Family Reunion

One of the major issues in psychology is the nature/nurture one. While it’s not realistic to say that heredity is responsible for 60 percent of our personality development while the environment makes a 40 percent contribution, it’s still interesting and fun to ponder such issues. With that in mind, let’s consider an incident that was recently reported in the news.

Over two decades ago, a newborn baby was stolen from a NYC hospital. Apparently, her birth parents had left their sick baby at the hospital for a few hours so that they could go home for some much needed rest. When they returned, the baby was nowhere to be found, and although police searched for the kidnappers, they never found any real suspects.  Baby Carlina’s mother, Joy White, said she always knew her baby was alive, and last week her mother’s intuition proved to be true.

The “baby,” now known as Nejdra Nance, was raised in Bridgeport, Connecticut and now lives in Atlanta, GA. After DNA testing revealed that Nejdra was indeed Carlina, the family was reunited. They’re taking things slowly, but at the moment, the mother describes a recent family dinner together as “magic” and reports that Carlina fits right in with the family. The now adult baby said she always had a feeling that she didn’t belong to the people who were raising her, and when Carlina got older, she searched until she found her biological mother.

From what you know about nature/nurture, react to your opinions/feelings/beliefs about Carlina’s development. It’s interesting to speculate about how she might have been different if she’d been raised with her biological parents. Or do you think environment matters? Is heredity more important? Share what you think.

Who Am I?

As the scientific study of human behavior and mental processes, psychology usually focuses on the individual. However, each individual is influenced by a host of sources, one of which is his or her heritage. We’re  unique, and yet we’re a composite of nature and nurture, heritage and environment.

Last week I had the opportunity to spend a few days in New York City, and I was more impressed than ever with the diversity of people living in America. In fact, while on the ferry to Liberty Island, I felt a bit like a minority since no one around me was speaking English. While on Ellis Island, I snapped the above photograph of an exhibit in the museum. These images represent snapshots of America’s citizens, and I found myself wondering, “Where am I? Who am I like? Where did I come from?” While I’m different from millions of others, I’m just like them in many ways too.

Take a few seconds to study the above snapshots and ponder the differences and similarities between people. Can you spot someone like you? Are there those who are totally different? In what way? Are those with different noses and eye color like you in some way? I’m hoping that looking at the picture gives more meaning to the following quote and that you’ll respond to at least one line of it:

Every person is like every other person.
Every person is like some other person.
Every person is like no other person.

P.S. to Nature/Nurture

A little online reading unearthed an interesting statement by Lewis Terman to Harry Harlow when he learned of the latter’s  upcoming marriage to Clara Mears. Having a tested IQ of 155, Clara was a young woman who had been  part of Terman’s classic study of gifted children. Yes, 155. That’s extraordinarily high when you consider that the average American IQ is 100.

 So is intelligence more related to genes and chromosomes or to one’s environment? Read Terman’s statement and tell how you think it relates to the nature/nurture issue mentioned in yesterday’s post: “I am happy to see the joining of Clara’s extraordinary hereditary material with Harry’s productivity as a psychologist.”

As a postscript, I know that Mears and Harlow had two children, but I don’t know anything about their intellectual capacity or productivity. What’s your guess?

Nature or Nurture or Both?

Aside from that adorable dimple in your left cheek, what else have you inherited from your parents? Are you tall, short, smart, dull, musically gifted, athletically adept, or linguistically proficient? Or maybe you’re a math whiz. Whatever you are, you’re the unique combination of your heredity and your environment.

Just how much of our development is because of our unique genetic endowment, that special combination of genes and chromosomes that is passed on to us from our ancestors? In addition to physical attributes, think about characteristics such as intelligence, personality, and predisposition to certain mental and physical disorders and share your opinion on which you believe to be more important, nature or nurture.

There’s no right or wrong response to this so-called “debate.” I’m just interested in your thoughts about what makes you uniquely you.

Nature or Nurture?

One of the most important issues in psychology is the nature/nurture one. Am I who I am because of my unique combination of genes and chromosomes, or is it more because of my environment? Is it DNA, or is it life in the USA as compared to life in Cambodia? While pondering this question for the umpteenth time, I came across two cute examples in Pierce Howard’s The Owner’s Manual to the Brain:

 

1. Two monozygotic twin girls were separated at birth and placed in homes far apart. About four years later, researchers interviewed the adoptive parents of each girl. Shauna’s parents said, “She is a terrible eater—won’t cooperate, stubborn, strong-willed. I can’t get her to eat anything unless I put cinnamon on it.” The parents of Ellen said, “Ellen is a lovely child—cooperative and outgoing.” When the researcher asked about her eating habits, they said, “Fantastic—she eats anything I put before her, as long as I put cinnamon on it!”

 

1. Two monozygotic twin boys were separated at birth and placed in homes far apart. They were interviewed 27 years later. Both had turned out to be obsessive-compulsive neatniks, scrubbing their separate homes frequently and constantly picking up and making things neat and clean. When they were asked to explain their compulsion for neatness, on attributed it to his reaction to an adoptive parent who was a slob, while the other attributed it to his upbringing by an adoptive parents who was a neatnik!

 What do you think about this issue? For starters, look at yourself and share some of your behaviors or predispositions that you might have inherited. Then again, you might have picked them up from a parent, a peer, or a television show.

Secret Twin Study

Thanks to Lisa Ward, here’s a link to a study about identical twins who were separated from birth and who didn’t know about each other’s existence until recently. I thought you might enjoy reading it and finding out more about the mysterious nature/nuture issue.  Tell me what you think after reading it.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=15629096