Research Question: Are all the traits in your body and brain with you from birth or do you develop and learn them while growing up? Does nature or nurture play a bigger role? Can being fatherless effect those traits in a way?

“It is not nature or nurture. Nor is it nature and nurture. . . . Life emerges only from the interaction between the two: There are no genetic factors that can be studied independently of the environment, and there are no environmental factors that function independently of the genome. Phenotype emerges only from the interaction of gene and environment. —Meaney (2001, p. 51).” (Sasaki, Joni Y. and Heejung S. Kim) Many studies have been done thought-out the years to try and settle the nature vs nurture debate that has been going on for decades. Nature and nurture both play a huge part in the traits you have in your body and brain and your personality, and different things, like being fatherless, can affect those traits. “Scientists have long debated whether heredity or environment has the biggest impact on your baby. We've found some surprising answers.” (pfaff) Think of the patterns that both you and you parents have in common, do you think that you do them because you inherited them or because you watched them as you were growing up? Scientists know that your hair color, eye color and even blood type are inherited from your genes but what about other things like eating, sleeping or socializing? 

The “Parents” Magazine article “Nature vs. Nurture,” by Pfaff talks about different things a baby does that are either inherited or learned. Pfaff talks about a baby’s “crying, sleeping, moving, socializing and eating” habits. The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition did a study on identical and fraternal twins that “concluded that the fear of trying unfamiliar foods is primarily genetic.” (Pfaff) One of the major points that is made in this article is when she tells us how sleeping is connected to a baby’s genes based on a study published in Pediatrics that talks about the sleeping patterns of identical and fraternal twins. The study found that “nearly all identical twins shared a tendency to wake up during the night, compared with less than 80 percent of fraternal twins. Researchers also found that identical twins are more likely to share similar napping patterns.” (Pfaff) 

The article “How Women Who Grow Up without a Father Are Different” by Denna Babul and Karin Luise talks about what being fatherless means and introduces some of the effects being fatherless could have not only on your mind and your future relationships but your whole life too. Both Babul and Luise started conducting interviews with fatherless daughters so they could gain the understanding from the daughters about how being without a father has affected their lives. According to the interviews and studies done “fatherless daughters were shown to miss out on gaining a sense of security in life, as they missed out on having him in the home as their protector.” (Babul) Other documented affects of being fatherless were “lower levels of well-being, higher levels of anger-related depression, and emotional difficulty in intimate relationships. The hallmark psychological fall-out, however, is that fatherless women carry an overriding -- often disabling -- fear of abandonment.” (Babul) Although being fatherless has many long-term effects, it also has a couple gifts, or positives. One positive is that women who grow up without a father are more responsible because they “grow up more quickly than [their] peers and [develop] qualities of self-reliance, leadership and perseverance.” (Babul) A negative about being very responsible is that sometimes you can take on too much at one particular time, like taking everyone else’s burdens and trying to carry and deal with them alone, and when you do that it can increase your feelings of unwontedness and lead you to become very ill, or sick. Another positive is that it helps come up with different coping mechanisms that will help her thought out her life. “She [also] learns the importance of loyalty and compassion; becoming a friend that feels more like family to those close to her.” (Babul) Another great positive about being fatherless is that most fatherless daughters tend to have a very close relationship with their mother and feel “a great deal of pride for the hard work she” did after the father left. (Babul) The article “Father Absence, Father Deficit, Father Hunger” by Edward Kruk talks about how being fatherless effects children, both girls and boys, in every aspect of their life’s. A study that he mentions in the article found that “71% of high school dropouts are fatherless [because] fatherless children have more trouble academically” and “are more likely to play truant from school, more likely to be excluded from school, more likely to leave school at age 16, and less likely to attain academic and professional qualifications in adulthood.” (Kruk) Children who grow up without a father are more likely to have mental health problems such as depression, suicide or anxiety, and are also more likely to become teen parents or have alcohol, or drug, addiction problems. 

The book “The Great Brain Debate: Nature or Nurture?” by John Dowling introduces many famous and world-renowned studies done by famous people who have made many scientific discovers. Dowling goes over them and explains them “in a simplified way”. He shows that not only does nature play a part in making us who we are today, but nurture does to. In this E-book Dowling goes into detail about how everything in the body forms from contraception all the way until that person dies. Although it is a fantastic book to read if you want to read about that, I only used the book because it went over how genes come from the parents of the child to determine things like the eye color of the child. When children are born they get 23 chromosomes from their mother and 23 chromosomes from their father, those chromosomes determine things like eye color, hair color, height and many other features that make up the body. Every trait you have in your body has two alleles, and if they are the same they are called homozygous and if they are different they are called heterozygous. An allele could either be dominant, it appears, or recessive, it does not appear. Your eyes could either blue, green, or brown. (Dowling) (Wonders) “Green alleles are dominant over blue alleles, and brown alleles are dominant over both blue and green alleles.” (Wonders) Even though almost all babies are have blue eyes when they are born, the only way for them to keep their blue eyes are if they “received blue alleles from both parents.” (Wonders) 

“When psychologists use the term personality, they are referring to the unique and relatively enduring set of behaviors, feelings, thoughts, and motives that characterize an individual (J. Feist, Feist, & Roberts, 2013; B. Roberts & Mroczek, 2008).” (Feist, Page: 478) As one of my sources I used my psychology book, which had two different chapters devoted to personality, behaviors and genes, the textbook also had many different studies done on twins. Studies done on twins, that are both identical and fraternal, is one of the great methods that scientists use for “examining the effect that genetics plays in behavior and personality.” (Feist, Page: 482) These studies are done on identical and fraternal twins who, some of them, were raised together and, some of them, were raised apart. According to these studies the “most basic personality traits have heritability estimates of between 40% and 60%. In other words, an individual's genetic makeup goes about halfway toward explaining his or her basic traits.” (Feist, Page: 482) One example is “the trait of extraversion, or outgoingness, [which] often correlates around .50 for identical twins and around .24 for fraternal twins, which leads to a heritability estimate of 48%.” (Feist, Page: 482) Some other basic traits that are due to genetics are “neuroticism and conscientiousness”, which has a heritability rate of between 50% and 55%, and “openness and agreeableness”, which has a heritability rate of about 40%. (Feist, Page: 482). 

