“The more that I looked at DNA, the more I realized it was nature and nurture. It is how genes and your environment work together to produce the person you are”.

Let’s take an example; there is an instance where a civilised, educated, rich husband allegedly beat her wife because the food is prepared is not by his choice. Another one is that a slum dweller poor husband helps his wife to clean their utensil on a foggy winter night. From the above example, it is procrastinated that your behaviour and action is not controlled by your background but influenced by your surroundings. Since the dawn of history, there is always a conflict between nature vs nurture in terms of psychology In terms of biology it is heredity versus environment also in terms of sociology it is character versus culture and so on.

Nature–it is our genetics, which determines our behaviour, our personality traits and abilities. Nurture – our environment upbringing and life experiences determine our behaviour. We are nurtured to behave in certain ways.  Simply it is defined as the word “nature” argues that people are shaped primarily by genetics and biology. Nurture argues that our participation in social life is the most important determinant of who we are how we behave, how we express ourselves in society. It is evident that this debate between nature and nurture is groomed from the 20^th century from Darwin’s theory of evolution, which later on changed to a concept termed behavioural study.

Let’s take a study the inheritance biology, which states that it is the genes that influence our behaviour which is transferred from our parents during fertilisation, but to another aspect, behavioural biology states that it is our surrounding that contributes to our behaviour so moreover there is conjoint action which enriches our behaviour and character. According to this notion, everything that we are and all of our knowledge and behaviour is determined by our experience.  And this experience comes from learning.


The strong dichotomy of nature versus nurture has thus been claimed to have limited relevance in some fields of research. Closed loops feedback systems have been found in which nature and nurture influence one another constantly, as seen in self-domestication. There is a theory that states: “The interactions of genes with environment, called gene-environment interactions”, are another component of the nature-nurture debate. A classic example of gene-environment interaction is a compound called cyanocobalamin, when consumed in less amount in the diet it leads to a genetic disorder termed Parkinson’s disease.

A child might come from a family where everyone is tall, and he may have inherited these genes for height. However, if he grows up in a deprived environment where he does not receive proper nourishment, he might never attain the height he might have had he grew up in a healthier environment. Besides these, there are some characteristics that are influenced by the environment. Let’s take an example when a person achieves tremendous academic success, did they do so because they are genetically predisposed to be successful or is it a result of an enriched environment?  If a man has the skill to play good cricket he was born to achieve this or he learned by observing from others? because there is a saying that hard work beats talent.

There is an emerging field called “ Epigenetics” which shows the environmental influence that interacts with the designs of genes in our DNA.So it is concluded that interaction plays a vital role in shaping our nature and the experience that learns from our past deeds are expressed in our character.

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