How nature and nurture affect the development of social-emotion attributes

Introduction

Nature or nature: Which between the two is dominant determinant of human development? Over the year’s scientist have debated over the stereotypical question of nature vs. nurture the findings are complicated . The discussions appeared to be hovering around as to which between the two aspects carries significant weight in influencing the human development. In an attempt of resolve this debate, scientists have opted to use twins and adoption studies to understand, heredity and environment influence on human development. However, the finding of the two studies as even increased the intense of the debate. In the biological context, scientist found the twin study more appealing due to the identical genes carried but monozygotic twins. Twin study concludes that there are strong genetic links to the development if psychological disturbances and drug dependencies. On other hand, adoption studies conclude that outwards environmental forces determine is responsible for the human and shape them grow. To some extent, regardless how the two studies are conflicting, still both are essential as it explains it influences the physical, cognitive, social-emotional development of a human being. Consequently, with the aid of twin and adoption study the paper seeks to focus on how nature and nature influence the social-emotional aspect of human development.

Related to the case at hand, there are various theories, which have attempted to shade lights and explain human development. However, major theories, these are, Ericson psychosocial theory, Behaviorism theory and Freud’s psychoanalytical theory and John Bowlby’s attachment theory have centered their hypothesis on the impact of human development (Tetzlaff, 2015). Erickson psychosocial theory leans on the structure and topography of personality in a series of stages of development in a person. Additionally, Erik believed that the principle of psychosocial is genetically predictable in shaping human development as it occurs in every human being. Erick was primary focuses on how to personify and behavior is an individual is influenced after birth rather than before birth. In the respect, Erik has appeared to be an environmentalist. Environmentalist alleges that personal development is affected by how they are nurtured within the environment. The study of adoption underpins this presumption. In the context, the social environment appears more significant the physical environment to human socio-emotional development (Kassin, 2010).

Social-emotional is a human domain, which explains an individual perception, interaction and the experience of the world. However, both children’s and adults obtain, apply, and disperse knowledge, attitude, and skills necessary to understand and manage emotions by a process. The primary feature of social-emotional development include emotions management, ability to feel companionate, behavior regulation, develop empathy to other and establish and maintain a social relationship. According to scientific researches, the domain of social emotion is unique for every individual. In other words, every individual exhibit a peculiar character when acting under social-emotions (Kupperman, 2012).

The cause of disagreement emerges at the point whether nature or nature influence the behavior of social emotions. First, it is important to analyze the growth of social emotion from infancy to adulthood. A study indicates that infants have the ability to perceive experience and express emotions before they could even understand. The social-emption abilities exhibited by humans in infancy is associated with learning, in this case, nature plays a more significant role compared to nature. Infants learn to recognize, manage, label, and communicate their emotions as they grow up (White, Livesey, & Hayes, 2012). The learning and practice are acquired when children interact with family, teachers, and community at large. At adulthood, individuals sense of social of emotion will differ with their childhood behavior and the behavior will be similar to the caregiver irrespective of whether they his/her biological parents.

Adoption theory underpins the above explanation. In the adoption studies, children have a high affinity of picking social-emotional behavior from their caregiver. Taking a research as a case study for example, a kid was raised by Christian adoptive parents. The parents were polite, good-hearted, and compassionate as expected from a Christian family. While growing up, the kid picked the same traits from the parents. When the kid’s parents were traced, they had a differing social –emotion attributes. The same is stated by John Bowlby’s attachment theory, which explains that an effective bonding develops between an infant and the primary caregiver. It implies that the first caregiver determines the social-emotional development of an infant while a subsequent caregiver will have no much impact (White, Livesey, & Hayes, 2012).

In a biological approach, Freud’s psychoanalytical theory argue that some social-emotion traits are hereditary determined. For instance, social emotions element such as anger, rudeness, dislikes and likes and likes are inherited rather than developed through nurturing (Kupperman, 2012). With the help of twin study, scientists have attempted to counter the nurturing phenomenon by suggesting that human being’s the social-emotional aspects are carried in the genes rather the common genes (Tetzlaff, 2015). In the experiment, twin Sol and Luna, who were 100 percent of the same DNA, were separated to a different geographical location for twelve years. Upon their reunion, both girls exhibited a dislike in rock type of music and a habit of crying when slightly offended. Another fascinating phenomenon noted was their similarity in the choice of their clothes Sol and Luna both were fond of putting on dresses. In the case, it can be concluded that environment has little to affect the social emotion aspects of an individual (Wright, 2013),

Relying on the Erickson psychosocial theory, he expanded and revealed possible psychosocial stages that are likely to be affected by the impact of nature and nature. The stages are categorized basing on age cycle of human being between infancy and adulthood. In the stages, human beings experiences internal emotional crisis relevant to the age chartists. The most susceptible life’s stages are infancy, play age, and maturity. At early childhood, humans are torn between trusts and mistrust (White, Livesey, & Hayes, 2012). An infant finds it hard to rest in the hands of a stranger. To recap the attachment theory, children incline to develop a strong bonding with the primary caregiver, and this is the reason a kid will cry in the hands of strangers but feels comfortable in their parents’ hands. At play age, a human is bound to develop a sense of initiative and guilty. Playing is vital for a child regarding social gains through learning their roles in a particular game. Learning roles and responsibility often builds the initiative element in a child. On the other hand, failure to honor roles and accountability is to develop a sense of guilt. The last affected stage is the maturity age, at old age, individual exhibit generality, and stagnation, therefore, they incline to develop, and exhibit integrity and despair in the social emotions encounter (White, Livesey, & Hayes, 2012).

In the attempt to prove the thesis the paper, data, and findings from empirical psychological studies are sufficient. As mentioned above, the topic, which has launched the debate, is stereotypical and this has influenced the interpretation of data. For instance, from a cultural perspective, the society is known of associating human development attributes mostly with nature aspect while environment impact is often ignored. Social-emotions traits exhibited by an individual are believed to hereditary. Historically, the society has been stereotypical when judging an individual basing on social-emotional domains. Culture also affects the uniformity of the date mainly separate twin study. Concerning the stages of development, traits exhibited by individual upon adulthood is not linked with the infancy development. The conflict between interpretation basing on cultural perspective and scientific explanation affects the relevancy and accuracy of the data (Kassin, 2010).

Socio-emotional development is largely influenced by nurturing factors such as family, culture, and environment. As revealed by the adoption study, a family usually act as the primary caregiver thereby they contribute much to the social-emotional development of the infant. Infants learn emotional recognition, management, and application from the primary caregiver (White, Livesey, & Hayes, 2012). As well, culture possesses effect to nurture’s influence influences on social emotions. For instance, in a study where twin is separated and brought up under different cultural practices, the twin had the possibility of displaying Hoboken: trait but customized by culture. Culture plays a the role of instilling social traits to an individual as studies indicate that, people from the same locality share common social trait like language accent. Lastly, environment comprises weather conditions and demographic aspects such urbanization. For instance, weather condition determines the choice of dressing and food while demographic aspects influence social elements such as habits an depressing code too (Kassin, 2010).

Conclusion

Evidence from twin and adoption studies with the underpinning of psychosocial and psychoanalytical theories have sufficiently attempted to explain how nature and nurture affect the development of social-emotion attributes in humans. However, the debate still rages because since nature and nurture have failed integrate because studies on twin and adoptions strive to counter each other. Twin study insists that nature if has a larger influence on the development of social-emotion than the compared to nurture, on the other hand, adoption studies insist that family, culture, and environment are responsible for social-emotion growth in humans. To harmonize the debate, it is reliable to conclude that both nature and nurture plays equal roles in human development.