• Question: why do people act in different ways e.g why are sompeople nice and some nasty

    Asked by jenguy to Adam, Catherine, Leila, Nazim on 22 Mar 2012.
    • Photo: Adam Stevens

      Adam Stevens answered on 22 Mar 2012:

      There are only really two things that can affect this: your genes and your upbringing, i.e. nature or nurture.

      There are scientists that think genes do most of it, but some that think upbringing does most of it. There are some that think it’s about even between the two (which is probably more likely).

      So if someone is nasty it could be because they have a particular gene that makes them more nasty, or because their parents were nasty to them when they were growing up. It’s really hard to work out what’s going on in this case, because if it’s genetic the parents could be nasty to them because of their genes!

      The only way to actually observe whether it’s genes or upbringing is to observe identical twins (same genes) that have been separated (different upbringing). This doesn’t happen that often so it’s hard to get enough people to have a good understanding. In fact, most studies find that separated twins share a lot of characteristics, suggesting there is a genetic element to behaviour.

    • Photo: Leila Battison

      Leila Battison answered on 22 Mar 2012:

      Personality is one of those things that goes along with consciousness and self-awareness, that scientists have only just begun to understand.

      We know that personalities are formed in the frontal lobe of the brain… You should look up the story of Phineas Gage, who accidentally gave himself a lobotomy, and his personality completely changed. But how the personalities are formed in the first place are, as Adam says, the product of genes, and how the person was brought up, and again, it’s not something we completely understand.

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