In this article, we will discuss Discuss Various Issues in the Study of Personality.
There are various issues in the study of personality that have either remained unresolved or are still in the process of resolution.
Nature versus nurture is probably the oldest issue in psychology. This is an age-old debate among behavioural psychologists, theologians, philosophers, and theorists of consciousness. “Nature versus nurture” is a term invented by the English Victorian Polymath Francis Galton regarding the influence of heredity and environment on the development of personality.
1. Nature versus Nurture Debate
The nature versus nurture debate relates to the relative importance of an individual’s inherent traits versus the personal experiences that lead to individual differences in physical and behavioural traits.
Some scientists are of the view that genetic tendencies or even animal instincts are the push factors behind people’s behaviour. Others believe that the way one behaves is directly dependent upon how the person has been taught to behave. The former is known as the “nature” theory of human behaviour whereas the latter is termed as the “nurture” theory of human behaviour. Sir Francis Galton was fascinated by the idea of genetic pre-programming and tried to uncover the predestined ways of human beings. However, many of his experiments proved not carefully planned but yet his contribution has been vital to the study of personality issues. The technique of fingerprinting and the Word Association Test are the end products of Galton’s contribution.
It has been stated that at the time of birth the child has no specific traits except that it functions through its reflexes. As the child grows day by day, and in the process of socialisation it learns many things regarding the environment. It is said that the child thus at birth is in a blank state of mind or ‘tabula rasa’. Then whatever one wants to put into it, the same would be absorbed and the child’s behaviour accordingly will change. This view holds that “nurture” yields all or almost all the behavioural traits in the individual child. Thus the environment (nurture) plays a significant role in the development of the child’s personality.
However, the fast-growing understanding of the human genome has come up with the information that both sides are right in their own part. Whereas nature provides us with inherent abilities and traits. Nurture reshapes these genetic tendencies and molds them with progressive learning and maturity. This viewpoint which agrees that both nature and nurture play crucial roles in human personality development has come to be known as interactions.
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2. The Nature Theory – Heredity
It has been demonstrated by scientists that traits such as eye colour and hair colour are decided by specific genes. Those are encoded and embedded in each human cell. The things have been taken a step further by the nature theory that formulates in more recent times. It has also been shown that the more abstract traits such as intelligence, aggression, personality and sexual orientation are also encoded in an individual’s DNA. This has led to the concept of behavioural genes which can justify criminal acts or behaviours.
Another debated issue in the context of nature theory is the occurrence of the “gay gene” that points to a genetic component to sexual orientation. If there is no role of genetics, then brotherly twins brought up under the same environmental conditions, would be similar. Even though differences exist in their genetic make-up. But, according to the studies, they closely are similar to each other as compared to non-twin sisters and brothers.
3. The Nurture Theory – Environment
The supporters of the nurture theory are of the view that genetic tendencies ultimately do not matter. They believe that our behavioural aspects originate only from the environmental forces in our upbringing.
American psychologist John Watson, a strong supporter of environmental learning, demonstrated that disorders like phobia could also be explained by classical conditioning.
B.F. Skinner, known as the Father of Behavioral Science, proved that human behaviour could be conditioned in much the same way as animals. Even if nurtured apart, identical twins should have been exactly the same in all respects if the environment had no role to play.
4. Twin Studies
Twin studies are an important tool in resolving the nature versus nurture argument. Identical twins or Monozygotic twins are siblings who have exact duplicates of their genotypes. They best indicate that whether biological dispositions affect traits and psychopathology in human beings.
Fraternal twins, dizygotic twins share exactly half the number of genes with each other. They are a very good base for the comparison of identical twins. Twin studies usually depend on samples of identical and fraternal twins.
5. Infant Shyness
An adoption study was conducted to uncover the reasons behind why some infants are open and responsive to attention, some take a bit longer to open up while some others are withdrawn. It is difficult to tell whether babies are shy because of the environment in which they are brought up as their mothers are shy or because they inherit the shyness traits from their mothers.
Adoptive parents were given questionnaires that asked them to rate their infants on the measure of shyness. The results revealed that in non-adoptive families, the parents with high shyness rates also had shy infants. One significant conclusion revealed that those biological mothers who rated high on shyness had their adopted babies as also shy. This shows some evidence of the effect of a genetic link on the family environment (Daniels & Plomin).
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6. Anti-Social Personality Disorder
Attempts have been made to see whether children who are at risk for antisocial personality disorder develop symptoms in an adoptive family or get protection against the disorder in such an environment. Results have revealed that anti-social personality disorder is more frequent in adopted children having biological risk factors. Results further revealed that if both the biological parents and adoptive parents come from a criminal background, there is a high rate of an element of criminal tendencies in the children.
For various reasons, the interpretation of the results of adoption studies is very difficult and valid conclusions can’t be made. Genetic factors are “simulated” when the adoptive family environment is similar to the biological environment.
7. Family Studies
Family studies play an important role in resolving the heredity versus environment debate. These are mainly used to identify the degree of risk of developing mental disorders by relatives and other family members. Such studies are mainly used to determine the risk of inheritance of mental disorders to children within families. These types of studies are performed using molecular genetic studies where the DNA from the participant’s blood samples is taken and the observed behaviour is projected.
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