In the never-ending debate of nature versus nurture, there are valid points to both sides of the argument; however, in the short story I Stand Here Ironing written by Tillie Olsen, the opinion that nurture is more influential is prominently shown. To disagree with this statement, nature is more of a factor when influencing someone’s character. There have been studies that show that the science of epigenetics, which is the study of changes in the genes without affecting the DNA, has been proven to greatly affect a person’s psychological processes. Now even though recent research has shown that environmental cues or nurturing can stimulate epigenetic changes in a person, which contributes to many psychological diseases, the underlying reason for those actions has to do with their Nature. For example, in the short story, it is very noticeable that Emily did not have the best childhood growing up and that she has a lot of underlying issues with her mother because of how she was raised. Because of this treatment, it altered her behaviour and thoughts. A good scenario in the story showing this would be how Emily treats herself and the world. Since Emily is a comedian, she most likely makes jokes about putting herself down and she is probably very depressed and resents the world since she was neglected. While this does relate to the environment around her growing up, those situations altered her genes causing her to think that way. Secondly, there have been many studies between twins that show that even though they may be nurtured the same growing up, they have completely different personalities, behaviours and thoughts as they mature. This information proves that this has something to do with changes going on inside their body. There have also been other studies that have studied twins who were separated at birth. In this study, scientists realized that even though the two siblings had grown up in completely different places with different parenting styles, when they compared them at an older age, they had very similar mannerisms, traits, and likes or dislikes. Finally, neuroscientists know that behaviour is driven by a person’s genes. This argument against nurture often wins because scientists have the research, lab equipment and facilities to discover this. It has also been proven that many psychiatric diseases are hereditary such as autism, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, and depression. Certain findings have shown that these disorders all have to do with genetic changes and that there is actual research going on now to try and prove that they can diagnose these conditions by studying a person’s genes. To conclude, it has been shown that genes cannot be activated without certain environmental cues, so if you think about it, you can not have nature without nurture and vice versa. With this being said, nature seems to be the constant variable in many changes that deal with a person’s character and personality.