How Do Nature and Nurture Affect Your Brain?

Looking at a lot of your friends, you may see that most of them are probably just about as tall as their biological parents. Your taller friends tend to have taller parents, whereas your shorter friends have shorter parents. Indeed, it is true that people inherit biological traits such as height from their parents (Figure 2.30 on p. 82). But people have also been getting taller. People who live in industrialized societies are now about 4 inches taller than the average person was 150 years ago. Why has this happened? Most experts agree that improved nutrition is responsible for the increase in height over the past few centuries (Perkins et al., 2016). Although your parents contribute to your potential height, so does your environment. In the following study units we consider how nature and nurture influence how you think, feel, and behave.