When analyzing the topics of nature vs. nurture, I believe in most cases that nature outweighs nurturing. For instance, there are several cases in which identical twins were separated at birth, and did not know about the other. The twins often times grow up to be extremely similar, like in the case we studied earlier this year about the twins, Jim L. and Jim S. During infancy, the boys were separated and adopted to different families in Ohio, unaware that they had a twin. The two had extremely odd similarities between them that seem to be more than coincidence. For instance, when the boys were younger, they both had had dogs that they named Toy, they both bit their fingernails, suffered from headache syndromes at the age of 18, each married twice, first to a Linda and then Betty, they named their sons James Alan and James Allen, they had a circular bench around a tree in their backyard, went to the same vacation spot each summer, and had similar hand gestures, voices and mannerisms.
In a more serious case to analyze nature vs. nurture, the case of David Reimer is an excellent example of nature overpowering. As explained in a previous post of mine on Ethical Issues in Psychology, David Reimer was a case in which a young boy was damaged beyond repair in surgery, and then was brought up by his parents as though he were a girl. This scarred him for his life, and majorly impacted him. He always acted as a tom boy even when he was being raised as a girl, and eventually decided to be a boy rather than the girl which he was raised as. Nature outweighed nurture.
On a lighter note, in more everyday cases in an average person's life, there are also things that lead to the conclusion that nature would overpower nurture. You know you've heard from some person that they laugh like there dad, act just like their mom, etc etc. A persons true identity is from how they were born.
Tempora the Super Heroine
This is the story about the super heroine Tempora!
Tempora was a normal person, just like you and me. She enjoyed frolicking through flowers, petting baby hippos, crying at the last Harry Potter movie, and writing blogs for her psychology class! But, one tragic day, she was hanging out with the Powerpuff Girls and accidentely drank some chemical x. But, instead of turning into a cute little Powerpuff girl, all that happened to her was that her Temporal Lobes grew, making her ears stick out even further than they already did. Tempora cried herself to sleep that night, but woke up in the middle of the night frightened, as she could hear and smell a fire raging. But, there was no fire nearby. She brushed it off as her imagination and went back to sleep. The next morning, Tempora awoke to her mother sobbing, and discovered that her grandmother had died in a fire a couple streets down. Tempora became extremely confused. Was she just dreaming about it? Or did she really wake up smelling that? She came upon the conclusion that she did infact now have super smell and sound. She swore vengeance upon whoever started the fire. For weeks, at every hint of a fire there was, she ran to the smell, but mostly just to be let down by a small fireplace or backyard bonfire. Tempora eventually began to give up. She began to ignore the smells, just shoving them off as small fires, as her nose became accustomed to the smell, and her ears the sound. But, one night Tempora heard a more intense sound than usual, paired with a stronger smell. Tempora raced to the smell, as it was rather close, and caught glimpse of a man running away. She chased him down, and with the aid of the angry villagers gathered with torches and pitchforks when they saw Tempora running, they caught the man who set fire to the house as well as her grandmothers, and put him in jail. They all lived happily ever after.!(:
Tempora was a normal person, just like you and me. She enjoyed frolicking through flowers, petting baby hippos, crying at the last Harry Potter movie, and writing blogs for her psychology class! But, one tragic day, she was hanging out with the Powerpuff Girls and accidentely drank some chemical x. But, instead of turning into a cute little Powerpuff girl, all that happened to her was that her Temporal Lobes grew, making her ears stick out even further than they already did. Tempora cried herself to sleep that night, but woke up in the middle of the night frightened, as she could hear and smell a fire raging. But, there was no fire nearby. She brushed it off as her imagination and went back to sleep. The next morning, Tempora awoke to her mother sobbing, and discovered that her grandmother had died in a fire a couple streets down. Tempora became extremely confused. Was she just dreaming about it? Or did she really wake up smelling that? She came upon the conclusion that she did infact now have super smell and sound. She swore vengeance upon whoever started the fire. For weeks, at every hint of a fire there was, she ran to the smell, but mostly just to be let down by a small fireplace or backyard bonfire. Tempora eventually began to give up. She began to ignore the smells, just shoving them off as small fires, as her nose became accustomed to the smell, and her ears the sound. But, one night Tempora heard a more intense sound than usual, paired with a stronger smell. Tempora raced to the smell, as it was rather close, and caught glimpse of a man running away. She chased him down, and with the aid of the angry villagers gathered with torches and pitchforks when they saw Tempora running, they caught the man who set fire to the house as well as her grandmothers, and put him in jail. They all lived happily ever after.!(:
I Am Sam
This movie has several components that relate to psychology. The major one is of course; the elements of both Sam and his group of friends with other mental disabilities. Sam and all of his group of friends are all fully grown adults living with some sort of mental disorder. In addition to this, Sam also seems to have a case of OCD. In several parts throughout the movie, Sam exhibits behavior such as going to a certain restaurant the same time every week, and having to eat a certain thing at a certain place, or else he becomes very upset. Another aspect of psychology is seen in the neighbor, Annie. Annie is seen to have agoraphobia, which is the fear of being in open spaces. Which she eventually overcomes for a short period of time to help Sam in court, but then again shows signs of agoraphobia when she screams when a car door is almost opened. Finally, there are also many different types of personalities displayed throughout the movie, such as comparing Sam's personality to Rita's. Making I Am Sam full of psychological components.
