squirrel fell out of a tree right in front of me.  It flipped over at least 5 times and landed on its feet and starred right at me.  It scared me so much I actually ran away screaming.  The reason I am afraid of being left by someone I love is because of my parents getting a divorce.  They got a divorce when I was a sophomore in high school, so I grew up having two parents that loved each other and that loved me.  All of sudden, one day, that all changed.  My dad left my mom, which completely flipped my world upside down.  This is obviously a much more significant event than the one with the squirrel, but they both had an affect on my personality and my fears.   This supports the nurture side of the argument and helps show that both nature and nurture have played a role in my life.

The environment in which one grows up, or the way in which one is nurtured, can greatly affect what an individual likes in their future. Many times a child will learn to enjoy the same things that their family enjoys.

Empiricism has played a huge role in my life in many ways, but the biggest evidence of empiricism I can demonstrate is my love and passion for the sport of hockey. My father has always loved hockey, and even played for his high school team back in Pittsburgh. I have watched as many Pittsburgh Penguin hockey games with my father as possible for as long as I can remember.

Although I have been watching hockey with my dad for a long time, he was not the main source of my love and passion for hockey. When my mom was but a teenager, she lived with her sister and parents next to Duane Rupp, a former Pittsburgh Penguin defenseman (actually the first Penguin defenseman to record a hat trick in franchise history). My mother’s family befriended the Rupps and frequented Penguin games with Mrs. Rupp in Melon Arena. After college, my aunt decided to get Penguin tickets of her own; she has had season tickets for about twenty seasons now (and counting). She never had children or got married, so her niece or nephews usually accompanied her to games.

It is one thing to enjoy the sport of ice hockey on television, but to watch it in person is a whole different experience. I have attended hundreds of Penguin games in my life, fueling my addiction.

During my childhood, I liked all sports, but as I grew older and became more able to form opinions of my own, I began to veer towards hockey and away from other sports. Today I find it more and more difficult to enjoy other sports as much as I used to (besides hockey). I also played inline hockey from 8th to 12th grade, an I intend to play on Penn State’s club team next year.

It really is incredible how big of an influence an individual’s family can be on their lives. My love and passion for hockey may be an extreme case, but it is easy to see how empiricism works.

The concepts of nature(nativism) or nurture(empiricism) is an old debate that has spanned for centuries. The concept of nature is that our thoughts, ideas and characteristics are all inborn. Simply put, anything that comes to mind or makes you who you are has been preset from the beginning. While the concept of nurture is based on the fact that knowledge is gained through experiences. In other words, rather than your personality being determined by your genes like nativism describes, nurture is more based on that your personality was developed on your experiences and your upbringing. The debate is tough because there are so many cases that one concept is the reasonable cause for such behavior and vice versa.

Myself being the first generation person born in the U.S. from parents who were Vietnam War refugees. My early years I barely spoke any English, because my mother hardly knew English and primarily raised me, while my father worked. When I started school, I noticed vast differences between myself and the other students, other than my proficiency in the English language. All throughout my education before college, as my English improved, I still noticed these differences. One example was motivation to study and work hard. In high school, there were people who were, for lack of a better word, lazy. They just wanted to take easy classes, just get by through high school, and kept using the excuse that “it wouldn’t help them in life”. For awhile, I thought for reason why their personalities were like this. Eventually, I just concluded that it was possibly their culture or how they were raised at home. This case would be a prime example of nurture.

On the other hand, my sister and I are two very different people. I have a personality where I like to be independent and try things on my own, whereas my sister is more of the type to follow around and try to avoid doing things alone. The big question is that how can two polar opposites emerge when we were raised in the same house, same culture, and went to the same school district up until college? Now, I realize that there are some siblings out there who are nearly identical in terms of personality, however, it was never in my case. Why were our personalities different? Was it because of the gender differences or did something we experience in our lives cause us to be so different? I believe my sister and I are different because we just had different personalities from the start. This case would probably be an example of nature.