Nature and Nurture

Nature is a name given to a long-standing controversy as to the relative influences of genetics and nurture is the environment in the development of personality. Nature is represented by instincts, and genetic factors, and nurture by social influences.

I am a mother of a little three year old boy. His father and I separated when he was almost a year old. We use to do everything with each other had set routines. When his dad moved out we had to set a schedule for my son to when his dad was going to get him. He old stay at my house during the week and his dad would have him every other weekend. It was a huge change for my son because their were different rules to follow at both houses. I noticed a change in my son because he was becoming more needy and I couldn't go anywhere without him screaming. I couldn't drop him off at daycare even though I told him I was coming back. I had to work a lot more because I was paying my bills on my own which was causing me to see my son less. He was always crying wouldn't get off your lap to play with other kids or anything. His dad and I seen how it was affecting his life and we agreed to still do things as a family so our son wouldn't think we hated each other. Even though we hated each other guts we knew it was best for our son.

I strongly believe in nurture because something can always change your life forever. My sons dad and I were ruining our child's life. We must nurture our children, a parents love and caring determines how a child grows up and how a child will eventually parent. No matter how much love me and his father gave him it wasn't the same as us all together giving him unconditional love. A child always needs to feel like they are important no matter what age they are at. The first three years of your child's life are crucial. Those are the years children will develop significant intellectual, emotional and social abilities. That's when they learn to give and accept love. Nurturing make you who you are today and to me that is very important.

Stanford Prison Experiment

This experiment was held in 1971 by Philip Zimbardo, who was a psychologist. This experiment consists of undergraduate students who played roles of both guards and prisoners. Zimbardo wanted to test the impact to situational variables on human behavior. It lasted about one week, but it was supposed to last for two weeks. The students were treated so unfairly and they were losing their sense of identification and extreme stress. The guards became very aggressive and abusive. A prison like environment was placed in a basement and each cell contained three prisoners at which they stayed in all day. Guards worked eight hour shifts in groups of three and after shifts they were able to go to their homes until their next shifts. Zimbardo was head of the prison but overlooked the abusive behavior. It was hard for him to remain an observer because it was hard to keep scientific methods in place.

After watching and reading about the experiment it seems like it had more observational results with no scientific evaluation. It seemed like because of the situation the prisoners acted the way they did. This wasn’t due to their own individual personalities because before coming into this experiment they would have never acted the way they did. This experiment was criticized as being unethical. Role playing played a major role because the prisoners based their behavior on how they were expected to act. Zimbardo said it was false because no one was given instructions, which was left false due to the simple fact that of course the prisoners are going to obey the guards and feel overpowered especially knowing that the guards had more power and didn’t live like prisoners. The fact is that it is hard to mimic an actual prison cell because they weren’t real crimes and they knew it was for researching purposes. Philip feels the experiment demonstrates the powerful role that the situation can play in human behavior. It is said that the study recently gained attention after reports of the Abu Ghraib, which prisoners were held in Iraq who were tortured. Philip believed that the two resembled each other.

I don’t feel that this experiment was helpful in any way. First off he just randomly picked the students and guards. The guards had no prior experience and could decide what to do with the prisoners, which in a real jail there are rules and guidelines. Another odd thing was what the guard had the prisoners do for punishment and sometimes the things were just to humiliate them. We don’t put prisoners in dresses or make them scrub the toilet with just their bare hands. Another thing is that prisoners are usually people that have committed crimes and are in there to serve time and think about what they did. The prisoners in this experiment were just brought in and they knew it would be for a short period time and knew it wasn’t real. This experiment didn’t grasp the necessary aspects to present reality in prison life.

Hello my name is Chantel and I am a full-time student here at NOVA. I also work part-time at massage envy to pay for school and other bills. I am a mother of a little boy named Corey who is currently two years old. In my free time I love to do things with my son and I also love to sing. I graduated from South Lakes high school and have attended NOVA after graduating in 2009. I will be graduating with a general studies associates degree. I want to take two semesters off to go visit family in California then I would like to continue in the Fall of 2013 to pursue my bachelor's degree. I am taking this class as an elective and I chose Soc because I enjoyed taking Soc 201 and 202 this summer. Overall I am told that I am a hard worker and I hope that all my successes will one day pay off.