Guided Response: Respond in a substantive way to at least two of your peers. Choose at least one point from your peer’s response that impacted your thinking on this subject, and explain why and how that particular comment resonated with you or caused you to think in a different way. Compare the implications for human personality development identified by your peers to those you identified, and suggest alternative conclusions where appropriate. Challenge ideas with which you disagree, and support your arguments.
Ashley’s Post:
Looking at the research that was performed on the rats in “The Great Rat Mother Switcheroo” (Webster, 2013) displayed motherly love by grooming the rats affectionately, which affected the rats on a genetic process level called epigenetics. The pups were interchanged among the high-licking and low-licking mothers throughout this experiment. The pups that belonged to the high-licking mothers were placed with the mothers who had low-licking behaviors. The pups who were born and raised by mothers with the high-licking behaviors became low stress adults while pups born and raised by mothers with low-licking behaviors became high stress adults. These qualities were transpired down to the off-spring with a reoccurring cycle.
Children who have encountered neglect or abusive parents will carry high stress in their adult life. When a person encounters an early trauma, the balance of emotional arousal could possibly overcome the mind that is being developed and also may alter the developmental structure of the brain (Lecci, 2015). Consequences of living with high stress can lead to mental illness and maladaptive behaviors. According to Weaver et al (2004), “the hypothesis that maternal care alters DNA methylation, these changes are stably maintained into adulthood” (p.2). This is extremely important information for us to assist those who have experienced a traumatic childhood that resulted in maladaptive behaviors or mental illness that carried over into later life. In efforts to make changes, therapy and dieting is a start. Applying one without the other will not be sufficient enough.
The proposal of how effectively the mother loves her child could possibly influence a child on a genetic level demolishing the “nature vs. nurture” dispute. In my opinion, it is presented that there can be positive or negative results on one another. “Epigenetics is a system that turns our genes on and off. The process works by chemical tags, known as epigenetic marks, attaching to DNA and telling a cell to either use or ignore a particular gene” (Weaver et al, 2004). In other words, genes are controlled due to the social surroundings we are in.
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