Nature vs. Nurture

    The debate between nature vs. nurture has never been won throughout the beginning of its creation.  Nature and nurture both partly shape they way every person is and their personality.  Nature is the genetic code and the traits a person has, and nurture is the way it is shaped as a person grows and matures.  Even though these two things both have a lot to do with the way people are, I believe that nurture has a greater influence on the way people develop.
    There have been many experiments that show nurture is a huge influence on humans as well as animals.  Foremost, the Monster Study in 1939 was an experiment where Wendell Johnson chose two groups of children and praised one group on their speech and fluency while speaking, and criticized every flaw in the other group's speech.  Many children in the second group developed a speech problem after that experiment.  Though extremely unethical, the experiment proved that nurture has a stronger pull in this area that nature.  In other words, the children involved in the experiment acquired a speech problem after they were treated poorly, but it wasn't in their genes since they were born.  Additionally, another incredibly unethical experiment shows that nurture can more influential than nature.  The experiment, called Learned Helplessness, was done in 1965 where two psychologists named Mark Seligman and Steve Maier took three groups of dogs and placed them in harnesses.  The dogs from the first group were released after a short period of time with no harm done to them.  In groups two and three, the dogs were harnessed together in pairs and one dog from each group was given an electrical shock.  In group two, the shock could be stopped by pressing a lever, but in group three, the shock didn't end even when the lever was pressed.  The shocks came at random and they seemed, to the dogs, inevitable, which caused the dogs to give up and assume that nothing could be done about the shocks, causing the "learned helplessness" that the dogs acquired.  Later, the dogs were put in a box alone where they were again shocked, but this time, the shocks would be stopped when they simply jumped out of the box.  But these dogs just gave up, still thinking that nothing could be done about the shocks.  Because of the harnesses on the dogs and the shocks given to them that they thought they couldn't stop, "learned helplessness" was an acquired trait from the wrong nurture they encountered.
    Another, more positive nurture experiment was done by Harvard psychologist B.F. Skinner.  In this, Skinner taught pigeons how to do tricks like dancing, doing figure eights, and even playing tennis.  Skinner, also known as the father of behavioral science, taught the pigeons tricks that they would never be able to do or learn in nature.  Furthermore, there are also specific traits that have been proved to be learned from nurture.  Humor is a learned trait influenced by your family and environment, not genetically determined.
    Our actions and who we are is not determined by the time we are born.  We have the ability to chose the way we act and what we want to do in our lives.  Many things, like our mother's eyes, or our father's hair color are predetermined, but most other things are molded and developed as we get older and more mature.  The important thing is, we have the chance to improve ourselves and choose who we want to be.

Sources:
Top 10 Unethical Psychological Experiments

http://genealogy.about.com/cs/geneticgenealogy/a/nature_nurture_2.htm