Entry 1 – Class Notes 06.10.2021
„The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.” – Lao Tzu
JOURNEY – What could it be? Travel? Growth? Or maybe something else?
When Miranda announced the theme for this semester, I immediately started thinking about which meaning of this term I will incorporate into my project. After all, everything can be a journey – healing, growing, learning, traveling, change. With all these meanings being already interesting on their own, I decided to focus on the psychological aspect of the journey. As someone interested in psychology and thinking about studying it in the future, I decided to look at all the aspects that make up human growth. My goal is to create a project which could be manipulated by the viewer and their choices – it’s going to be a reflective piece about the hardships of growth in each of its aspects. Your growth. I’m going to give you a character, and you will try to guide them through the journey full of deadly traps and unexpected hardships.
Entry 2 – Research Notes 07.10.2021
“You inherit your environment just as much as your genes.” – Johnny Rich
NATURE VS. NURTURE – Which is prevalent?
The first person who brought up the concept of nature vs. nurture to the public eye was Sir Francis Galton. His interest in this topic was not accidental nor surprising – he had many gifted individuals among his relatives, including Charles Darwin, the biologist known for his famous contributions to the science of evolution. He studied the family trees of successful and wealthy families, as well as his own. Unsurprisingly, he found more talented individuals in those families compared to the rest of the population.
Galton believed that both factors played an important role in the development of personality, however, nature was triumphant when these two factors were forced to compete. Currently, there are different approaches in psychology, with biological psychology focusing on the importance of genes, and behaviorism focusing on the aspect of the environment and its role in molding personality and behavior. Although in the past approaches to this debate were very one-sided, today both aspects are recognized as having important roles in the development of personality.