Ethical Issues
One major ethical issue that occured in the field of Psychology happened with the case of David Reimer. This case had several ethical concerns involved, and was very unethical.
In this case, there were two twin boys born. However, once they reached eight months old, they needed an operation, in which for one of the boys went terribly wrong. Due to a sexual organ of his being completely destroyed by a risky way to perform the surgery, they decided to grow the baby up as a girl instead.They did this as a study to truly test the theories of nature vs nurture. The study was proven to be successful until David reached an older age and began to act more and more like a male rather than a female, and while he was younger he was always more tomboy-ish than a normal girl would be. In addition to simply this seeming extremely unethical, it was also stated by both of the brothers that while they were younger and still being observed by the psychologist John Money, that the psychologist had done innapropriate things to them and forced them to do inappropriate things to each other.
The ethical concerns within this case are pretty clear to see. One ethical conern is the choice being made for David to study on him whether or not he would successfully identify with being a female or not. This was unethical as he was born a male, and other people harmed him in a way in that he could have had problems completely identifying with the opposite gender, which evidentely, effected both him and others majorly later on in life. He became depressed, had issues within his marriage, and eventually commited suicide. His twin brother also committed suicide a few years before David. Another major ethical concern was how the psychologist treated the children. The way in which he did inappropriate things with the children was extremely unethical, and negatively impacted the chilfren.
I feel this study was one of the most unethical studies done of all time. They changed the gender of an infant to simply attempt to find the result of a study. The lasting impact this study could have had on the child was not fully contemplated and as a result, impacted the lives of several in a very negative way.
In this case, there were two twin boys born. However, once they reached eight months old, they needed an operation, in which for one of the boys went terribly wrong. Due to a sexual organ of his being completely destroyed by a risky way to perform the surgery, they decided to grow the baby up as a girl instead.They did this as a study to truly test the theories of nature vs nurture. The study was proven to be successful until David reached an older age and began to act more and more like a male rather than a female, and while he was younger he was always more tomboy-ish than a normal girl would be. In addition to simply this seeming extremely unethical, it was also stated by both of the brothers that while they were younger and still being observed by the psychologist John Money, that the psychologist had done innapropriate things to them and forced them to do inappropriate things to each other.
The ethical concerns within this case are pretty clear to see. One ethical conern is the choice being made for David to study on him whether or not he would successfully identify with being a female or not. This was unethical as he was born a male, and other people harmed him in a way in that he could have had problems completely identifying with the opposite gender, which evidentely, effected both him and others majorly later on in life. He became depressed, had issues within his marriage, and eventually commited suicide. His twin brother also committed suicide a few years before David. Another major ethical concern was how the psychologist treated the children. The way in which he did inappropriate things with the children was extremely unethical, and negatively impacted the chilfren.
I feel this study was one of the most unethical studies done of all time. They changed the gender of an infant to simply attempt to find the result of a study. The lasting impact this study could have had on the child was not fully contemplated and as a result, impacted the lives of several in a very negative way.
