Nature vs Nurture

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Nature vs Nurture

Postby DanteHoratio » Tue Apr 10, 2018 1:00 am

The age old question. Nature vs Nurture? Which is more important in shaping what a person becomes? Let's look at a psychopath. If a psychopath was raised by a kind and loving family, and treated with love and respect, can they become a good person, and live a normal life?

Or, are they fated to be a terrible person and doomed to be sent to a mental hospital for the rest of their life for the good of other people, no matter what?
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Re: Nature vs Nurture

Postby cmsellers » Tue Apr 10, 2018 1:46 am

One of the first things that they teach you in intro pysch courses is that this isn't really a useful dichotomy. Asking "is x caused by nature or nurture?" is a bit like asking "if people evolved from monkeys why are there still monkeys?" It's an example of a question which is not even wrong, because it oversimplifies the issue to the point of being meaningless.

Consider sociopathy and depression. Both of these have a genetic component, however sociopathy requires a difficult childhood for it to become a problem (lots of people are basically sociopaths but not evil or criminally inclined because they had normal childhoods), while depression requires a triggering event, at least for the first incidence. This seems to be true with pretty much all psychological disorders, though in some cases the trigger may be in utero or in early infancy.

Even physical traits often aren't all that heritable. Hair color and eye color are, but those are exceptions. Even height, which is highly heritable, is at most 80% heritable and likely closer to 60%, and since height has a well-known epigentic component. (IE if you move from North Korea to the US, your kids will be taller than you and your grandkids taller still.)

In short, "nature" is often a prerequisite for "nurture" to work, but the relationship of various factors (genetics, epigenetics, microbiology, diet, upbringing) is much too complicated to be split into a simple dichotomy, and even studies which prove something is x percent heritable tend to be conducted within the same country (few US vs North Korea comparisons) and cannot split apart various factors which contribute to heritability.
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Re: Nature vs Nurture

Postby RatElemental » Tue Apr 10, 2018 1:53 am

On a certain level, and if you think of the universe in a certain way, everything is nature.

Nurture is nature, we have no free will, the endless clockwork mechanism that is the universe goes on.

I don't tend to dwell long on these thoughts.
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Re: Nature vs Nurture

Postby DanteHoratio » Tue Apr 10, 2018 3:49 am

cmsellers wrote:One of the first things that they teach you in intro pysch courses is that this isn't really a useful dichotomy. Asking "is x caused by nature or nurture?" is a bit like asking "if people evolved from monkeys why are there still monkeys?" It's an example of a question which is not even wrong, because it oversimplifies the issue to the point of being meaningless.

Consider sociopathy and depression. Both of these have a genetic component, however sociopathy requires a difficult childhood for it to become a problem

That is true. a Sociopath is MADE, while a psychopath is BORN.

random_nerd wrote:
Nurture is nature, we have no free will, the endless clockwork mechanism that is the universe goes on.

I don't tend to dwell long on these thoughts.

I personally disagree, but eh.
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Re: Nature vs Nurture

Postby Dr. Ambiguous » Tue Apr 10, 2018 11:45 am

DanteHoratio wrote:That is true. a Sociopath is MADE, while a psychopath is BORN.

What is this even supposed to mean? Neither sociopath nor psychopath are terms recognized in the DSM-V or ICD-10, so there's no medical basis for either term. If we're using them as per the common vernacular, then there isn't generally a clear distinction between the two, and many people consider them synonymous; nor is there a clear definition for either other than "violent crazy," "severe asshole," or "casual term for ASPD."
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Re: Nature vs Nurture

Postby Crimson847 » Wed Apr 11, 2018 3:38 am

Dr. Ambiguous wrote:
DanteHoratio wrote:That is true. a Sociopath is MADE, while a psychopath is BORN.

What is this even supposed to mean? Neither sociopath nor psychopath are terms recognized in the DSM-V or ICD-10, so there's no medical basis for either term. If we're using them as per the common vernacular, then there isn't generally a clear distinction between the two, and many people consider them synonymous; nor is there a clear definition for either other than "violent crazy," "severe asshole," or "casual term for ASPD."


"Psychopathy" has a definition in academic psychology and criminology based on Robert Hare's Psychopathy Checklist (aka the PCL-R). His work on the subject is controversial (some argue that his criteria are too subjective), so psychopathy per this definition isn't recognized as a disorder in the DSM, but the term does get used in this sense sometimes by psychologists who work with or study criminals.

Can't help you when it comes to "sociopathy", though; I've never heard that one used as anything other than a colloquialism.
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Re: Nature vs Nurture

Postby DanteHoratio » Wed Apr 11, 2018 1:14 pm

Dr. Ambiguous wrote:
DanteHoratio wrote:That is true. a Sociopath is MADE, while a psychopath is BORN.

What is this even supposed to mean? Neither sociopath nor psychopath are terms recognized in the DSM-V or ICD-10, so there's no medical basis for either term. If we're using them as per the common vernacular, then there isn't generally a clear distinction between the two, and many people consider them synonymous; nor is there a clear definition for either other than "violent crazy," "severe asshole," or "casual term for ASPD."

