Dynamic Mapping of Nature vs Nurture

The Squishy Theory
When placing a percentage based value on the extent of how nature versus nurture affects how you make decisions (or to expand to topics such as ‘who you are’, or ‘how you are’…ie, your ‘being’), one must consider how long you’ve lived. The Squishy Theory proposes that from birth to death, it’s a sliding scale with Nature percentages starting at 100% and sliding down while being replaced with higher and higher Nurture percentages.

Nature (Indecision)
Before I go further, by Nature I mean your genetic makeup. It’s determined by your parents genetic makeup. Your ‘personality’, for lack of listing more descriptive traits, is more likely than not very similar to one of your parents.

Nurture (Choice)
Nurture is referring to how life’s circumstances and environment you grow up in affect you. What type of culture did you grow up with? Where do you live? Who are your teachers or mentors?

Expanding the Theory
When we are born, the Squishy Theory is that your decisions are almost purely based on your Nature…100% you could say. Now if your mother was an alcoholic or drug user while pregnant with you, you could argue that’s Nurture…so score one point for pro-life there, but that is not the point I’m trying to make. Let’s just say at conception and the early months of life, your decisions are based on pure instinct. For example, when a baby cries; nobody taught that baby to cry to get what they want… it was their instinct. Nature. However after a few months, that baby can decide to crawl somewhere. Let’s say they are crawling to one of their favorite toys. Does the baby decide to crawl toward that toy because it’s a new object and interesting?…probably the first time. But then the second time that baby crawls toward that same toy, it may be due to the fact that the toy brings happiness…that’s nurture. So already, the 100% Nature value is starting to be replaced by a small percentage of Nurture.

On the opposite end, we will use senior citizens as the example. The Squishy Theory is that elders decisions are affected primarily by their Nurture…or their life experiences you could say. I would never go to absolution and say this reaches 100% Nurture, 0% Nature. It may be 95% Nurture, 5% Nature though. Senior citizens who decide to watch a specific television show will go right to the channel they want. Nurture. At some point in the past, the first time they discovered the television show they thought…hey, I like this show. So after that instinct to discover which is arguably a nature based trait, a decision was made based on past experience to go to their favorite specific television show…nurture.

The Fun Part…Application for Your Life
If you agree with the above generalities, you would most likely agree that having this knowledge could be beneficial if properly applied. Let’s get into the fun part of this subject…”How the Acquisition of Poise can Lead to Profitability” Or another way of saying this would be “how to be confident, lose your low self-esteem, and become successful.

If the Squishy Theory holds true, our instinct, or our nature is a huge part of our younger years. Let’s say higher Nature percentages (and lower nurture percentages) hold out until at least our 20’s. This should give you every reason to forgive yourself for mistakes. Because our Nature is what it is and can’t be controlled. Therefore, there’s no reason to be mad at yourself for younger personality traits. You have to forgive yourself, learn from mistakes, and move on. Realizing that low self esteem levels are impacted by nature is the only argument you need to make. Knowing this will allow you to acquire higher self esteem levels. The younger you are your decision making will be impacted by a higher Nature %, but Nurture %’s are rising everyday, for example simply reading this article is an act of Nurture. The challenge is once you forgive yourself for younger years mistakes or bad personality traits, and you gain self confidence, is to not put this personality trait of “ego” on display. It’s great to have, not great to show off. This I refer to as the ‘Acquisition of Poise.’

The graphic below shows the results from Thesaurus.com for “Confidence” synonyms.