Nature vs. Nurture

Our textbook mentions Berry, Poortinga, and Pandey's definition of cross-cultural psychology in the revised Handbook of Cross-Cultural Psychology - "the systematic study of relationships between the cultural context of human development and the behaviors that become established in the repertoire of individuals growing up in a certain culture". Now that I've begun to delve deep into the study of different aspects of psychology during the pursuit of my degree, I've really started to notice just how much a person's culture can have an effect on how they develop psychologically.
This topic makes me keep coming back to, above everything else, the famous "nature vs. nurture" debate. To me, if there's one thing that is truly both immensely frustrating and immensely fascinating at the same time, it's trying to apply this debate to all the various psychological phenomenons that I've learned about in the past year. It feels like just about everything can be viewed from both sides of the argument, theoretically at least.
Take, for example, a boy getting abused by his father growing up to become abusive to his son himself. From the nurture standpoint, it could be his home environment during childhood that influenced him in this way. From the nature standpoint, he may have inherited genes from his father that caused him to have a penchant for violence. This is a pretty simple example, of course, but I feel as if I play out both sides of this argument in my head all the time. That peculiar sense of fascination about what makes people feel, think, and act the way they do is one of the reasons why I love psychology, and want to pursue a career in it.
Now, back on the subject of cultural psychology. I feel that the topic of how someone's culture affects them psychologically is something that especially intrigues me - both in terms of the topic itself, and how it ties into "nature vs. nurture". Is it the general environment created by a particular person's culture that produces a particular effect on their development? Or could it be that some genetic links passed on from ancestors cause people from certain cultures to develop in certain ways? Though I know that "nature vs. nurture" may never have a definite answer - be it nature, nurture, or (the most likely case) a combination of both, I'm hoping that as I go through this course, my interest in what makes people turn out the way they do will continue to be explored.

First Thoughts

I'm currently getting into Chapter 1 of our new textbook, and it's given me a few things to think about. The small section of the very beginning in particular was something that I could definitely relate to - the mention of the author's daughter being raised in a bilingual and cross-cultural home. I myself have gone through the very same thing, being raised as a half-Acadian half-Newfoundlander, and speak both English and French in the home.
When I first decided to take this course, I chose it because, first of all, I wanted to be able to get some extra credits in during the summer (ha ha), and also because it seemed like an interesting subject to delve deeper into. It surprised me that the very first paragraph of the textbook would make me realize that this was actually a subject that may hit home for me as an individual. Already I'm starting to reflect on how the terms "Acadian" and "Newfoundlander" were more than just labels indicating what general area my parents were from. It's gotten me thinking about how coming from these two very different cultures may have shaped me as a person.
Technically, I'd definitely say that I'm more closely linked to my Acadian heritage - all my life, I've lived in Cheticamp, a small French Acadian village on Cape Breton Island. I've been immersed in its culture my whole life - the music, the language, and most of all, all of my French relatives whose houses immediately surround mine. However, I've always felt a bit of a disconnect with this heritage - without subconsciously realizing it, I feel that I have this instinctual tendency to identify with my father's culture, even though I seldom get a taste of it. I wonder if there's some kind of psychological explanation for all of this, or if it's just due to my tendency to go against the grain (which is, in this case, the culture that I'm so very immersed in).
Either way, the beginning of this textbook has definitely sparked my curiosity, and I'm looking forward to seeing what else I might learn - not only about this topic in general, but quite possibly about myself.