Feral Child Debate

I believe nurture has a greater influence on people because we surround ourselves with peers in school changing how we act by taking influence from them.

The historical debate regarding nature and nurture has been going on for years and is still unresolved. Many theorists believe what we have inherited and our genes, makes us the way we are and how we develop. Other theorists believe it is the way we are brought up and our experiences, that make us the way we are and how we develop.

The nature-nurture debate has been around for decades. It is one of the oldest and most popular topics in the history of psychology asking what makes people who they become and how they behave and develop the way they do. What makes the debate more interesting is that now scientists are asking if personality traits and even sexual orientation can be determined by what is in already there from conception. Bodies are built up of chromosomes which contain genetic information. Many of these are inherited from parents and relatives. The nature side of the debate states the way people are is predominantly from inherited genetics and other biological factors not so much the environmental factors. The genes humans have in their bodies play a huge role to many aspects of who they are and who they become. For example, hair colour, eye colour and height are all predetermined by genes. Unchangeable. This is natures way. The argument stands to decide whether most attributes do stem from nature, genes, or if they can be affected by the environment and the way people are nurtured as they have grown. The nurture side of the argument believes although humans do have the genes and traits with which they are born, most personality traits are being made up of environmental factors. For example, being loved and cared for as children, if parents or carers were positive role models and if those people were taught in ways which provided them with discipline and respect for others. Where nature

Genie was a young feral girl that wasn't allowed to speak or make any noises if she did she would be beaten. This caused her not to speak. Also, she was tied to a little chair, and when she got older she couldn't properly stand. When she was found they thought she was a lost cause, but one lady didn't she wanted to help her. The scientist also wanted to research about her and see if this will have an effect on the nature vs nurture debate. This video shows me a lot about nurture it makes me feel like my choice of being on the nurture side is right.

For example, individuals who have a predisposition are not into crime scene. People who are born with genetic disorders tend to be more controlled by therapists and medications. On the other hand, nurture is more focused on the impact of “behavior, education, society and environment” (Karen Hart), it is the final determinant of how our genes are expressed. A person’s development is formed more by nurture. For example, in the case of Ethan Couch, lawyers defend their client as not being taught right from wrong.

Nurture has more of an impact on someone’s life especially early childhood because children often pick up traits and habitats from their parents. For example, some children grow up in an abusive household which may cause them to become violent and also abusive to their children and can cause a cycle of violence. Vice versa if someone grows up in a positive household with people who have successful lives this will cause you to be successful and a well mannered individual.

This literature review will analyze what people think about the nature versus nurture debate. It will talk about the nature side and the nurture side of the debate.

The nature versus nurture debate is one of the oldest issues in psychology. The debate centers on the relative contributions of genetic inheritance and environmental factors to human development.

The TLC documentary Wild Child; the Story of Feral Children is a documentary that tells the few of many stories of children that have turned to a feral lifestyle due to parental negligence. Feral, meaning undomesticated, is the used term to describe these children because of the actions they exhibit. The accounts in this documentary range from a young girl who “was raised with the wolves” per say, but instead with her dog, to a little boy who was abandoned in a Ukrainian loft and provided the town strays with food and shelter in return for protection from them and other strays. In some of the cases detailed in this video, these children were far too old by the time they were discovered and missed an extremely crucial time frame in which

As explained on page 296, nurture is when the child is affected by the environmental around the child or parent. Whether its about beliefs or about certain things like abortion. Majority of people in the United States are against having abortion because they believe that once a baby is in the uterus it is a normal human being, and that it is basically murdering a child. Other people would believe that as long as the child is not a certain weeks old, then aborting the baby is okay to do. This subject is very sore when talking to people about because of how many people believe one way is okay while others believe it isn’t okay. Nurture, is also about to let children understand knowledge about what they believe. This is in a way like nature but

Of course, to every argument there has to be two sides. Some scientists argue that the way we are and act is not necessarily all determined by our genes. Believers of this side think that our behavioral aspects are derived from the environment in which we are brought up in. In the theory of nurture, our behaviors are not instinctive, but are learned throughout our lives. For example, we all laugh and cry at different time and under different circumstances. As humans, we learn from our surroundings and are influenced by our peers and parents. Another example of the role of nurture explaining our behaviors is that fact that we learn our fears and phobias. The key difference is that nurture alters itself from the fact that our biological make up is the only explanation for our behavior.

Through history, the idea of nature vs. nurture has been a hotly debated issue. Nature, or genetics is often believed to be the most important aspect of a persons’ upbringing, as nature is something intrinsic to any one person. However, many debate that nurture, or the care and encouragement of any human life, trumps nature. The earliest evidence and rebuttals of these theories have been honed and developed over time by specific psychologists and educational theorists – all who hoped to prove their own ideas as fact at one time in history.

Wild children cases are as interesting to scientists as a new ice cream flavor is to children. Feral children are often abandoned or mistreated and are forced to extremes to survive. When they are discovered, they are afraid and frail. These children did not meet certain important milestones in their early childhood due to their abandonment. In order to fully comprehend feral children, one must look at how they are defined and created, are treated, and affect society.

Nature vs. nurture has been discussed by philosophers in the past and by scientists more recently. Philosophers such as Plato argued that all knowledge was inherited from your parents and when you were told something you didn’t learn it you were just reminded of it. Aristotle however argued that all humans were born with a blank slate and built on it with influence from there environment. In the 1700’s the empiricists and the internalists took over the argument. They fought through letters explaining there point of views and denouncing the others. This leads to Pavlov coming up with the idea of behaviorism in the early 1900‘s. Behaviorism became the new wave of Psychology and influenced a lean towards the nurture side. It was not

But what if we were completely untouched by society, isolated from all forms of humanity? Without other people to interact with and learn from, babies would grow to be nothing more than a wild animal. Every human being is born with the potential to develop into an intelligent, social creature, but without human influence a person can never develop into what we consider to be a member of human society. One can clearly see this through the reports of feral children. There has been only a few cases reported and very few studied. In cases from the past feral children are reported as wild children who could not speak or communicate in anyway. These children bit, scratched, growled, and walked on all fours. In addition to this primal behavior, they ate grass, ravenously tared apart small animals and devoured the raw meat. The most shocking quality of the children was their apparent lack of sensitivity to pain or cold. (Henslin 66-7) The most famous case of a feral child was “The wild boy of Aveyron” in 1798. At first this case would have been written off as just another folk tale, but a French scientist, Jean Marc Gaspard Itard, conducted immense studies of the