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Personality development introduction essay
The 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.
There are many things that can alter the personality of an individual; some of these are voluntarily inflicted, while others are uncontrollable. Among the uncontrollable altercations, birth order is perhaps the largest influence on a person's disposition. Personality is influenced by the "place" a person has in their family as well as the family situation. It is important whether an individual is an only child, first born, second born, third born, a boy among girls, or a girl among boys, and so on.
Cervone, D., Pervin, L. A. (2008). Personality: Theory and research (10th Ed.). New York: Wiley.
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. J. (2009). Theories of Personality (7th ed.). New York, New York: McGraw-Hill.
Schultz, D. P., & Schultz, S. E. (2013). Theories of personality (10th ed.). Belmont, CA: Cengage/Wadsworth.
Schultz, D.P. & Schultz, S.E. (2009). Theories of Personality, Ninth Edition. US: Wadsworth Cengage Learning.
Magnavita, J. J. (2002). Theories of personality: Contemporary approaches to the science of personality. New York: Wiley.
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 can be defined as an individual’s characteristic pattern of thinking, feeling and acting. Many personality theorists have put forward claims as to where personality is derived from and how it develops throughout an individual’s life. The two main personality theories this essay will be focusing on is the Social Cognitive Theory (SCT) (Bandura, 1986) and the Trait Theory – Five Factor Theory (FFT) (McCrae and Costa, 1995). The SCT allocates a central role to cognitive, observational learning and self-regulatory processes (Bandura, 1986). An individual’s personality develops through experiences with their sociocultural environment. Whereas the Trait Theory proposes that all individuals are predisposed with five traits (Extraversion, Openness, Conscientiousness, Agreeableness and Neuroticism) which determines our personality. This theory also puts forward that personality is stable and cannot change as it’s biologically determined.
Someone can physically look like their parents, siblings or even ancestors from the third generation. When a baby is born, it is common to learn in a natural way. No one teaches a baby how to crawl or how to react when he and she is hungry. However, talents, qualities and personalities are developed through experiences. The environment in which people grew up can have a lasting effect or influence on the way they talk, behave and respond to things around. According to Steven Pinker, Behavioral genetics has shown that temperament emerges early in life and remains fairly constant throughout the life span, that much of the variation among people within a culture comes from differences in genes, and that in some cases particular genes can be tied to aspects of cognition, language, and personality (2). Researchers believe that the origin of behaviors occur in genes in the DNA or even animal instincts which this concept is known as nature of human behavior. Other researchers believe that people are they were they are because they are taught to do so. This concept is well known as nurture in human behavior. In society, there will always be the doubt between Do we born in this way or do we behave according to life experiences? I strongly believe that nurture plays an important role in the upbringing of a child and the decisions that one makes in the future. Firstly, humans learn from their environment and other’s behaviors. Secondly, culture is a huge remark in people’s life. Finally,
Friedman, H. S., & Schustack, M. W. (2012). Personality: Classic theories and modern research (5th ed). Boston , MA, USA: Pearson
Undoubtedly, humans are unique and intricate creatures and their development is a complex process. It is this process that leads people to question, is a child’s development influenced by genetics or their environment? This long debate has been at the forefront of psychology for countless decades now and is better known as “Nature versus Nurture”. The continuous controversy over whether or not children develop their psychological attributes based on genetics (nature) or the way in which they have been raised (nurture) has occupied the minds of psychologists for years. Through thorough reading of experiments, studies, and discussions however, it is easy to be convinced that nurture does play a far more important in the development of a human than nature.
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.