Products of your environment?

[MagMan5446]

Do you think people are products of the environment they come from?

Why/why not?

[InfinatyBPS]

because obviously someone that comes from somewhere like east LA, will not have a personality anywhere close to someone that was brought up in the suburbs of ohio...
I know I don't act anything the same as my paintball team which comes from Los Gatos( a rich city that is in the mountains above San Jose)

[ThePatriot]

HMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMmm............ .....i would say yes. Now, im gonna get my arse kicked for this one, but, someone from the inner city(ghettos) is more likely to do drugs or be a criminal. Is this true? Or does everyone just think of it like this, so they are...i guess the question is, are people products of their environment, or products of what society thinks they are?

[tsc]

Depends on a few things. One, what do you mean? Do you mean if someone has parents who are doctors, will they feel the calling to become a doctor? Or will a person raised in a violent household be a violent person themselves?

Nature V. Nurture...how fun :)

Doctors:
Early Twentieth Century--

America: scientists believed behavior was determined universally among mammals by the environment, regardless of whether it was a rat, monkey, or human

Europe: scientists believed behavior was a result of genetics with little variation from the environment (i.e. certain animal instincts)

1950s to 1970s--

Trend toward nature argument
Darwinism arose

Now--

Today, society generally supports the concept of natural selection and views nature as being the primary influence of behavior. Genetic twins raised apart still exhibit the same traits, recent evidence demonstrates that genes affect schizophrenia, epilepsy, and Alzheimer’s disease.

The government of China has conditioned its society to detest Americans through control of its media since the Chinese Cultural Revolution of 1966-76. This is the same with many Middle Eastern countries, as we all know. Certainly there is nothing in human nature that causes an entire race to hate another. Or maybe there is? ;)

I personally believe that it's a mixture of both. Yes, a certain environment will lead to certain traits or instincts being developed. However, There are parts of each person that only nature can develop or create.


Violence:
I believe that there is about a 90/10 chance of people who are raised in a violent environment becoming violent themselves. If it is looked upon in their family as being OK, or accepted as normal, there is nothing stopping them (No influcence saying "It's not right"). Of course, there will always be the people for whom violence seems wrong, no matter what. Then again, there are people raised in loving homes who kill their parents in their sleep.

[ThePatriot]

And the fact humans in general are violent. We are one of the only species on earth that kills its own kind to greater itself. We killed off all the neanderthals i believe about 300,000 years ago, and even with our evolution...still kill eachother. I think every human is violent, there is nothing stopping that, every human has the capability to be violent, but the environment around them, decides how much control they have over those violent episodes.

[obsolete898]

The Nature vs. Nurture arguement has been around for a while with no answer in site, that's why there is a science called sociology. Sociologists didn't buy into the nature arguments psycology puts forth.

Basically I belive it's a mix of both.

[MikeCouves]

They just found some sort of gene that can be passed through genetic traits that makes people very violent and angry. I hope I don't have it...