The nature versus nurture debate is one of the oldest issues in psychology. The debate centers on the relative contributions of genetic inheritance and environmental factors to human development. People who take the position that all or most behaviors and characteristics are the result of inheritance are known as nativists. Everything that we are and all of our knowledge is determined by our experience. People who take the position that all or most behaviors and characteristics are the result of learning are known as empiricists. Both nature (meaning our genes) and nurture (the environment we grow up in) are known to significantly affect traits like our height and weight, our IQ, and our chance of developing behavioral problems or autism. But how strong environmental factors are in determining each characteristic, compared with the influence of DNA, differs significantly across the country, scientists have found. A new series of "nature-nurture" revealed that some areas are "environmental hotspots" for particular traits, but in other places the same attribute is mainly governed by genetics.
