Manners and Swearing are common issues in today’s society. It seems we are becoming more and more tolerant of bad language, and therefore using it more often. But where do manners and swearing come from? And what causes this behaviour to take place?
(Roberts 2009) suggests that “as a child grows under the eyes of the parents and other adults, he/she develops his/her own unique personality. Some of the traits are inherited or hereditary. His/her physical features, such as height and colour of the skin and mental characteristics, such as aesthetic talents are passed from the parent’s genes. However, a child’s environment is as important as their genes. His/her upbringing, healthcare, education, abundance or deficiency or love, family members, etc, influence the growth of the child and moulds his/her personality.”
If this is true, it suggests that their environment can influence a person’s personality. Behaviour is one way some people express their personality, and manners or swearing are a part of a person’s behaviour.
There are many ways a person can acquire certain habits like manners or swearing. They can be learned through peers or even teachers at school. If a child’s peers swear around them, they will pick up language they may otherwise not have learnt. Teachers through reprimand influence manners, for instance when a student displays bad manners and/or swears, the teacher will punish them and therefore teach them better manners.
Parents would also greatly influence a person’s manners or swearing, as when children are young, they are very impressionable and very attached to their parents, and therefore they learn from their parents what manners are acceptable, and would also learn language from their parents, so if they are overheard swearing, the child may pick up this language.
Etiquette classes are also offered to try to teach people manners. These classes have a high level of success, so therefore are able to teach people manners, despite a person’s nature or previous upbringing. (Lusk 2007)
So, consider the above points about manners and swearing and decide whether they are a product of nature or nurture?
Information gathered from:
(Roberts 2009) suggests that “as a child grows under the eyes of the parents and other adults, he/she develops his/her own unique personality. Some of the traits are inherited or hereditary. His/her physical features, such as height and colour of the skin and mental characteristics, such as aesthetic talents are passed from the parent’s genes. However, a child’s environment is as important as their genes. His/her upbringing, healthcare, education, abundance or deficiency or love, family members, etc, influence the growth of the child and moulds his/her personality.”
If this is true, it suggests that their environment can influence a person’s personality. Behaviour is one way some people express their personality, and manners or swearing are a part of a person’s behaviour.
There are many ways a person can acquire certain habits like manners or swearing. They can be learned through peers or even teachers at school. If a child’s peers swear around them, they will pick up language they may otherwise not have learnt. Teachers through reprimand influence manners, for instance when a student displays bad manners and/or swears, the teacher will punish them and therefore teach them better manners.
Parents would also greatly influence a person’s manners or swearing, as when children are young, they are very impressionable and very attached to their parents, and therefore they learn from their parents what manners are acceptable, and would also learn language from their parents, so if they are overheard swearing, the child may pick up this language.
Etiquette classes are also offered to try to teach people manners. These classes have a high level of success, so therefore are able to teach people manners, despite a person’s nature or previous upbringing. (Lusk 2007)
So, consider the above points about manners and swearing and decide whether they are a product of nature or nurture?
Information gathered from:
Lusk, R. 2007, Swearing in Public is Not a Criminal Offences, Rocky Mountain Collegian, Colorado, viewed 22 May 2009,
Roberts, M. 2009, Infancy and Pre-school Nursing, Muslim Information Resources, London, viewed 22 May 2009,
Blog Written by: Caitlin Haynes, Mandy Cripps, Victoria Denny
Roberts, M. 2009, Infancy and Pre-school Nursing, Muslim Information Resources, London, viewed 22 May 2009,
Blog Written by: Caitlin Haynes, Mandy Cripps, Victoria Denny
Manners are a product of nurture. This report reinforces that. For e.g. if we live in a household in which all we hear is bad language, and no use of manners, the child will definitely not be able to produce good manners. Where would he learn about manners other than his own household? How can you expect a child who sees his parents/other family members as role models NOT to copy their behaviour? From the moment we are born, if we a brought up in a household with good manners and etiquettes we are extremely likely to copy this behaviour. Just like this report mentions, etiquette classes are successful. This is because the child will model this behaviour and learn to use manners and etiquettes in every day situation. Although this blog does not provide information in agreement or non-agreement of nature in the debate of manners, it is quite clear that manners ARE a product of nurture. “However, a child’s environment is as important as their genes. His/her upbringing, healthcare, education, abundance or deficiency or love, family members, etc, influence the growth of the child and moulds his/her personality.” This statement is accurate in depicting the way a child is moulded.
