are we products of our environment?

Question

or can we choose who we are

Answer 1

Yes, we are products of our environment. What we are today has been greatly influenced by environmental factors. One's upbringing, education, friends, family, teachers,church, pastor and anybody who at one point or another had some direct bearing on the way you think or the way you react to certain situations. It also dictates how your personality was formed. your knowledge and conclusions you arrived.

For example, if you come from a loving,stable family setting, with good manners and discipline implemented, you're most likely to turn out a loving, well-mannered , orderly person. In the same token, if you come from a dysfunctional family or a domestic abusive family, you're most likely to turn out very abusive, mean, and intolerant of others. You might even be prone to use violence;if you don't get your way.

Studies were made on the effect of environment,and upbringing background of career criminals. And majority of them come from broken down families. Most come from foster homes feeling rejected as they are shuffled from one household to another. without knowing love and real acceptance.

So environment definitely dictates the sociopathic tendencies of some criminals -society's rejects. They retaliate against society for all their hurts and totally blame society for the way their lives turn out to be .
These individuals are oblivious to the fact that they do have some say so in the direction their path in life took. They totally blame society for all the demons in them.

Answer 2

Everything that you think you "choose" is determined somehow. In fact, we rely on our past results for our survival. As a child, you learn that big hunks of metal are moving across the street. You learn not to move in front of these "cars". Thats just one example of a predisposition that we as humans develop.

It is the sum total of these "predispositions" that result in our decisions. Each "predisposition" is determined by a previous disposition, and so on. For example, lets say you really enjoy fried chicken. Why? Because you "like the taste of it" you say. Well, if you did not remember that it was tasty all the past times you'd had it, you wouldn't be "hungry for it". Why do you like fried chicken in the first place? Well, that goes back to a previous disposition. Perhaps as a younger child your family had cookouts and that was a common food, and it brings back fond memories. Another person who's family grew up vegetarian would therefore find the chicken disgusting because of their predisposition against it.

So, in a nutshell:

Starting at birth, we form dispositions about things in our environment (we remember the past)

These dispositions guide our choices.

So our choices are a product of the environment (the unique and very complex combination of dispositions we have accrued).

Answer 3

Yes. we are product of our environment. But we always have the choice to choose who we are. But we don't.

Answer 4

We can make decisions within the constraints of how we have come to be.

For example, we cannot decide to fly of our physical self, even if we chose to. However we can chose who we like, or what to eat if such options are available.

If our immediate environment was inescapable and filled with poisonous gas, we could not have the ultimate choice either to escape or to live, we may attempt, but that would be outside our constraints.

As aware beings, we can influence elements of our descendants lives and future choices in evolutionary terms by choosing our partners and making life style choices. Thus through evolution, natural selection and once we became aware, choice we have influenced who we are as people.

Within the boundaries of our physical and mental abilities, and the social restrictions forced upon us, or those we chose to abide by we walk the path of developing who we are through choice.

Choice within constraints.

Answer 5

Well, you can't choose your parents but you can choose your friends and your own personality. We are affected by our environment but it will be our choice to be controlled by it or just make it a guide to have a good life.

Answer 6

yes and no, Yes because environment in the childhood Prague's a lot of our character, and we carry lots of it our whole life, without even sometimes noticing it, but some people have the guts to change it , which again depends on knowing it , and for noticing something is wrong with us or their is something from the past that we have to work on don't we need a special environment to give us such a conciseness?

Answer 7

How exactly is environment related to rationality? We can choose who we want to be in any situation we find ourselves in.

Answer 8

Hello. Yes- but ONLY if we wish to remain that way. Mankind's gift is his ability to change his situation. We can always change ourselves. The reason many think this is impossible, is because they have failed in trying to change once before. A good example is someone trying to quit smoking. You WILL fail quite a few times, but if you don't give up, success can still be yours.

Answer 9

we are the products of environment.

Answer 10

We are influenced by our environment, we also have our own DNA make up that predetermines certain things too. We always have CHOICE and should use it wisely.