Nature vs. Nurture

This was a true documentary story that has touched everyone’s heart that came across with it. I could relate this to what I have learned in my psychology course in regards with the nature vs. nurture. This issue was considered as the most enduring debate in the field of psychology. Based on my understanding, nature is defined as the existing system of things; the world of matter; or of matter and mind; the creation; the universe or we could say in general the regular course of things while nurture is something that shapes us who we are and what we are going to be in the future. It is what we are exposed to that changes us.

Here’s the summary of the story to gain the concept for the whole thing. This story is about two young chaps who out of compassion bought a lion cub on sale at Harrods, the London department store. They named him Christian and in their innocence tried to raise him in their London flat. Of course the lion grew somewhat and they eventually had to find him a proper home. His new home turned out to be in the African country of Kenya, where he was flown to from London, with his two adoptive parents in tow. The lads soon returned to London and left Christian there to be reintroduced into the wild.

Sometime later we find the young lad hankering after their lion. They are in fact sufficiently lonesome to actually go back to Kenya to see how Christian is doing. They are warned not to go because the lion has not been seen for months. The experts also predict that having been fully reintegrated into the wild, the lion may not recognize them. They went anyway.

On arrival they find that Christian was now the leader of a pride of wild lions, has appeared at their camp in Kora and is apparently waiting for them to arrive. The video ends with the lion loping purposefully out of the bush towards the two defenseless men. Wow, I thought that he is going to attack the two but instead Christian gets very excited and starts jumping all over this old buddies, licking and hugging them like any normal house pet would do.

Now, who would expect that he still remembers the people that raised him after that long period of time of their separation? Now, could we say that nurture plays an important role on how Christian turns out to be despite of his nature being a wild animal? Yes, Indeed! This story displays all kinds of concepts that we have touched in my psychology class such as memory and classical conditioning. In a way that Christian was able to register the two young lads into his long term memory and he was also conditioned to act like a loving person until time came that they have to let the nature take over for his own sake to what he is destined to be. Fortunately, Christian never departed to how he is nurtured.

In my own opinion, I would say that nurture rules better than nature. We saw the evidence in this story that nurture was able to override Christian’s side of being a wild animal. The same applies to human nature. It doesn’t matter what nature of genes and personality you have inherited from your ancestors. It is the nurturing in life that dictates who we are. It is what we are enlightened to that shapes us. Greatness is forged in a cauldron of specific temperatures and workable raw materials. All of these reagents need the proper environment and tempering to develop into something worth while. Thus, we are not much different in fact to many other forms of animal life; and it is because of subtle human conditioning, not the actual facts that we are raised to believe there is a wide gap between what is human and what is animal. This story reflects a lot of knowledge that I had learned from my psychology in the application of real life. And at the same time it was a great story of unconditional love.

(originally written: April 29th, 2009)