ABSTRACT
The perennial debate about what is more potent for the development of human personality-nature or nurture-is still going on today. Most modern researchers’ positions fall into a fifty-fifty ratio. Some hold the position that genetics is the prevailing factor in forming personality, while others consider social factors as more significant. For example, gene researcher Craig Venter1 states that environment, not genes, is key to our personality. That is, the degree to which genes influence human development depends on the kind of environment a human is placed in. Matthew Syed (2010) holds the position that “talent is overrated.” He practically dismisses the notion of predetermination by means of heredity on performance. He suggests that “ten thousand hours of purposeful practice” enables a person to achieve an outstanding performance level regardless of his heredity. Purposeful
practice, by his definition, is the practice with concentration and dedication, and with an access “to the right training system.” Syed followed the lives of such outstanding people as Mozart, Picasso, Federer, and others. He asserted that the outstanding performances these individuals demonstrated in early childhood were due to the thousands of hours of practice that they already had by that time. It is well-known that Mozart’s outstanding musical talent emerged as early as the age of three. In all fairness, it’s hard to imagine how he could have “ten thousand hours of purposeful training” by such an early age. Scientists, who hold the view that abilities are biologically determined and their expression depends entirely on inherited characteristics, argue that upbringing and education can only speed up the development of abilities.
