The Nature-Nurture Controversy

Although social scientists observing the American scene agree that teenagers are characterized by restless and confused behavior, the explanation for this behavior of "storm and stress" sometimes lacks consensus and can be divided into two camps. Sociologists and social psychologists tend to argue for an environmental, primarily cultural, explanation, while some psychologists, relatively few, argue for a biogenetic origin of typical adolescent behavior. The question of whether nature (biological conditions) or nurture (social environment) is responsible for a given behavior pattern is of course on old one and has often been asked in relation to various stages in the life cycle of man, including the teenage period. The assumption that a causal relationship exists between the physiological, especially endocrinological, changes during pubescence and the behavioral and social phenomena of adolescence has been largely discarded in favor of the cultural explanation.

These developmental stages are presumably brought about by biologically innate forces which control growth and behavior. Human behavior manifests itself therefore in inevitable and unchangeable behavior patterns which are universal, regardless of the cultural environment. Cultural anthropologists and sociologists challenged this assertion and showed that Hall's theory was untenable in the light of cross-cultural observations. They were able to point to a number of societies where the phenomenon of adolescence did not exist, thereby rendering invalid Hall's claim that the adolescents' behavioral predispositions are direct expressions of universal physiological drives.

In the meantime, however, Hall and his followers continued to insist that socially unacceptable behavior, the type held analogous to earlier historical phases of man, must be tolerated by parents and educators since it is part of the necessary and unavoidable stages in the social development of the individual. These psychologists of adolescence reassured parents and teachers that this objectionable behavior would vanish of its own accord in subsequent stages of development, and that corrective or disciplinary measures are neither necessary nor advisable. Remnants of this theory still occupy a prominent place in American educational philosophy embedded in such ideas as Gesell's concept of maturation.

A realistic assessment of the nature-nurture question will probably result in neither an extreme environmental nor an extreme biogenetic statement, but rather in a balanced view that takes both factors into consideration. Without doubt, the physiological upheavals during early adolescence are capable of profoundly influencing the psychological processes and the social behavior of the young individual. However, the vast majority of modern behavioral scientists ascribe greater influencing power to the sociocultural environment that offers interpretations of this physiological turbulence than to the physiological processes per se. Sociocultural interpretations, as maintained by the majority of the people in a society, establish the meaning of an event, thing, or physiological process. Man, the symbolic creature, does not react to things and happenings as such, but mainly to the meanings attached to them. From a cross-cultural point of view, it is possible to observe a near-endless differential interpretation of neural impulses; i.e., one and the same physiological process can be perceived in totally different ways from one culture to the next. It is thus the meaning ascribed to the physiological processes at adolescence that determines the American teen-ager's reaction to them.