ReplyDeleteBased on the information provided above and further research, I believe that bad manners and swearing are definitely a product of someone’s upbringing and the environment that they were raised in. Roberts stated His/her upbringing, healthcare, education, abundance or deficiency or love, family members, etc, influence the growth of the child and moulds his/her personality.” This suggests that someone’s background and the environment that they were raised up in is the result of their behaviour. A common reaction from a parent when their child is behaving badly is punishment. People who were punished for swearing or bad manners don’t often behave like that. However, parents who encourage their kids to be badly behaved and display bad manners by not employing any punishments, find their children are poorly behaved. Therefore, I truly believe that bad manners and swearing are certainly the product of Nurture.
ReplyDeleteLucy
I believe that the use of swearing or manners is brought on by the nurture of a person. People that swear are more likely to have been exposed to this language before and a person that uses manners is more likely to have been exposed to this kind of language before. Parents, peers and friends are believed to be the main groups of people that teach these people these the languages(manners and swearing). This is because; when a person hears the use of this language they are more likely to use the same language because they generally think it is right. This is why swearing and manners are a product of nurture.
ReplyDeleteJoel
Manner and swearing is a product of nurture. I child isn’t born with manners; manners have to be taught to children. A child doesn’t know swear words when it is born, they have to hear or be told that specific word. Most of the manners you have been taught, have come from people in your life; parents, grandparents, sisters, brothers and friends. Swearing comes from these people also. I don’t think that nature has a part in manner and swearing because you don’t know to say please and “thank-you” every time you ask for something or receive something. People have to teach it to you. You see parent’s everyday teaching their children to have good manners; saying thank-you when you get something from a store. They even start teaching babies when they don’t even understand words yet. You see mothers say “Ta” when they want something that the baby has taken. Swearing also is not nature because you don’t just wake up one day and know a swear word off the top of your head you have to have heard it before. So, I believe that manner and swearing is nurture.
ReplyDeleteBoth manners and swearing are clearly due to the ‘nurture’ side of the debate, as they are both man made things. Swearing is simply a form of language, and language is created by humans, and taught to other humans. Perhaps the ‘need’ or ‘want’ to have a way of communicating feelings of anger, frustration etc. is nature, as all people get these urges, however the actual use of a ‘swear word’ is completely nurture. People taught each other these words, and taught them that they were ‘swear words’, and that is why they are used in this context.
ReplyDeleteI believe the same can be said for manners. For example: a person can have feelings of gratefulness towards another person, and have the want to express this gratefulness (nature), but unless they have been taught the concept of manners they will not say thank you (nurture).
Ryan
From the points given above I believe that manners and swearing are a product of nurture not nature. I believe this because I think that children learn to talk from hearing other people speak, a baby is not born with a full set of words in their head and they do not know when to use these words. The influence of a family member helps toddlers learn to talk and if they here words that are swear words they are likely to repeat them, as they would repeat other words such as dog, cat, etc. Swearing and manners would go into someone’s behaviour and personality; no one is already born with certain behaviours and a set personality. Their environment influences how a person acts, if a child is raised in a house that had good manners, they most probably wouldn’t go out swearing unless they were to learn these words at school. This is the same with good manners a person who is likely to be raised in a house with good manners will have good manners. Children are very impressionable and much attached to their parents at a young age, learning off them. This shows why I believe that nurture is the key factor in manners and swearing.
ReplyDeleteNicole
Considering the above points, I believe that manners are the product of the way we are brought up. Swearing or manners can be learnt either directly from your parents teachings, the tv shows you watch as a child or the people that your family are around.
