Discovering Who I Am

Claire Hecht

Psychology 115W

Professor Lappin

September 24, 2002

Discovering Who I Am

I did not have a very good feeling about myself those first few weeks of my human knowledge acquisition seminar my freshman year in college.  I felt inadequate and much less prepared than the other students in my small seminar class.  I knew I had the innate intelligence and ability to do well, but I felt that my high school background was not very strong.  In other words, I had good genetics, but weak environmental influences.  I decided to investigate the relative importance of these forces. I also decided to research human language since our class time consisted of group discussions (i.e., based on communication). I read several articles on the subjects of genetic pre-determinism, the hormone testosterone, language, and consciousness, and came to the conclusion that humans are greatly influenced by their biology, environment, and language.  

The first article I read was Tom Wolfe’s "Sorry, but Your Soul Just Died" (1996), which suggests the idea of genetic pre-determinism. Wolfe introduces Edward O. Wilson and his principle of sociobiology, which describes the human brain not as a blank tablet waiting to be filled by experience, but as a negative waiting to be developed. Wilson claims that once this negative is developed, "you are going to get precious little that is not already imprinted on the film. The print is the individual’s genetic history, over thousands of years of evolution, and there is not much anybody can do about it" (p. 2). Wilson argues that genes pre-determine everything, including intelligence, happiness, and even moral choices. According to sociobiology, the following things are believed to be true: Our degree of intelligence is established by our DNA and can only be slightly affected by outside resources such as mentors; the joy and pain we experience are temporary; we never permanently escape our genetically predetermined level of happiness; and our genes govern our decisions, implying that we do not possess free will (p. 2,4,7).

After reading about genetic pre-determinism, I could not bring myself to agree with Wilson’s theory. I believe that the genes we are born with give us certain traits and influence our intelligence, our happiness, and our decisions, but I do not believe that they predetermine everything about us. I believe that along with genetics, our environment greatly affects who we are. An example of this is the situation in my freshman seminar class that led me to do this research. Each student in the class has a unique set of genes and level of intelligence. The class also represents varying academic backgrounds - from large public high schools to small, private college preparatory schools. My observation at the conclusion of the semester was that each student’s performance was influenced by both innate abilities and by the strength of his or her prior academic experiences (e.g., the amount of reading and writing done in high school).

Another example is the case of identical twins. They are born with the same genetic makeup, but will develop different levels of knowledge and patterns of behavior if separated at birth and brought up in completely different environments. Similarly, if one twin is raised in an abusive household and the other in a loving one, I believe their levels of happiness will not be the same when they are older. Our surroundings and our experiences greatly impact us and shape the person we become.

As far as decision-making is concerned, I believe that we are free to make our own choices, although these choices may be constrained by factors beyond our control such as economical or physical forces. Both biological makeup and environment influence the decisions we make, but I strongly believe that they are our decisions, and that we have free will. I think it is important to acknowledge that we have free will because failing to do so would allow us to blame our genes for our decisions and actions, conveniently releasing us from responsibility.

The next article I read, "The He Hormone," by Andrew Sullivan (2000), discusses the influence that the hormone testosterone has on humans. There is no doubt that biological components besides our genes, such as this hormone, affect our feelings, emotions, behavior, and personality. After all, the level of testosterone is one of the main differences in the biological makeup of a man and a woman. A man’s level of testosterone is about ten to twenty times higher than that of a woman, and it causes differences in men and women’s bodies, including genitals, body hair, and muscle to fat ratio, and differences in behavior, including energy, self-confidence, competitiveness, tenacity, strength, and sex drive (p. 154-158). Several men take supplements of testosterone, and it has become a metaphor for manhood (p. 154). This is logical because testosterone causes physical changes and emotional experiences and is clearly a male biological determinant, but I do not think that men are only bags of molecules. Men are also humans, and as such, are also influenced by their environment and their genetic makeup.

To learn more about language, I read part of Steven Pinker’s The Language Instinct (1994). The chapter conveys the power of language. Language allows us to accomplish things that would take much longer, or even be impossible, without it. It is hard to imagine how undeveloped our world would be without language for communicating with each other. We use language in almost everything we do and everything we work towards; being able to communicate with others allows us to share ideas and work together to get the best results. This idea, that two minds are better than one, became obvious in my freshman seminar, as we came up with complex ideas by individually brainstorming and then expressing our discoveries to one another through language.

The Language Instinct made me realize not only the power of language, but also its importance. According to Pinker, people who suffer from aphasia, the loss of language due to brain damage, are sometimes considered lost as a whole (p. 17). A person without language, although still very much alive physically, is considered by some to be dead. That the loss of language would cause someone to be considered dead is a compelling argument that language, along with our biological makeup and our surroundings, is also a critical factor in shaping who we are.

Language appears to be a biological instinct that is triggered by conditions in the environment. Around the age of twelve months, most babies begin to mimic sounds they hear around them (like "da da" for Daddy or "ba ba" for bottle). An instinct that is part of the baby’s brain chemistry, a genetic factor, is activated by stimuli from his surroundings. I think that language is a good example of the interaction between biological and environmental influences.

Someone once said, "We’re all works in progress. I find this relative to this discussion of what makes us who we are and how we develop a sense of self. We are endowed with a given set of genes, but these genes are constantly bombarded by stimuli from the environment. This interaction seems to be one of the ongoing dynamics of human existence. My research helped me see how some of these genetic and environmental forces work in my own life. With a better understanding of myself came a stronger self-awareness, which is made possible by consciousness, according to Antonio Damasio’s The Feeling of What Happens (1999), and differentiates humans from other species.

I think it is important to have a strong sense of self because that is how you know you are unique, an individual different from anyone else. I believe a sense of self is a key part to a your self-esteem and helps you to be true to your own principles, and not to be swayed by the crowd. It grounds you in your world and gives you the anchor you need when everything around you seems to be falling apart. You can lose everything in your life, but your sense of self is with you until you die.

Through my research I realized that every individual has unique strengths and weaknesses, whether they are biological or environmental. My high school background was probably lacking in some areas, but I was now confident that I had the intellectual ability to meet the challenges in my seminar on human knowledge acquisition. I had discovered that humans acquire knowledge as result of both their innate intelligence level and conditions in their environment. I had learned that self-awareness comes from the brain as well as the environment, and often from interaction between the two. I better understood language as the basis of all human communication, how it relates to the acquisition of knowledge, and what a critical role it would play in my own college education. As for the seminar and other college classes, I would simply have to make an environmental adjustment - to more reading, more writing, and more studying.

References

Pinker, Steven. (1994). The Language Instinct. New York: Harper Perennial.

Wolfe, Tom. (1996). Sorry, but Your Soul Just Died. Forbes Magazine.