Anxiety
The psychological disorder anxiety affects about 25% of people. So, as there are roughly 311 million people in the US, about 77.75 million people in the US suffer from some sort of anxiety disorder, as there are many different types of this disorder. There's panic disorders, social phobias, simple phobias and generalized anxiety disorder. While most cases of anxiety are in women, there are some factors that may affect this. In our society, men are supposed to be seen as more stoic and masculine, while women are seen as vulnerable and fragile. Therefore, women and men may actually experience the same amount of anxiety, or men may in fact actually have more cases of it, but do not report it. However, there are also cases supporting that there truly is a larger population of women with anxiety than men. For example, women are more likely to be single parents, we're less physically able to defend ourselves compared to how men can defend themselves in a certain situation, and women face gender discrimination in work places far more often than males.
The disorder anxiety affects people in different ways depending on the type of anxiety exhibited by the person, however, the one type of anxiety I am focusing on now is the type I myself have, GAD, or General Anxiety Disorder. The things that commonly cause this type of anxiety is constant worrying. For me, I feel the need to be the best, like I have to be perfect, and when I cannot achieve this, or I feel like I'm going to fail, my anxiety begins, and I occasionally have anxiety attacks. However, my anxiety only gets to a point where it is hard to handle in instances such as in the beginning of my school year, I was at school from 7:20-6 four days a week, and 7:20-9 the other because of volleyball and marching band. When I begin to get anxious, my mind goes blank, so there's no hope of me doing any schoolwork, I'm extremely irritable and on edge, I'm tired all the sudden, and I often have shortness of breath and have a hard time breathing if I am having a full out attack. These symptoms are common symptoms of a person who is suffering from anxiety. Also, some people have msucle tension and sleep disturbance. As a result from this, the next day after an episode of serious anxiety, a person usually looks very tired. Which, lucky me, I do. After a night where my anxiety is bad, the bags under my eyes are terrible.
Due to the fact that I have anxiety, I know that people with anxiety fit into society perfectly fine. Most people wouldn't even be able to tell apart a person with anxiety from a person who doesn't have anxiety, due to the fact that the only real thing that would show is the person's tiredness and possibly frequent worrying. Otherwise, people with anxiety don't have a difficult time at all fitting in with others from todays society at all. People with anxiety are normal functioning people just as everyone else.
The disorder anxiety affects people in different ways depending on the type of anxiety exhibited by the person, however, the one type of anxiety I am focusing on now is the type I myself have, GAD, or General Anxiety Disorder. The things that commonly cause this type of anxiety is constant worrying. For me, I feel the need to be the best, like I have to be perfect, and when I cannot achieve this, or I feel like I'm going to fail, my anxiety begins, and I occasionally have anxiety attacks. However, my anxiety only gets to a point where it is hard to handle in instances such as in the beginning of my school year, I was at school from 7:20-6 four days a week, and 7:20-9 the other because of volleyball and marching band. When I begin to get anxious, my mind goes blank, so there's no hope of me doing any schoolwork, I'm extremely irritable and on edge, I'm tired all the sudden, and I often have shortness of breath and have a hard time breathing if I am having a full out attack. These symptoms are common symptoms of a person who is suffering from anxiety. Also, some people have msucle tension and sleep disturbance. As a result from this, the next day after an episode of serious anxiety, a person usually looks very tired. Which, lucky me, I do. After a night where my anxiety is bad, the bags under my eyes are terrible.
Due to the fact that I have anxiety, I know that people with anxiety fit into society perfectly fine. Most people wouldn't even be able to tell apart a person with anxiety from a person who doesn't have anxiety, due to the fact that the only real thing that would show is the person's tiredness and possibly frequent worrying. Otherwise, people with anxiety don't have a difficult time at all fitting in with others from todays society at all. People with anxiety are normal functioning people just as everyone else.
Study on Piaget's Theory - Stages of Development
I find this study very interesting, as it seems like such a simple concept to understand, as it is something very easy for older people to comprehend. But, at a young age children do not understand in their current stage of development the idea of Conservation, that things do not change in quanity when they are spread out, broken or put into a different container.
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