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personality development introduction essay
role Biology plays in personality
personality development introduction essay
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The foremost differentiation between human beings lies within an individual’s personality. A person’s personality lies in the individual’s general profile or within the unique mixture of psychological qualities of character that relates to that individuals distinctive nature. The individual’s distinctive mixture of psychological aspect guides the way in which that specific human being reacts and interacts with the others or their surroundings. One's character contains a set of mental distinctiveness that mimics the way in which a person feels, thinks, and act. Various specialists have asked themselves which is the major aspect that establishes personality: is personality genetically inherited or developed progressively through experience? I’m sure that many of us have frequently heard comments such as: “He acts that way because that’s the way he was brought up!” or “He acts exactly like his father!” That’s when the debate appears: which is most imperative when formulating your personality - human nature or education? Does an individual’s personality depend on the environment in which someone leads their life or the heredity through genetic inheritance?
Personality: Genetically Inherited or Developed
As indicated by psychologists, the most rational answer of all to which is most imperative when developing your personality is neither one, nor the other, but the combination of the two factors- the experience/educational/environmental factor and the genetic factor. Consequently, heredity sets up the limits of one's personality traits that can be developed, while the environment-signified by the situational, cultural, and social factors - persuade the actual development within the limits. Cultural factors are connected to the cu...
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... and expected reactions to events, have your behavioral and affective features been “fixed" during childhood and have you changed at all since? To me I believe that the theories stated above have their factual side as well as their false one, anyway, in an unsure world like the one were in, the method in which we behave and think under specific situations is likely to be the most unsure of all.
Works Cited
Carver, C., & Scheier, M. (2004). Perspectives on Personality (5th Ed.). Boston: Pearson.
Cornelius, R., Hockenbury,D., & Hockenbury,S. (2009). Discovering Psychology (5th Ed)., NewYork: Worth Pub
Feist, J., & Feist, G. J. (2002). Theories of personality (5th Ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.
Mcleod, S. A. (2007). Simply Psychology; Nomothetic Idiographic Debate in Psychology. Retrieved from http://www.simplypsychology.org/nomothetic-idiographic.html
The evaluation of personality stability and change across the life span is largely determined by theoretical beliefs. While some scholars have a more deterministic viewpoint and consider human personality as fairly predictable and stable over time (e.g. biogenetic determinism), other theorists view personality as fluid and highly malleable (e.g. behaviorism). The intermediate stance assumes a bidirectional relationship between heredity and environment, which allows for both consistency and change in personality. Moreover, some theorists introduce a third element to a biosocial model - the individual (e.g. transactional model of socialization). Evaluation of personality stability is difficult, seeing lack of consensus on what personality is and how it should be measured even when it viewed through a similar framework. Examination of two trait theories of Allport and Eysenck present an intriguing juxtaposition on personality definition, measurement and performance.
If I were to evaluate a theory and choose the one that I had to accept then I would take away something from all of the theories that we learned about. Theories are created through existing data. However, a theory may not necessarily be correct but it does give us a better understanding of concepts in that it gives people to either prove them correct or wrong. All in all, understanding is being created. Plus, our book stated that “the best available explanation of personality comes from using the best of all the theories rather than attempting to use one or a few of them” (531).
Feist, J., Feist, G. J., & Roberts, T. A. (2009). Theories of personality. New York:
I believe that people are a byproduct of both their inherited and inborn characteristics, as well as their environment. The nature versus nurture debate has long been a hot debate in the psychology world with evidence supporting both sides of the argument. It is hard to determine whether nature or nurture has more of an influence on our behaviors. For instance, you have a child who is a bully in a classroom. The question is then raised, is this child a bully because his genetic makeup created him to be more aggressive and less empathetic? Or is this child a bully because his home life fosters and rewards him for being aggressive? Or is his home life one where the parents are negligent and aggressive towards the child? If all of the above scenarios were true, then it would be relatively easy to state that the child’s bullying behavior is a byproduct of both his nature and his nurturing. Now let’s look at a professional athlete. Some say a person is born with the skill, hence the phrase natural born athlete. Now a child could be born with the innate aptitude to be an all-star athlete, however, no skill can succeed without practice. Therefore, that would bring to reason that a child could not have any skill to begin with, but with practice they become an all-star athlete. Both of these examples (the bully and the athlete) portray the interconnected and complex ideal of nature versus nurture, with neither providing substantial evidence that
“Personality is the combination of thoughts, emotions and behaviors that makes everyone unique. It 's the way people view, understand and relate to the outside world, as well as how they see themselves. Personality forms during childhood, shaped through an interaction of these factors: Genetics and Environment.” (Staff M. C., 2013) Genetics plays a major role in a person’s life because this has to deal with the person’s genes, DNA, and also traits. Each individual inherited two copies of genes, one from each parent. The type of genes passed down to a child can affect the lifestyle of that child if there are any possible disorders or diseases. The environment around us shapes who we are as an individual. Different environments gives off different behavioral skills. If there are any negative influences in the environment, such as violence in the home or community, this solely affects the way an individual is
After Allport, came along two psychologists, Raymond Cattell and Hans Eysenck, who each formulated their own theories regarding traits. Their theories have been the subjects of considerable research in the world of psychology. Cattell seemed to focus on far too many traits, while Eysenck seemed to focus on too few. As a result, psychologists have combined the two theories to make one satisfactory theory (Cherry), called “The Big Five Factors” (Myers). They are: conscientiousness, agreeableness, neuroticism, openness, and extraversion. These five factors merge to create the human personality (Cherry). Where people fall into these factors s...