ReplyDeleteWhen we are young, manners are taught to us by our parents. They encourage us to say our please and thankyous to everyone. This is the same with swearing. When we are older, it is clear that swearing is also taught by our parents, or friends that we are around. For example it has been shown that girls in all girls schools are less likely to swear, because there are not many boys around who are also swearing. Whereas girls in co-ed schools are more likely to swear due to the presence of boys who are also swearing.
In conclusion, I believe that the case of manners and swearing is a clear cut case of nurture- how our parents treat us, and who we are around.
Jillease
Nurture is obviously the cause for manners and swearing, because "as a child grows under the eyes of the parents and other adults, he/she develops his/her own unique personality." (Quote from article) and as stated above in the article "Behaviour is one way some people express their personality, and manners or swearing are a part of a person’s behaviour." So this would have to mean that you do not inherit manners or swear from nature, but you a nurtured to have manners and swear. From the top quote you can see that a child might get manners or learn to swear from their parents but this is through a child observing them not from receiving genes that will determine whether they have manners or swear.
ReplyDeleteManners and swearing are not learnt through nature because they are expressed through language. Language can only be learnt through observing and being taught. So to show manners or to swear you have to observe and learn how to express them.
I think that manners and swearing is a product of nurture, not nature.
Connor R-J
Manners and swearing are a product of nurture. The acquisition of swear-words and mannerisms both follow the same path as learning to talk. Exposure to words allows you to learn what they mean and to eventually use them effectively. Swear-words and words like ‘please’ and ‘thank-you’ are just the same as words like ‘cat’ or ‘tree.’ Therefore the level of exposure to them will define how we use them, and how much we use them. Another thing to take into account is the critical period, where we are most sensitive to picking up new things – swearing and manners included. Any influence from parents or relatives in terms of politeness or rudeness will have a great effect in this period. Reinforcement is something else to consider in the use of manners and swearing. If a parent is ambivalent of both swearing and manners, so neither rewards nor reprimands it, than a child will be more likely to see the use of swearing to be acceptable. Vice versa, if a parent rewards manners and punishes swearing, than a child will see this as the right thing to do, becoming less likely to swear and more likely to be polite. Of course, it is not only these early years which will affect the likelihood of swearing. In a school environment, a person may be exposed to swearing as a cool thing to do, influencing a person to begin swearing (if they have not already)to be considered cool or normal.
ReplyDeleteTom
I strongly believe manners and swearing are shaped by nurture. Swearing and manners is a part of our behaviour. There is evidence supporting the impact of external influences such as upbringing on one’s behaviour. As Bandura’s Social Learning Theory stated, through observation and imitation of others, humans develop their personality and behaviour.
ReplyDeleteManners are a part of the set of rules created by society. Society determines what is socially appropriate or inappropriate. Through social interaction with parents and peers, one will learn what is socially appropriate or not. Children who grow up in an environment where swearing is common are more likely to swear in other situations. I agree with the post that children are most susceptible to picking up language and behaviour from their parents.
The main evidence supporting nurture’s impact on etiquette is mentioned in the post. Adults who have been nurtured in a bad-mannered environment can change still their behaviour through etiquette lessons.
cathy
This Post displays clearly that swearing is a product of nurture, which makes total sense because if a child never heard a swear word they would never use it. This point points to a nurture debate but many psychologists have argued that this is incorrect. Psychologists believe that if a child with "good nature" heard a swear word and were told not to use it they would not use it. On the other hand if a child with "bad nature" heard the word they would use it often. This points to the personality of children, or their nature, as the determining factor in manners and swearing.
ReplyDeleteManners and swearing:
ReplyDeleteI believe that manners and swearing is a part of one’s nurture. A consistency to polite behaviour in upbringing will lead to a mature, sophisticated child.
Consider this, when you spend the day with a friend or family member who consistently swears and is pretty lazy, when you go home after a while you pick up the bad language and you will tend to swear more often and expose their traits. Agreed?
