Nature versus nurture

Nature versus nurture is a shorthand expression for debates about the relative importance of an individual's "nature" versus personal experiences ("nurture") in determining or causing physical and behavioral traits.

Uncomplicated cases

In a few clear-cut cases, it makes sense to say that a trait is due almost entirely to nature, or almost entirely to nurture. In the case of most diseases now strictly identified as genetic, such as Huntington's disease, there is a better than 99.9% correlation between having the identified gene and the disease and a similar correlation for not having either. On the other hand, such traits as one's native language are entirely environmentally determined: linguists have found that any child (if capable of learning a language at all) can learn any human language with equal facility. With many traits, however, there is an intermediate mix of nature and nurture, and opinions about the relative importance of each will often vary widely.

Related Topics:
Huntington's disease - Native language

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Cognitive psychologist Steven Pinker (2004) described several examples:

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:concrete behavioral traits that patently depend on content provided by the home or culture?which language one speaks, which religion one practices, which political party one supports?are not heritable at all. But traits that reflect the underlying talents and temperaments?how proficient with language a person is, how religious, how liberal or conservative?are partially heritable.

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Other plausible examples of environmental, interactional, and genetic traits are:

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Entirely Environmental Interactional Entirely Genetic

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