Is a marked lack of maturity in an adult the result of nature or nurture?

Oh, so you’ve met my brother-in-law.

Seriously, in his case at least, it stems from a deep dissatisfaction with his life and an inability to recognize his part in creating said life.

And oh, yeah. It’s always someone else’s fault.

Did it have anything to do with his up-bringing? Do you know his parents very well @cookieman?

A lot depends on the age of the person you speak of. Attachment Theory teaches that this type of behavior in teenagers is considered Protest Behavior, and it’s designed to illicit greater bonding attachment to the one who complains about it.

If it continues, or if this is a mature adult, and lacking empathy is a consistent theme, then we may be witnessing the creation of a narcissistic personality disorder.

But typically, conflict resolve conflict resolve cycle is very normal. Should lessen over time as the teen grows up.

How can you develop a fixed formula to determine such a thing? The reasons for variations in people’s personalities are about as numerous as the people themselves.

I believe the answer to this is yes.
While nature can instill in someone the ability to be combative, aggressive and self-centered (all traits that could help individuals survive) how someone is raised can either enhance or suppress those traits.

@stanleybmanly is right. Many variables to consider. Could be bad parents… who had bad parents themselves… or just a bad group of friends… or too much video gaming without getting outside enough… or no defined future plans in life… Who knows?

Try and talk it out. Ask them to tell you how they feel. Don’t respond. Just smile and listen. They could change their behavior simply upon the merit that someone let them talk it out without confrontation.

As always, both.
Certain personality types are also more prone to these issues. sensing, feeling, judging types ( SFJ’s ) either introverted or extroverted, matters not, are much more likely to exhibit PA behavior and be emotionally difficult at times, IF they are in the immature or unhealthy levels of their personality types. Nature and nurture both come into play but personality theory is also a huge mitigating factor in how people process and exhibit their emotions. Introvert feeling types are much more likely to use passive aggressive behaviors than their more extroverted thinking counterparts.

As an NTP ( intuitive, thinking, perceiving ) type I do not do well with immature displays of emotion and, god, forbid, the worst, passive aggressive behaviors. Of course anyone can display PA behavior on occasion, but certain personalities and temperaments are much more prone to do so.

I’d also add that personality theory aside, anyone that has a history of heavy drug or alcohol abuse/use will be emotionally arrested as well. It has been said the ones emotional level of maturity is frozen in time at the age they began using drugs/alcohol on a heavy, regular basis.
Their body may arrive at the head of the table but their mind is still in Jr. High. haha

Good question, would definitely say this is related to dna. Very like my mother this question, she pouts if you don’t agree with her. Her mother is just the same, and sadly my mother is very similar to her now. I really hope that diesn’t mean I am heading the same way.
She is very much, if you don’t agree with her, or challenge her in any way, then you are out to get her. Simple as that.

But if your mother, and her mother do the same thing, how can you attribute it to DNA and not to the way they were raised?

Good quesrion I suppose. I know my mother’s mother was strict with her, and mine wasn’t with me. Only time will tell.

Well, there is that difference. I think most parents do try to improve on their parents.

Nature, nurture, and/or drug abuse.

Well, as my son once told his father when they were in a disagreement about how some trait was engendered, “Nature or nurture – it’s still your fault Dad!”

LOL! Nice @janbb! I’ll remember that one!

It’s like, I’m kind of a Grammar Nazi to my kids and grandkids. My grandson, who was 5 at the time, was telling me a story about he and his grammpa fishing. He said, “Me and grampa went fishing…”
I interrupted to say, “My grammpa and I went fishing…”
He looked at me blankly then said, “No. You weren’t there.”
The place just ROLLED!! I was never able to correct anyone on that particular bit of grammar again! They’d simply reply, “No, you weren’t there.”

I am going to say nurture as whiny manipulative behavior starts from the day a baby first cries. A baby soon learns that crying brings results and as they grow up they learn what specific cries and or tantrums brings desired results. A good nurturing parent will ensure that their offspring are not denied the essetials to be healthy and smart. On the other end of the spectrum children may be denied essentials do to a parents willfully ignoring the childs cries and even worse is the parental units that give in to every cry and whine. This is not always the parents fault either as I have seen grandparents provide currency to a petulent whiny grandkids demands.

It does make you wonder. Were they not required to pick up their toys or clean their rooms? Was Mommy always running around behind them, doing all of that for them?

What you are actually asking is what makes a person the way they are – is it nature, nurture, or a combination of both? I think it’s pretty clearly both, as we’re nothing more than our biology and collective environmental experiences.

In the case you are talking about, does it matter?

