The Freudian, Humanist and Behaviorist Approaches to the Nurture vs. Nature Debate on Human Behavior, Essay Example

Nature is the basic, innate and inborn character unique to living organisms. In human beings, it refers to individuals’ inherited personality traits. Therefore, nature is closely related with the genetic make up of individuals, which in turn determine their behavior. Nurture, on the other hand, is the cultivation of certain behavioral tendencies as a result of environmental influence and social conditioning. Nonetheless, the real determinant of human personality is a controversial debate among psychologists, who take different views on the influence of nurturing and inheritance (nature) on human behavior.

Psychoanalysts, who ascribe to the Freudian school, postulate that childhood experiences shape later-life personalities. The expression “the child is the father of man” is relevant in this regard, in that personality traits establish at childhood. Therefore, the Freudian view identifies nurture, through experiences, as the cause of personality traits.

The humanist view takes the nature side of the debate, by arguing that human beings have the ability to determine their behavior. The concept of determinism (free will) holds that human conscious is responsible for people’s actions, and not the conditioning of the environment. Consequently, humanists posit that the environment is not responsible for shaping behavior. In addition, they point out that individuals have reasons for their actions, and this consciousness is common to all human beings. They give acceptable standards of behavior, such as respecting other people’s property, as an example of free will at work.

The third view is that of behaviorists, who posit that human behavior is a consequence of conditioning. Behaviorists such as B. F Skinner and Ivan Pavlov advanced the idea that external stimuli are responsible for shaping people’s behaviors. Pavlov demonstrated this argument with his experimentation on dogs, which learnt to associate food with the ringing of a bell through conditioning.

In conclusion, the three schools of thought have different views on the cause of human behavior. The Freudian view holds that childhood experiences are responsible, hence in support of nurture, similar to the behaviorists who stipulate that behavior is a product of conditioning. The humanists, on the other hand, view behavior as a consequence of free will that is innate to human beings, and, therefore, argue in favor of nature.

References

Lindsay, S. R. (2000). Handbook of applied dog behavior and training. New York: Wiley-Blackwell.

Robbins, B. (April 2009). Nature and Nurture.” Society for Humanistic Psychology. November 2, 2010   <http://societyforhumanisticpsychology.blogspot.com/2009/04/nature-and-nurture.html>

Sulloway, F. J. (1992). Freud, biologist of the mind: beyond the psychoanalytic legend. New York: Harvard UP.