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The debate of Nature v. Nurture was discussed when I was in a 7th-grade science class.
Since then it gets trotted out as a competition between those two N’s for all kinds of issues. As I work mostly with gender and my psychotherapy practice focuses on men, I am asked about this (or told about this) all the time. What if the question itself was simply unhelpful? What if it were Nature AND Nurture instead of versus? Instead of the “or” Let’s look at how both N’s work together.
The Trouble with Testosterone
Biology is real. My DNA is my DNA and I’d be hard-pressed to go about changing it. There are things that we can change and there’s a lot we can’t. There are things we spend a lot of time trying to change that we’d better off just accepting. Case in point, I’m not getting any taller. I can buy platform shoes, I can walk on stilts, but I’m wasting a lot of time when I could simply be accepting my 5’6”-ness and adapt to the world. Ok, you got me, 5’5”.
Hormones are an interesting part of our biochemical makeup, but many people would like to view them as everything or as destiny. Dr. Robert Sapolsky, in his a la Oliver Sacks book of essays The Trouble with Testosterone, makes some important and seemingly contradictory points about that particular hormone, about the family of androgens, really.
Testosterone is present when there is aggression. Aggression diminishes without testosterone. Aggression returns when there is testosterone. However, aggression does not cause testosterone. Does that not make sense? Take a look at monkeys.
Social Structure and Hormones Together
Sapolsky cites a study that looked at 5 monkeys, all of which have developed a hierarchy. Monkey number 1 is dominant over monkeys 2-5, monkey 2 is dominant over 3-5, and so on. The researchers took out #3, injected him with a slew of testosterone and hypothesized that he would become the “big monkey on campus.” What happened instead was that he fit himself right back into the hierarchy.
He became more aggressive toward monkeys 4 and 5, but he resumed his place as #3 and continued to genuflect to monkeys 1 and 2. It was the social structure that opened the window for aggression, that allowed for the aggression to occur, and the testosterone simply made the window slide open wider and more easily.
To make it less observable and more chemical, brains were also looked at. Flooding parts of the brain with testosterone does not lead to aggression where aggression is not already present. They just allow for more of it when the social structure has deemed it acceptable.
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What are we looking for and why are we asking?
We want to know who to blame and who to let off the hook. If we point to testosterone and say this is the thing that causes aggression, then we can give a ton of men a pass for a lot of violent behavior…which is often what we do: It wasn’t me, it was my hormones that made me do it! That’s the crux of ‘boys will be boys’ and the ‘his being mean to you means he likes you’, argument. That’s what men do.
Lots of people would like to argue the other side of the equation and state that it’s all about socialization. There’s some good evidence that falls on that side of things, but the honest answer to it all is that it’s not one OR the other, but BOTH AND.
Nature and nurture work together and one allows for the other. Given a social structure that puts females in a higher hierarchical place and allowing for more aggression, and their testosterone levels are higher! (Also in Sapolsky’s essay in his examining of the spotted hyena). However, we can change only one of these things. Only one thing that is worth society spending it’s time on.
The Environments We Create Lead to Shame or Acceptance.
Our social environment has a profound influence on not just who we are, but more so who we are OK with becoming. Our environment provides the shame or the acceptance about who we are.
Do we grow up in an atmosphere where having a penis and wearing a dress is revolting, or is a “phase” or is simply what we’re doing with no judgment needed? This is all coming from our social environment: our family and our community and ultimately it edges into what we believe for ourselves as well.
Can we create atmospheres where anger is an acceptable emotion, but aggression and violence are not (always) healthy expressions of that emotion? That allows for nature and tendencies but still holds us accountable for our choices and our behaviors.
Remember: Like those monkeys, there is a hierarchy of our creation, and the aggression is often rained down on women, children, and any adult male we consider weak. Even those who say it’s all about their Nature are still making choices about what their Nature is attacking. Let’s learn from nature and create the nurture we need.
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Photo credit: Pixabay