Well, OK, what prompted this is I have a friend who’s been married for about 20 years. She’s a little older than I am. It’s a second marriage for both of them. They seem happy, but occasionally she calls me with frustrations she has with her husband. This question is kind of a distillation of all of her frustrations.
They’re from my generation which is pretty much the cusp of women’s lib. They both work, but he feels that house work is a “woman’s job.” He helps some, vacuuming once in a while or whatever.
A couple of days ago she called to vent. This is pretty typical of the things that frustrates her: He drinks wine. She doesn’t drink. Every night he gets a new wine glass. She feels they need to be hand washed, because they’re pretty delicate, and the washing falls to her. She finally asked him to just rinse out his wine glass every evening and reuse it, rather than getting a new one every night. Apparently he got defensive and angry about the request and neither of us can figure out why. Of course, I wasn’t there to hear how she said it, either. According to her, she just asked him to do this in passing, and I tend to believe her because I’ve been around them when there are mild undercurrents. Plus I know her well.

I’m just trying to understand if this behavior, and others she has shared with me, is something that he learned, that was somehow taught to him and that can somehow be “unlearned,” or if it’s human nature, as @rojo suggested here, in which case it’s more complicated I think.

FWIW, I told her to quit washing them, and just let them stack up until he runs out of glasses!

@Dutchess_III I think there is a small amount of ‘danger’ in assuming this disconnect between your friend and her husband falls squarely on her husbands shoulders. Discord over a clean wine glass tells me there could be 20 years of other unresolved ‘issues’ with his wife that he may have simmering in the background as well.

@Dutchess_III: “I’m just trying to understand if this behavior, and others she has shared with me, is something that he learned, that was somehow taught to him and that can somehow be “unlearned,” or if it’s human nature, as @rojo suggested here, in which case it’s more complicated I think.”

But what is special about this particular behavior? It seems that whatever the answer is, it is certainly transferable to every single behavior of mine or yours. Also, is the attribution of nature or nurture instructive in determining if this man’s behavior can be “unlearned”?

I think the scope of this question is much greater than you assume it is.

“We’re never upset for the reasons we think we are,” comes to mind.
The un-rinsed wine glass could very well just be symbolic of the husband trying to exert some control, albeit, passively aggressively, towards his control freak wife. Or..he could be the control freak. haha

Off the more general description in the OP, I was ready to say “it’s probably insecurity.” People tend to react more aggressively when they feel like they’ve got to defend or hide something, I think…

With the more granular details… it could still be insecurity, or partially insecurity, or not really insecurity. It sounds like they’ve got (as @Cruiser suggested) 20 years’ time to have developed a tense situation around household upkeep. (I know that’s the case in my family, anyway!) What seems like one small issue with a wine glass probably seems to him like yet another piece of some other issue (however justified or unjustified,).... alternatively, it might seem connected to a larger issue to her, but he might insist it’s an isolated thing, and he’s reacting to what he interprets as an unreasonable reaction.

He might think “well, if she wants them hand washed, then she can do it.”

Or “of course, there’s yet another thing I can never do right.”

Or “I’ve worked all day and earned the right to wind down with some wine, and all she cares about is ragging on me about one lousy glass.”

He might have had a different chore arrangement with his previous wife.

He might really think that the dishes aren’t his “job.”

He might not see the point in washing a single dish on its own.

He might think they glasses ought to go in the dishwasher.

He might not mind dishes accumulating in the sink.

He might feel “out of place” doing the dishes and so avoid them.

He might resent being told how to clean, and so resists.

He might think he’d only mess it up or not do it the way she wants.

He might be used to not thinking about chores (especially if he’s used to the idea that women clean the house).

He might not realize just how much of the housework she’s actually doing.

He might think the work is split evenly, and doesn’t realize how his apparent dumping of work onto her would feel to her.

Conversely, he might not realize how often he does this sort of give-her-the-chores behavior, and then resents how “strongly” she “inexplicably” reacts to this “one small thing.”

He might feel generally insecure about how well he does things, and since he’s gotten pushback on this, it might have become a sore spot.

It might be the fact that she doesn’t drink alcohol and he does every night, too—if he’s one of those people who doesn’t feel comfortable being the only one drinking, or if he thinks for whatever reason she is irritated by the drinking itself and not merely the dishes.

There might be baggage from an earlier point in his life.

Has she tried the “when you do x, I feel y?” trick, to try and get him to see it from her perspective, or even better, to open up a conversation about it (and what might be underlying it)? Maybe, “when you leave the glass in the sink, I feel like you’re expecting me to clean it, and while I thought it was fine initially, I’m beginning to feel frustrated/taken for granted/etc.?”

@Soubresaut haha, and, another great argument for being single. I have zero desire to spend any time at all on working out relationship conflicts., been there, done that, not doing it again. l The only relationship conflict I have these days is with my sloppy cat that scatters his cat litter around. lol

@Coloma lol! I hear you :)

If one goes off the thought that humans have some innate attribute for being good that they are born with, you are left with crated that way by parents and society.