How Does Personality Influence Personality Development?

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The prevalence of whether personality is influenced by genetic or environmental factors has continued soar over the last few decades. The main aim of this study is to help clarify the doubts of how genes, environment and the gene-environment interaction contribute to every individual’s personality traits. In order to have a clearly view of this argument, a combination of studies and theories have been brought up. These include, the twin studies, the Big Five theory and adoption studies, which supports the genetic view of personality. This is then followed by, the social-cognitive approach, reciprocal determinism and the Five Factor Theory, which supports the environmental view of personality.

Personality, in layman’s term usually involves …show more content…

Hence, causing the interest of psychologists in seeking explanations of the motivational basis of behavior, how personality is formed and the various types of personalities. The aim of this essay is to show how genes play a role in one’s personality development. In order to do so, the aspects of how genes, environment and gene-environment interaction on personality development, will be investigated. Finally, it will be concluded that both hereditary and environmental factors can both influence a person’s personality …show more content…

The aspects of environment, such as parenting styles, parental role modeling, peer groups and cultures, help to shape an individual’s personality that includes an individual’s attitude, cultural values, abilities and identities. Besides, they supply the quality markers from which identity attributes are derived and characteristic levels are declared (McCrae et al., 2000). An American psychologist, Walter Mischel, who focuses on the importance of situations that it is often termed as the social-cognitive approach of personality, thinks that an individual’s personality is strongly influenced by the interaction of the environmental factors. He believe that every individual’s conduct are in fact, determined by the circumstances that they were exposed to, and are not expressed innately. Besides Mischel, Albert Bandura, a contemporary psychologist who specialized in the developmental of psychology and educational psychology, also supported the importance of the environmental factors in personality development. He debated

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