The field of psychology addresses the constant question of whether Research Paper

The field of psychology addresses the constant question of whether humans are born hard-wired with specific characteristics and - Research Paper Example However, when it comes to understanding the causes behind severe behavior problems like addiction, anger, aggression, criminal bent of mind, sadism, depression, anti-social behavior etc., then understanding the role of nature and nurture in the development of these patterns becomes an important. Hence, people in the field of psychology and psychiatry continuously make efforts to find out what it is that makes human beings behave in certain way, nature or nurture. That is, they try to know if people are genetically programmed to behave in a certain way or if their behavior is shaped by the environment. However, studies in psychology have given a hope to human beings by showing that even though human beings are programmed through their genes to behave in certain way, the environment has the power to break the genetic programming and modify the behavior pattern of human beings in positive way by strengthening the ‘good’ genes and weakening the ‘bad’ genes. The Role Of Genes Variations In Genes Genes play an important role in the development of behavior and personality pattern of human beings. Different genes are responsible for development of different habits and behavior pattern in people. Every human being has same 20,000 genes present in the body but what makes them different is its ‘variants’ or ‘flavors’ (Frehley, 2010, para.1). ... However, it is important to note that scientists are not 100% sure of this information as it is not a statement but a ‘speculation’ (Frehley, 2010, para.2). Also, it is interesting to know that every human being possesses all the genes but what makes them differ in behavior is the â€Å"less than 1%† variance in the genes (Frehley, 2010, para.5). According to Ebstein et al. (1996), the variations in ‘specific’ geneses result in different social behavior patterns in different individuals (Nicolaou & Shane, n.d., p.2). It makes one wonder if such a small amount of genetic variation is ‘major’ enough to control the will power in human being. That is, can human being acquire skills or behavior pattern that he is not genetically programmed to acquire? Evolutionary psychology, also known as ‘modern Darwinism’, is the field that helps in answering this ‘nature or nurture’ question (Nicholson, 1998, p.135). Desire For Se curity It is a natural understanding that if the circumstances and the conditions of living change, then the behavior of human beings should also change. However, according to the evolutionary psychology, human beings living in today’s modern world, still display the same ‘survival’ traits that their ancestors living in the Stone Age had displayed to survive the threats in the environment (Nicholson, 1998, p.135). This shows that even if the environment and the surrounding situations change, human beings still carry the ‘innate’ fear from surrounding and are ‘hard wired’ to behave in certain way when they sense threat. For example, people from Stone Age were genetically programmed to gather and store enough food and have