Nurture

You live with your mother. Your brother lives with your dad. At your house, spicy food is the staple of the menu--and you love it! Slather on that Tabasco sauce! Your brother, on the other hand, that boy who comes from precisely the same gene pool as you do, tears up at the first flake of pepper.

Nurture.

It's what you've learned that matters.

We are all born a tabula rasa, a blank slate. It is up to your surroundings, your environment, to write on this slate. Think back to the 20th-century psychologist John Watson who said, if you gave him "a dozen healthy infants of different backgrounds and races, I can make them into a doctor, lawyer, chief--yes, even beggarman or thief." And Watson today remains a prominent name in psychology.

It's the influences placed upon us by our parents, by society, that shape us into what we are. After all, Japanese children are more likely to be emotionally close to their families than American children, who are more likely to be independent. These are the values and mores taught by their cultures, and they grew up considering them important.

It is our natures that make us into what we are.