The debate of whether nature or nurture influences childhood development has been a quintessential aspect of developmental psychology for centuries. Developmental psychologists have been trying to understand if children are born with inherited personality features, or if they adopt these features throughout their lifetime.

After studying multiple topics of human development and behavior, I have come to the conclusion that both nature and nurture are responsible for shaping a person’s personality, but nurture has more prevalence over nature.

Although the development of physical features such as one’s facial structure, body weight/height, and hair color are pre-embedded their DNA, mental features such as one’s thought processes, moral and ethical positions, and construction of their psyche are all products of their environment and outside catalysts.

From Ivan Pavlov to Philip Zimbardo, social scientists have manipulated the idea of nature vs. nurture, applying it to various labs and tests in order to strengthen their argument. One of the most formidable psychologists to participate in the study of nature vs. nurture is none other than Austrian psychoanalyst, Sigmund Freud.

Freud took great interest in the mind and how the development of the mind shaped a child’s personality. Freud believed in three main parts of the mind; the conscious mind, the preconscious mind, and the unconscious mind.

Underneath the layers of the mind, Freud believed there lived a person’s “psyche”. The psyche consists of three parts as well, closely related to the parts of the mind: the superego, the ego, and the id.

The id is the primary stage of personality development, hence the nickname “the inner child”. However, the id is a primitive part of the mind; it is instinctual and unsympathetic.

At ages 1-3, the second part of the psyche is formed: the ego. The ego mediates and protects the id from irrational decision making, helping kids learn right from wrong.

At ages 3-5, the last part of the psyche is formed, the superego. The superego is the internal parent, responsible for chastising the ego for failing to suppress the id.

Freud believed that throughout a person’s life, the id would grow weaker and weaker, while the ego and superego grew stronger. In the case of nature vs. nurture, nurture takes the victory here.

Sigmund Freud thought of the parent as a child’s first form of environmental influence in its lifetime. In his book, An Outline of Psychoanalysis (1940), Freud discussed the importance of a parent’s role in their child’s life.

He believed that the ways that a child conditioned their child in its youth are the same way it would grow as an adult (Freud, 1899). However, he also believed that the impression parents had on their children fades away over time, leaving it up to the child to find new ways of conditioning.

In an ideal world, a child should experience various forms of situation and consequence in their lifetime, helping them develop their ego as they learn right from wrong. Learning is a skill that is based on the acquisition of new knowledge or in other words, knowledge that is not inherited.

The tools that one needs in order to transcend immaturity and childhood is all dependent on the pieces of knowledge they pick up during growth. In Freud’s eyes, John Doe could have been a bed-wetting, tantrum-throwing, spoiled brat as a child due to his parent’s faults, but has all the potential to grow up to into a poised, erudite, example of a man. It is all about his nurturing in this case.

Freud’s idea of acquiring new knowledge as life progresses is an idea of social science even before his time. Psychologists Max Wertheimer, Kurt Koffka, and Wolfgang Köhler are all credited to the theory of Gestalt psychology, or “whole” psychology.

The main basis of Gestalt psychology is that “all of the [individual] events in a human’s life are related to one another” (OERu Psychology). Gestalt psychologists believe that experiences cannot be broken down into parts, and the culmination of these experiences are what shapes a human personality.

For instance, think of a soldier after a war. There have been many cases where soldiers return back from war with post-traumatic stress disorders and cases of extreme hysteria. After months of hearing firearms echoing, grenades exploding, and blood splattering everywhere in plain sight, these individual events begin to submerge into one gruesome scene of war, endlessly replaying in their mind.

As these events purloin the minds of soldiers, they can begin to show a range of different emotions, from reclusiveness and standoffishness to hostility and sheer insanity. Since psychological evaluations are required before one is drafted into war, it is no secret that these wars are in fact the catalyst for such traumatic change in one’s personality.

A soldier that could have been born completely healthy could grow up to be mentally ill after months on the battlefield, proving nurture’s prevalence over nature. The way that an environment of chaos and pandemonium can impact a person’s personality is the same way that an environment of faulty parents can impact a child’s personality (in the case of Sigmund Freud).

Wertheimer, Koffka, and Köhler all helped proved that experiences are ultimately what shape personality, regardless of the way a person was brought into the world.

From parental interaction to personal life experiences, nurture has proven itself to be the more dominant counterpart in the discussion of nature vs. nurture. It is easy to prove that two people are inevitably bound to grow up differently and express different personalities when the world is filled with such a diverse amount of races, ethnicities, and religions.

However, what happens when two people of the same family, same gender, same race, and same DNA are compared? An advocate for nature would be a hypocrite if they disagreed that these two people would share the exact same personality traits… but they do.

Recent studies in epigenetics proved to scientists that identical twins that share that same DNA are capable of having two completely different sexual orientations. The University of California has prepared a twin studies case for the American Society of Human Genetics in Baltimore.

In this study, it was discovered that it was possible to tell whether a man was homosexual or heterosexual by monitoring tiny changes in how his DNA functions after birth (The Telegraph). The performers of this experiment found that epigenetic changes are known to be triggered by environmental factors such as chemical exposure, childhood abuse, diet, exercise, and stress.

Out of the 37 twins that were involved in the study, there were only 10 pairs in which both twins were homosexual. Since sexual orientation is a major part of personality, this study ultimately showed that nature has no final determination of personality. The environmental factors that influenced the twin’s sexual orientation are all due to nurture, proving its relevance in development.

It is a menial effort for one to prove that both nature and nurture play a role in determining a human’s personality. However, deciphering which one trumps the other is another task.

By studying the parental influence on their offspring at impressionable ages, lifetime experiences affecting a person’s entire psyche, and sexual orientation differentiation in identical twins, nurture has proven to reign dominant over nature in the case of personality determination.

Nurture is the key function of human development, verifying that interpersonal, environmental, and genealogical influences all contribute to shaping one’s personality.