The Influence Of Personality And Personal Changes In Early Development

Personalities have the tendency to change from birth and throughout life. Each individual is unique and will behave and think differently according to life experiences and connections with people they meet in their social environment. Childhood is an important stage that psychologists have researched due to the influences of family in their early development. Psychologists have also considered how genetics may influence personal traits and forming personalities. This has brought forward the argument of nature versus nurture in early development. Where in other studies, psychologists have investigated personalities of mid aged and mature adults and whether traits are ever evolving. Even though there are psychologists that believe that personality

For example it has been established the care givers has a big role on forming personality in infants, in adolescence years the peer factors can be the main alteration of personality (Sroufe, 2005) .Roberts & Mroczek (2008) found that even though personality change throughout adulthood and that personality traits are not set for life, most personality change occurs between the ages of 20 to 40 years old. Even though some researchers argued that after the age of 30 years old personality is formed and will not change, it was concluded in a study that personality continue to change well over the age of 80 years old (Ardelt, 2000) .

Circumstances and social environment are some of the reasons behind personality change. Most changes in personality happen gradually and over a long period of time. However, sudden changes can also occur and this is normally due to life changing events that may contribute to a personality change (Heatherton., 1994)

This has become apparent in the findings of many studies conducted in the last few decades. Through every stage of a person’s life there is a drive that influences and shapes a personality. Genetics build the traits in personality from birth, caregivers influences these traits, once adolescents is reached the peer factor plays a big role in forming the personality, the social environment and circumstances surrounding a person alters these traits once again and once the person is older even though the change may slow down as maturity is reached, it does not stop as life events and health factors again influence these traits. Whilst the traits are still there, it is evident that change does occur throughout the life of a person. However, these changes may not be easy to grasp as it mostly happens gradually and over a long period of time. With sudden change that may be instigated due to a dramatic event, for example an accident that would change the social environment for a person. Because of the time a study can take it has been very difficult for researchers to follow an individual through a satisfying period of time through their life to reach a true result. Most studies have been conducted over a maximum of 20 years and as a result the answer to wither personality can continue to change