A person is not born with the ability to swear, as if the words are never taught to them, how are they supposed to say them? And as for manners, a responsibility of your parents is to teach the child to walk, talk, and be considerately polite. If these things are never taught to you, how are you supposed to act them?
Growing up in places where there isn’t much supervision or correct teachings, allows the child to think that bad manners are acceptable, because they have never know any different.
This is why Manners and swearing are a part of one’s nurture.
Alex W
I believe swearing is strongly caused by Nurture. So swearing is obviously part of language (you can’t swear unless you speak it and speaking is some sort of language). You can’t speak when you are born and the Social Learning Theory states that people learn language from other people. So if swearing is part of our language then this must mean that swearing is learnt from other people as per the Social Learning Theory.
ReplyDeleteManners are also a product of nurture. As shown in little children who have tantrums when they are young because they don’t get what they want manners have to be learned. This can idea can also be backed by Piaget’s stages theory. When you are young (from around 0 – 7) you have ego centrism but as you grow older and people start to influence you more this ego centrism starts to subside. Even Miss O’Neill said when we were learning Piaget’s theory that it is fairly evident in children who go to day care when they are young that they loose their ego centrism a lot quicker than children who just sit at home by themselves. Ego centrism has been used as an example for manners because ego centrism is always seeing things from your point of view but the opposite is when you look at things from other people’s view and that is what manners are. Seeing things from other peoples view and what they would want done and doing it. So manners are evidently a product of your upbringing and nurture because if no one else used manners than neither would you because you wouldn’t know what they are.
In conclusion I strongly believe that manners and swearing are caused by nurture and not nature.
Iain
I believe that manners and swearing caused by our nurture. In most cases people learn swearing through their peers or older siblings. Another impact on a person’s language is the media. It’s likely that if you surround yourself with people who swear a lot and various forms of media which use abusive language then throughout the social learning theory you will change. Whatever type of family we are brought up in, we immediately think of as the social norm. Once we become more familiar with other environments such as school, we begin to adapt to them. This new environment brings together what other people have developed as norms such as swearing and rudeness, and we begin to, in a way, conform to these. Therefore, I believe that swearing is brought up purely by an individual’s environment.
ReplyDeleteIzzy.
This blog shows the manners and swearing are products of nurture. A child is not born with manners, the child has to be taught manners and punished when manners are not used in the child’s everyday vocabulary. Young children who are punished for using bad manners and explicit language, will avoid using inappropriate language and they will use the manners that they have been taught, therefore this will be a product of nurture. As stated in the blog above, Roberts says that “as a child grows under the eyes of the parents and other adults, he/she develops his/her own unique personality. Some of the traits are inherited or hereditary. His/her physical features, such as height and colour of the skin and mental characteristics, such as aesthetic talents are passed from the parent’s genes. However, a child’s environment is as important as their genes. His/her upbringing, healthcare, education, abundance or deficiency or love, family members, etc, influence the growth of the child and moulds his/her personality.” This shows us that manners and swearing come from the parents or role models in the child’s life, therefore manners and swearing are a product of nurture.
ReplyDelete-Mel :)
After reading the blog above, I consider manners and swearing as products of nature and nurture. As most children often see their parents as “superior role models, many with rude or polite parents will likely follow their language and use them in the future. So, it seems like children speak like their parents and family members. But it is possible for the environment to influence children as well. For example, children who are influenced by rude manners and swearing may conform to the status trend if they are not punished in the future (referring to social learning theory and levels of conformity in a group). However, if they are punished for bad behaviour, it will be unlikely for a repetition of the action in the future. It is possible for children to prevent conformity towards the environment’s factors if they have strong confidence and self-esteem. Prevention against learning rude behaviours from parents would be receiving criticism and harsh comments from others (e.g. relatives, friends, and teachers); understanding the words and manners may also shock the child and therefore prevent them from using such embarrassing attitudes. Clearly, nature and nurture plays as a continuum to form our behaviour in the society.
ReplyDeleteTiffany