The impact of genetics and environment on the personality development Essay

As culture and society evolved, so have popular understandings of this debate. Recently the argument has become less black and white. Previously the argument was strictly if personalities were created by genetics or the environment around them, now the argument has transformed into how much of a persons personality is created by genetics and how much is created by the environment. Psychologists realized there are facts supporting both sides of the argument. There are things such as perfect pitch that prove nature and nurture both take part in development. Perfect pitch is the ability to hear music and detect the pitch. Research has shown that it tends to be inherited but you must be trained musically to develop this ability not just inherit the gene. Height is another idea that requires both genetics and environment. A person may inherit the genes to be tall but if they are malnourished or in an accident they may not grow to the height they could have become in a different environment. Dr. Beben Benyamin said when visiting the nature versus nurture debate, there is overwhelming evidence that both genetic and environmental factors can influence traits and diseases. Dr. Benyamin worked with a team of researchers at The University of Amsterdam studying 2,748 twin studies published between 1958 and 2012. These studies involved 14.5 million pairs of twins, identical and fraternal. Identical twins share the same genes while fraternal twins only share half. The study looked at 17, 804 traits including depression and tobacco use. A common belief is that fraternal twins are affected more by the environment and identical twins are affected by genetics more. However, this study showed each trait had a unique percentage on how much nature and nurture were involved. For example, developing bipolar disorder was seventy percent because of genetics and thirty percent because of the environment but the likelihood of developing an eating disorder was caused only forty percent by genetics and sixty percent environmental. Benyamin concludes that the study has important implications for treating diseases and repeats that genetic and environmental factors both influence all traits. Many argue that alcohol addiction is an environmental because people choose to begin drinking and then lose control however it could be considered nature. Alcoholism is more likely to occur in someone with a family history of it and it has been proven that certain genes may influence how alcohol tastes and what it does to the body. Similarly, babies can be born with an addiction to a drug if their mother used it while she was pregnant. Vision is another trait that is heavily debated. Problems with eyesight may be inherited such as being near or far sighted, astigmatisms, lazy eyes, and color blindness but normal eyesight cannot be developed without being exposed to visual stimuli. Researchers at the University of Liverpool found the strongest factor of developing a mental illness was life experiences such as bullying and abuse while the second largest factor was a family history of