ESSAY

There are different influences on early human development. Both nurture and nature have strong influence. Nature gives us natural abilities, nurture helps us develop those abilities. Different people have different opinions. Some people think that nurture has strong influence on early human development. But other people argue that nature has more great influence. This essay will discuss which influences is more important to children’s development.
Nowadays, more and more people begin to focus children’s early development. They pay more attention to concern the growth of the children.It is obvious that nurture plays an important role in early human development. Though children have their innate biological structure which determines many personal characteristics, it still can be affected by nurture. According to Watson and Skinner(1930), we know nurture can turn a child into any kind of adult. They describe the most extremely form that infant who is chose at random can be train to be any type of people they wants, regardless of talents, abilities and interests(1930,p.104). Therefore, nurture is important for children to develop personality traits.For example,there have a common phenomenon in China. Many young couples send their children to learn dancing, singing, piano and other outside interests, although some children do not like to learn these interests. The parents just expect children to develop the interest which the parents have not completed. Some parents do not want their children to be worse than other children who learn outside interests. Although the parents need to spend a lot of money, they still send their children to learn outside interests. When children who train outside interests grow up, those interests would become their jobs. What’s more, although all children have the same sequence of motor behaviours, we can change by some extra practice. The studies shows that infants who usually do stepping practice begin walking earlier than infants who do not have this practice(Zelazo, Zelazo&Kolb, 1972). So nurture determine and strongly influence children’s development.
However, some people argue that nature has great influence on early human development. Children share many biological traits with their parents,such as height, weight, skin colour, eyes, hair and so on. Many personal characteristics have been decided by hereditary structure. In generally, if parents have a bad temper, children may also have a irritable temper. Nature gives human innate capacities, such as listening, speaking and so on. The newborn infants can turn their heads toward where a sound is coming from and they can also distinguish between similar sounds(Bridger,1961). Because we own those abilities, we can develop those abilities. If we do not have one of those innate senses, like a blind man, do more practice is useless. So nature is basic on human development.
In my opinion, nurture and nature have great influence on early human development. They interact to influence the abilities of human development. But nurture is more important than nature. We get biological traits from our parents, especially physical characteristics. Someone probably have genetic element, they have potential in activities such as proform and music. We can develop those potential abilities by nurture. Some personal characteristics can be changed by external environment. For example, a good student can be influenced by his/her bad friends.Because he or she lives in externel environment which students always do not like to study. Maybe he or she will join their. So there must influence his or her some personal characteristics.
In conclusion, people is a combination of nature and nurture .Nurture and nature interact influence on human development. They can not be separated.But as I say before, nurture can change and develop many personal characteristics. So nurture has much stronger influence than nature.
Reference:
Watson.B and Skinner B.F.(1930), p.104 as cited in Atkinson et al,1999, Hilgard's Introduction to Psychology,12E.(c)1996 Wadsworth, p.12
Zelazo and Kolb(1972), as cited in Atkinson et al, 1999, Hilgard's Introduction to Psychology,12E.(c)1996 Wadsworth,p.13
Bridger(1961), as cited in Atkinson et al, 1999,Hilgard's Introduction to Psychology,12E.(c)1996 Wadsworth,p. 15