It means that sociopath is caused by a event in a person's life, like abuse by parents while somebody is born as a psychopath. I have always heard and read that they are real terms.
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Re: Nature vs Nurture

Postby Tesseracts » Wed Apr 11, 2018 5:04 pm

I've never seen somebody explain the difference between a sociopath and psychopath in a satisfactory way, so I'm just going to use the term sociopath. There are people who were raised in normal healthy conditions who become violent sociopaths. For example look at Jeffrey Dahmer. However there are also people born with genetic risk factors who turn out normal. For an example of that look at James Fallon.

I know somebody who is an identical triplet. He and one of his brothers is gay, but one of the brothers is straight. My friend is also shorter than his brothers. I can instantly tell which one is him in a photo just based on his face, although if you asked me how his face is different from his identical siblings I wouldn't be able to articulate it.
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Re: Nature vs Nurture

Postby Marcuse » Wed Apr 11, 2018 5:43 pm

Here's an interesting extract from the wiki on Psychopathy, quoting a book on the subject:

Robert Hare stated in the popular science book entitled Snakes in Suits that sociopathy and psychopathy are often used interchangeably, but in some cases the term sociopathy is preferred because it is less likely than is psychopathy to be confused with psychosis, whereas in other cases the two terms may be used with different meanings that reflect the user's views on the origins and determinants of the disorder. Hare contended that the term sociopathy is preferred by those that see the causes as due to social factors and early environment, and the term psychopathy preferred by those who believe that there are psychological, biological, and genetic factors involved in addition to environmental factors. Hare also provides his own definitions: he describes psychopathy as not having a sense of empathy or morality, but sociopathy as only differing in sense of right and wrong from the average person.
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Re: Nature vs Nurture

Postby Dr. Ambiguous » Wed Apr 11, 2018 10:05 pm

@Dante That still doesn't say anything of any real worth, since as I mentioned before, neither have any basis as modern medical terms.

@Crimson & Marcuse It seems Here's work is slightly controversial, so I'm not sure how much merit it has.
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Re: Nature vs Nurture

Postby Marcuse » Thu Apr 12, 2018 12:21 am

Marcuse It seems Here's work is slightly controversial, so I'm not sure how much merit it has.


Sure thing. I'm not sure that it's really useful to obsess over the correct use of terminology in this case though. Determining whether this or that specific problem is caused by nature or nurture is a different question than "how are people born with such and such an illness" and we really don't need to know the specific problem, so I'm okay using a largely intuitive interpretation of the terminology where we don't need to know the specifics of the problem.

That's probably because my position on nature/nurture is that the answer is "both". I see it like categorising people like this:

Nature: Upper case letter
Nurture: lower case letter

So the first person(ality type) on my list would be Aa, and a person who was Ba would have a different underlying personality but similar upbringing. Of course that's still a massive oversimplification, but it makes more sense to me that we view people as starting from a particular point and then influenced further by other things, which can make them act in certain ways. Someone who's not inclined towards a certain behaviour can be directed towards it by experience (whether that's negative like abuse, or positive like training) and someone who is inclined towards a behaviour can be directed away from it by experience.
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Re: Nature vs Nurture

Postby Crimson847 » Thu Apr 12, 2018 4:25 am

Dr. Ambiguous wrote:@Crimson & Marcuse It seems Here's work is slightly controversial, so I'm not sure how much merit it has.


I'm not arguing that his conclusions are correct, just that his work sometimes gets referenced. You were listing ways the words "psychopath/y" and "sociopath/y" are used and defined in practice; I was simply adding another way the former term is occasionally used.
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Re: Nature vs Nurture

Postby SandTea » Fri Apr 13, 2018 9:59 pm

I assume the reason why this matters would be to potentially prevent assholishness? Well, if that is the case I don't have much faith. There will always be assholes. Made or born, it doesn't matter. The best I can do is try to avoid them.

I do doubt that there is a future where a doctor will one day confidently say "The tests have come back. Your baby is guaranteed to be a shitty person." though.
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Re: Nature vs Nurture

Postby satan_n_stuff » Sun Apr 22, 2018 5:17 pm

SandTea wrote:I assume the reason why this matters would be to potentially prevent assholishness? Well, if that is the case I don't have much faith. There will always be assholes. Made or born, it doesn't matter. The best I can do is try to avoid them.

I do doubt that there is a future where a doctor will one day confidently say "The tests have come back. Your baby is guaranteed to be a shitty person." though.

Every baby is guaranteed to be shitty, the best you can do is get rid of the shit before it builds up.
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Re: Nature vs Nurture

Postby sunglasses » Thu Apr 26, 2018 5:36 pm

Dr. Ambiguous wrote:
DanteHoratio wrote:That is true. a Sociopath is MADE, while a psychopath is BORN.

What is this even supposed to mean? Neither sociopath nor psychopath are terms recognized in the DSM-V or ICD-10, so there's no medical basis for either term. If we're using them as per the common vernacular, then there isn't generally a clear distinction between the two, and many people consider them synonymous; nor is there a clear definition for either other than "violent crazy," "severe asshole," or "casual term for ASPD."


The medical equivalent (which I've harped about a NUMBER of times on this board alone) is antisocial personality disorder.


https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-con ... c-20353928

more about the pop culture usage vs actual diagnosis from Web MD:

https://www.webmd.com/mental-health/fea ... fference#1
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