Feist, J., & Feist, G. J. (2009). Theories of Personality (7th ed.). New York, New York: McGraw-Hill.
In today’s society, one is constantly surrounded by individuals with different behaviors. Some will sacrifice his or her life for a complete stranger. However, there is some individuals who would take advantage of the weak and poor for his or her own personal gain. Now the question arises, what makes human beings behave the way they do? Being the topic of conflict of psychology for years, one usually turns to the nature verses nurture theory for the answer to that question. Some believes that a person is born with a certain personality, others believe it is an individual’s atmosphere that determines his or her attitude, and some even trusts the idea that it is a combination of genes and environment that dictates the conduct of an individual.
A layman would define personality as an individual’s characteristics in terms of how they think and behave. Many theorists, however, interprets personality differently resulting in various personality theories. Personality is determined by traits which are behaviours displayed by a person in most given situations. How a person reacts to common circumstances may also be used to foresee future behaviours. Traits are then categorized into types that allow easier comparisons to be made between each individual’s attributes. The focus of this paper would be on the biological aspects of personality whereby traits are thought to be inheritable through genetics and associated with the central nervous system. Behavioural genetics are research that makes use of results from studies done on family, twins and adoptions. The findings of how both genes and environment influences personality from the studies will be discussed. Some researchers found possible issues with the representativeness of such studies. The outline of Eysenck’s biological model of personality and arousal, Gray’s BAS/BIS theory and Cloninger’s biological model of personality will further explain the biological effect on personality.
Feist, J., & Feist, G. (2009). Theories of Personality (7th ed.). New York: McGraw Hill.
Scientists make a good point about genes but I believe physical aspects come through genetics, but that personality development is shaped based solely on how a person has been nurtured through their lives. All children are bad at one time in their lives; consider this, a 4 year old girl throws a book at her brother, and is punished she is put in the corner.
Psychodynamic and behavioural approaches are the two major approaches to personality, however, they view personality from different perspectives. Psychodynamic approach makes the argument that personality is caused by forces in the unconscious that are not learned. The individual has little control over their behaviour as it is predetermined, and early childhood plays a crucial part in shaping a person’s personality. Behavioural approach, on the other hand, recognises personality as learned and focuses only on present behavioural matters. Because of
We cannot be absolute when it comes what shapes us, yes indeed we come to this world which specific characteristic, our genes make us who we are but do not determine our future and our possible potential. Our cultural influence and our interaction with our environment make up our experience and step by step build our schemas and our perception regarding the world around us. Nature gives us the first tools in order for us to service, give us the information from generation to generation to overcome the possible obstacles. Then, nurture’s takes over, through the interaction with the averment, base to our cultural norms and rules we shape our beliefs; values; attitudes and behaviors. We learn how to behave, how to interact and how to communicate with the people around us. Thus, the answer between what side to choose, nature or nurture, I personally believe that the answer lies between the two of them. As we say, especially in the field of psychology, it depends. Yes, we born into this world we some innate information, but this information is interpreted from the stimuli we gather through the interaction we have with the
They believed that our thinking and our interpretations of our environments are what bring about our personalities. For example, if we perceived somebody to be dangerous then we would most likely have an alert and bitter personality. This goes along with the term called reciprocal determinism, which explains how people have the urge to influence each other in a mutual manner. This includes both personality and cognitive factors. For example, if I was introverted I would not talk to my classmates, and on the other hand they would observe my personality and return an introverted personality back to me by not talking to me either. Social learning theorists also propose that the majority of learning happens by watching other people. This implies that our families and teachers all play a significant role in our learning because those are the people we are more frequently around and observe. In addition, it is assumed that individuals have a locus of control. Some have an internal locus of control, which means they believe that life changes are due to their own work and personal characteristics, while external locus of control people believe that life changes are from chance or fate. An advantage of this theory is that it is widely accepted that people’s personalities are influenced by both internal and external factors. A disadvantage to this theory is that it implies that we
Personality is the expression of a person’s traits according to ones feelings, mentality and behavior. It involves understanding individuals’ traits such as withdrawal and willpower and how various parts of an individual link together to form personality. Personality expresses itself from within an individual and is comparatively regular throughout in an individual’s life. Different people have different personalities dependent on factors such as environment and genetic composition. Our personality is dependent on the success or failure of our development in the eight stages of life. This is proposed by Erik Erikson. Success in the development stages lead to virtues while the failure leads to malignancies.