While pondering the question of Nature or Nurture, I wanted to apply it to a real world situation. The situation that the study of epigenetics and an ever-changing environment applies to is the foster care system. Observing the foster care system we can understand what conditions it is that influences behaviors that are developed over time. Adoption and twin studies have shown genetic influences on multiple outcomes, including cognitive ability, language development, depression, anxiety, ADHD, school achievement and other outcomes. How negative can removing a child from its genetic environment be? To answer this is simple, there is a feeling of being misunderstood from the child’s perspective. By doing studies and understanding the genetics of a person, we can disentangle the relationship between nature and nurture. Through this, there can be effective interventions regarding an adopted child, or a child in foster care, to help mold their character to what best fits.
