Developing a unique personality is a process by temperament, environment, and character. Some characteristics are already pre-determined by genetics. On the other hand, some characteristics are the result of how a child is brought up in his or her environment. Finally, the third aspect is character. Character is how a child thinks and grows morally. The forming of personality has long been a main argument of the nature versus nurture debate. Multiple of today’s psychologists and sociologists have said that neither nature or nurture can be the sole answer of how a person is the way they are. It is the balance between nature and nurture.
According to psychologist Erik Erikson’s stages of psychosocial development, there are eight main stages a person will go through in developing their unique personality. Five of these happen through childhood while the other three happen later on in adulthood. His study has both nature and nurture qualities. The psychosocial development is a good basis for how an average personality will develop. These eight stages were put in to place to see how a child will react and respond to their developing needs. An article from simplypsychology.org on Erik Erikson says, “According to the theory, successful completion of each stage results in a healthy personality and the acquisition of basic virtues.”(McLeod). If a child does not properly succeed through a stage it will make it harder for them to go through the next stages.
During these interviews, I learned that a lot of your psychological development is based off one’s environment. For a child to succeed in all stages it needs a solid base, for example parents that care for their child giving them a sense of security. During my interviews, I realized that all the people I interviewed Had a fantastic home life, did well in school, and had stable relationships. While going through Erickson’s stages of development one will notice that if a stage is not perfected they will have trouble with the other stages. For example, in the Trust vs. Mistrust stage if a child does not learn trust they will be affected during the other stages.
The nature vs nurture issue has been a controversial argument among psychologist for decades. This argument exposes two different views. One of them emphasizes that our personality depends solely on genetics (nature). On the other hand, the second view suggests that humans “develop through experience” (Myers 2013, SG 6) (nurture).
Erikson’s theory of personality is based on his eight stages of development. In each of these eight stages of
Have you ever noticed that you might act like your parents? Or maybe that your personality has changed over your lifetime? People have been debating about the nature versus nurture debate for a long time, and some think nature or genetics plays the bigger role in shaping personality, but some say nurture or society does. Nature and nurture both play a big part in determining what our personality will be. Identical twins have many differences. Your personality can change through your life because of the way you were raised. Studies show that nurture is much more dominant than nature is. Nurture is much more dominant in shaping personality than nature.
Erik Erikson focused on how one’s personality develops over the span of their life, from childhood through adulthood. He focused on a “lifespan model of development” (McLeod, 2013, para. 5) that he
A question that many psychologists ponder is “What determines your personality and behavior: nature or nurture?” There have been countless studies and experiments that attempt to prove one side or the other. From twin studies to evidence of breaking the cycle of abuse, it can be seen that personality and behavior are due to nurture, not nature.
- The argument between whether the determining factor of a person character is based primarly on nature or nurture is an argument that can go pretty much either way depending on the experience of the person who is asked. While many would say that nature is more of the dominate factor because it deals with heredity, an equally strong point could be made about nurture because it deals with ones social environment. Personally I believe that both play major roles in the development of a person character but the role of nurture slightly outweighs nature when it comes to this area. I say this because even if a person is bound to develop certain negative traits, if they are put in a structured environment where the development of those traits can
In psychology the question of what factor affecting personality most has been constantly debated with many theories around the conclusion. The two factors concerning nurture or nature have been picked apart and compared and contrasted to see what might be a dominant factor. It still seems that one is not more overpowering than the other but the question still remains of what is the leading trait in personality? Personality is how we interact to the world around us and our behaviors we express. The underlying causes although and why each and every person is uniquely different with a personality all their own is from the nature and nurture perspective. Personality in a technical sense is described as the visible aspect of ones character and the
In today’s society, it has become common to question what exactly makes us human. There are many questions to ask that pertains to the idealism of mankind, but the most important would be, “what shapes us into who we are?” The debate of whether nature or nurture molds the character of our being has been an exhilarating question throughout the history of time. Though this matter is only answered through individual perception, with nature being genetics and nurture serving as the environment in which an individual is raised from birth to adolescence. For centuries the argument between nature and nurture has brewed, yet it can be inferred that nurture has more of an
As a matter of fact, a common idea of what actually influences the personality of an adult at the beginning of his or her life has been swaying between different opinions and options - from behaviorism, social and environmental determinism to hereditarianism and fatalism. Despite the controversies do not subside and new and new arguments in the dispute appear almost permanently, the majority of professionals and early development experts agree that human personality is rather a result of the two factors working together.
For many year’s people have been debating which issue, nature or nurture, has a bigger impact on an individual’s life. Both of these arguments touch on important points which makes for an interesting but yet difficult topic when choosing what shapes personality. Nature is each human’s individual genetic makeup, which is influenced by genetics and biological factors. Nurture is the influence of outside factors based on each person’s experiences. Until we understand more about both nature and nurture and their impact on human development, it will be hard to understand which one is more important.
Erikson focused on the various stages of personality development throughout the entire lifespan. “Erikson maintained that personality develops in a predetermined order, builds upon each previous stage.” (McLeod, 2013) The eight stages begin at birth up and expand into maturity which is 65 years old and older. Erikson felt that a crisis occurs at each stage of development and he focuses a lot on the adolescent period.
An individual’s personality traits are the characteristics and qualities that distinguish one as distinctive. From the time we are in the womb, we have already begun to develop a sense of individuality and achieving what we want to be seen as. An infant who kicks their mother’s stomach since a young age might develop a personality that wants attention, while one who does not may be seen as relaxed and calm. However, our personality in nature is not always intact throughout our life. As we grow, we are challenged by our society’s limits and often influenced by our surroundings. Therefore, the way an individual is nurtured will differ from their initially inherent character, and they will start to
This theory focused on how children socialize and how they develop their sense of self. This happens in eight distinct stages. I will only be discussing the ones that occur from birth to puberty. Each developmental stage has two possible outcomes. According to the theory, successful completion of each stage results in a healthy personality and successful interactions with others. Failure to successfully complete a stage can result in a reduced ability to complete further stages and therefore a more unhealthy personality and sense of self. These stages, however, can be resolved successfully at a later time.
Quite obviously the development of a child from new-born to an adult is a long weary journey that would incur many difficulties and hardships along the way. A child’s development is not only a product of his/her genes but also his/her environment, which plays a pivotal role in the child’s ultimate development into an adult. An individual’s personality is decided by epigenetics which is, the expression of genes due to environmental factors, which is the reason for the whole debate of nature versus nurture, because no one trait or gene or even millions of traits or genes can describe a person’s whole personality. It is the combination of both experience and these inborn characteristics that make an individual who they are. How much can be attributed to each aspect, is a difficult question to answer – an impossible question to answer, but still many researchers continue to experiment and study both aspects to understand the importance of each in the development of a human being. Differences found in children from infancy to adolescence is referred to as personality traits and temperament traits, which are two very important factors in determining one’s personality structure. Both personality traits and temperament traits are as a result of experience and the environment, as well as being genetically inherited. Personality traits can be delineated earlier in life compared to temperament traits because temperament traits are known to surface later in a child’s life. It is also