Nature, nurture and determinism

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Nature, Nurture and Destiny

The debate of nature vs. nurture in the development of personality, identity and behavior is one of the most vibrant and interesting topics in psychology and the social sciences, particularly sociology. The short video presented discussed this and questioned the viability of both while presenting evidence of both positions as well. The video is mostly sociological rather than psychological in nature and also provided some viewpoints from biology - that genetics determine sex and gender. Aside from this however, the video pushed the idea that genetics also is a factor in personality and character formation for traits and tendencies of parents become the tendencies and preferences of the offsprings too. Now, if we throw 'destiny' to the mix where nature (the genetics of a human being) and/or the nurturing of a human being (socialization) are already battling out being the supposed 'true' factor for the development of human identity, personality and behavior and we have a more complex picture for the simple reason that destiny is a term that requires the notion of 'predetermination' to already be accepted. Destiny is a predetermined course of events where the course of events affecting a person or a group of people is attributed to have been designed to achieve a particular end only. If destiny is real then it also requires the acceptance of a 'God' or a higher power which means the acceptance that because there is a purpose and an order to the events before us and the people and objects/things that are around us, then poverty and misery also have a purpose. What then does this make the notion of nurture and nature? Destiny is not determined by any other factors aside from what is predetermined according to the designs of the Divine or a higher power. If this is the case then both nature and nurture are processes of predetermination to bring an individual to perform his life, which is his/her destiny. The question then is not whether nature or nurture is a better determinant of one's destiny. I think it would be far more relevant to see how nature and nurture interact to affect the full development of personality & identity.

Example of Nature vs. Nurture ...