Question

Which play a greater role in child development, genetic or environmental influences?

Answer 1

The question of how genes versus environment influences human development has been an ongoing debate for a very long time and at present there is no clear winner, as both nature (genes) and nurture (environmental factors) seem to play a vital and important role in human development.

Nature can, in general, be defined as genetic inheritance or the genetic , a person inherits from the parents at the time of conception and carries throughout life. There are several things in an individual those are genetically inherited, like gender, eye colour, height etc.

In contrast, nurture can be defined as the different environmental factors to which a person is subjected since birth. Environmental factors too involve many dimensions like physical environment and social environment which have different levels of impact on human development.

Nature is responsible for the growth of a person from the foetus level. Nature assist in the growth of a foetus into a normal well-developed adult. Thus it is concluded genetic coding helps in physical development and does impart some positive or negative traits to an individual. However, it is nurture which can improve positive traits and diminish the effect of negative traits in a child.

It is important to address that nature in the form of inherited traits does exist but a person’s overall behaviour is influenced by upbringing and the environmental factors involved in his upbringing. For example, the kids take part in activities like learning music, dance etc in accordance with their and interests; However, the talent have been given by nature but development of the talent into skills is because of nurture. So, undoubtedly, nurture plays a very big role in early human development.

In conclusion, it is evident that nature is responsible for producing healthy and well-developed babies. Nature is responsible for the normal development of the foetus ,but it cannot entirely develop that foetus into an intelligent, knowledgeable adult. This is possible only through the exposure that nurture gives an infant (upbringing). Therefore, it would be correct to say that although the nature has some degree of influence, nurture strongly influences early human development.