About Self-Reflection

My genes influenced many parts of my childhood behavior, and they were physiologically encoded as time passed. Other aspects of my childhood conduct could also be traced back to environmental factors. Prenatal exposure to female hormones altered the organization of my female brain as a young girl, making me more vulnerable to subtle verbal exchanges. Because of my increased sensitivity, I was forced to participate in linguistic play activities. Furthermore, as a girl, I had a broader array of neural linkages in regions of the left cerebral hemisphere that serviced language tasks, making me more susceptible to verbal activities and more capable of learning verbal skills. Additionally, I developed simple gender schemas that allowed me to classify some behaviors, objects, and roles as for boys and others as for girls. For instance, I knew that trucks were for boys while dolls were for girls; girls could cry while boys should not. I also learned that sewing was for girls and I went on to gather a wide range of information regarding sewing while largely ignoring information to do with boyish activities.

Nature and nurture interacted to shape my development as a child. I was prenatally exposed to female hormones which later influenced my play activities as well as language acquisition. Considering language development, language is founded on structures contained in the brain; therefore nature plays an important role. Children also come to articulate the languages that are spoken by their caretakers. Moreover, there are also parent child similarities in the accent as well as vocabulary thus the role of nurture in language development. Further, my childhood environment was characterized by messages about gender; these messages came from my parents, teachers, and peers. Such messages had a powerful impact of nurture on my gendered behavior. Regarding which type of influence, nature or nurture, is the most important in human development, they are both important. Notably, some experiences affect the organization of the brain, consequently influencing one’s responsiveness to similar experiences in the future.