“Twin studies indicate that heredity (genetics) accounts for 50%–60% of most traits, slightly less for agreeableness and openness. What's surprising is that the influence of the shared environment (home and family) on these traits is small, compared with the influence of the nonshared environment. (Plomin & Caspi, 1999).” (Feist, Page: 482)

Many factors had to be considered when it came to the environment. If they shared an environment such things like living conditions, parents, siblings and the household itself had to be considered. If the twins didn’t share the same environment a lot more factors had to be taken into account, like the friends, teachers and social interactions or groups that the child had and even the order in which the children were born was considered for these twin studies. “Surprisingly, research indicates that the “unshared” environment—differences in birth order or peer groups or even changes in parenting style and attitudes over time—seems to matter most (see Figure 13.2; Arseneault et al., 2003; Bouchard & Loehlin, 2001; Krueger & Johnson, 2008; Plomin & Caspi, 1999; Rutter, 2006).” (Feist, Page: 482) (Angoff) (Andrew) (Sasaki) The article “The Nature-Nurture Debate, Aptitudes, and Group Differences” by William Angoff says “The thesis of this article is that the debate over whether intelligence is largely genetically or largely environmentally determined is actually irrelevant in the context of group differences. The real issue is whether intelligence can be changed, an issue that does not at all go hand in hand with the issue of heritability”. This article also goes with the idea that things like parenting skills, friends and home life plays a part in making people who they are today. For example, a change of scenery can change, your mind about things. Along with a change of scenery you are brought a whole new bunch of experiences that you get to explore. Your favorite thing to do could be playing baseball but, after taking a family vacation to the mountains, you may realize, after you go hiking for the first time, that you love hiking. Things like that can happen all the time. Every time you go somewhere new, you are brought new experiences just waiting for you to explore. The scholarly article “Contemporary Research on Parenting: The Case for Nature and Nurture” by Andrew Collins et al also focuses, and goes hand in hand with the way nature and nurture help build us and makes us who we are today, while also considering other factors like different parenting styles and different environments. In the article “Nature, Nurture, and Their Interplay: A Review of Cultural Neuroscience” by Joni Sasaki and Kim Heejung they “present foundational and current empirical research [on cultural neuroscience], and [they] also discuss theories that aim to explain how various aspects of the social environment are interpreted as meaningful in different cultures and interact with a cascade of biological processes to ultimately influence thoughts and behaviors”. This article also goes hand in hand with the others because they all focus on how the environment and other factors influence nature and nurture. 

Some people think that nature is responsible for all the traits that make up your body and your personality. Although one’s genes are responsible for their eye color and freckles, they aren’t responsible for everything that’s makes up one’s personality. Think about some of the activities some people love to do the most, like football, dancing or painting. Those are all learned traits, which means you learn them by experiencing them. Take football for example, one may come across the sport because their family does it or watches it but just because a member of that person’s family does it doesn’t mean that one has inherited the love, or skill set, for football. The only way to learn to love football, or have the skill set for it, is through watching it and experimenting, or playing, with it. Another example is baseball, just because someone’s dad threw 100 MPH fast balls in their MBA career, doesn’t mean their son is going to be born, or grow up, able to do that, or even want to play baseball. The only way the son is going to get those 100 MPH fast balls is through lots of practice and dedication. (Downes) (Collins) Although it is shown, and proven, that nature plays a big part in making people who they are today, it is also shown, and proven, that nurture plays a big part too. 

Other people think that nurture is responsible for all the traits that make up the human body and personality. It’s true that some personality traits like one’s favorite foods, their sense of humor and the language they speck are learned from the environment or from the people around them, or a mix of both, but what about their shoe size or height? Traits like those and many others are inherited traits that come from the genes that are passed down from one’s parents, or family. Another trait that is passed down by genes are medical conditions, or diseases, such as Cystic Fibrosis, Sickle Cell Anemia or Huntington’s Disease, just to name a few. A few other inherited traits that are passed down from one’s parents are dimples, earlobe attachment and nose size and shape. Take someone’s ear for example, they could either have a detached earlobe or an attached earlobe, look at their ear compared to their mom and dad’s. Do both parents have an attached, or detached, earlobe? Or does just one? Whose earlobes do you take after, your mom’s or dad’s? Nurture may play a big role in what we like and what we do sometimes, but nature plays a big role in what we look like and why we look like that. (Downes) (Collins)

Both Nature and Nurture play big roles in making everyone who they are today because many traits that make everyone up are with them from birth but other traits they have are learned from their environment and experiences thought out their life. Although many people think that your genes and personality are either nature or nurture, they really are accumulated from the mix of both nature and nurture intertwined. Nature helps determine the color of your hair and eyes while nurture helps determine what your favorite candy is and what your love to do in your free time. You need both nature and nurture to be who you are today. Now let’s think about some other big world issues, or debates, like poverty, climate change and destruction of natural resources. 
