What Drives Adult Personality Development?

The biggest controversy in psychology today is whether genetics or one’s environment plays a role in the behavior of the individual. Psychologists have researched and developed different theories to explain the reason for the way humans think and behave. The behavior of individuals is either inherited or learned. In my opinion, I believe that nurture plays a big role in the individual’s behavior. Kendra Cherry states, “Nurture refers to all the environmental variables that impact who we are, including our early childhood experiences, how we were raised, our social relationships, and our surrounding culture” (1). People have become who there are because of the environment they were exposed to in their childhood years. The behavior of people is influenced be the environment that surrounds them and can changed many times through one’s lifetime. People have different personalities a person’s

The personality theory that I have chosen to focus on will be Identity Theory. It was developed by Erik Erikson in the nineteen hundreds. Erik Erikson believed that every individual goes through a certain number of stages to reach his or her full development or potential (Erikson, 1994). He theorized that a human being goes through eight different stages ranging from birth to death (Erikson, 1994). Identity Theory focuses on eight psychosocial stages of development, and an epigenetic principle of maturation (Schultz, 2008). The stages of development are

The article was written by Sharon Begley, who is a science writer. It published on December 1, 2008, and it has been illustrated by Harry Campbell for Newsweek. We always think our personality is related to our genes, which is stable or cannot be changed. However, Begley assume we can change our personality as we grow up. It depends on environment and our parents. They both play a great role in shaping our personality.

Elderly people physically slow down and have lower energy levels. There are changes in the body systems and organs that can usually result in all types 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.

Roberts, B., & Mroczek, D. (2008). Personality trait change in adulthood. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 17, 31–35.

Personality theories include a wide range of thoughts and it is hard to narrow them down to a choice of how and why individuals are their identity. These complex thoughts must be examined and gone over certainly before one can decide whether an individual meets the characterized significance of the hypothesis. An example would need to be set up with the person before they could be said to have a specific identity quality. To what extent should an individual take after an example of conduct before they can be named with that kind of identity and why? Who among us has that privilege?

There are a plethora of ideas and theories regarding the developmental psychology behind why people metamorphosize into different personalities and habits later in life. Developmental psychologists have developed several ways to try and determine where the determining factors are in peoples’ lives that cause the differences. Several of the theories tend to have overlaps in parts of the ideas such as the ideas of “nature vs nurture” and that of “social context.” These theories share the overlapping ideas that there are outside influences on the way a person turns out in life. While “nature vs nurture” states that there are outside influences, there is also a counterargument that the genetic make-up of a person is the determining factor for how that person develops later. Even still, there are some who also believe that both arguments of “nature vs nurture” have even attributes on the lives of people.

With the behavioral-genetics theory we are able to deduce that there are some traits that are passed on genetically from generation to generation. We are able to see this because infants that come out of the womb have set temperaments days after they are born— some babies are fussy while others are quiet and calm. We have also been able to see the five big traits in 64 other species which is evidence of evolutionary biology in action. The environmental theory of personality is one founded on the effects that the environment can influence the personality. A trait tends to be something that is consistent throughout the environment but we tend to act different depending on our environment itself (i.e. parents v. friends). We have been able to find that there are core stable traits shown throughout all environments and that the behavior is the variable that changes depending on the

When it comes to being an older adult many things that were once an easy task becomes challenging such as remembering where you just place something or what you are doing. These tasks have a lot to do with memory and with this it becomes a huge problem for older adults. While growing up I experienced my first older adult named francine who was sixty six years old with alzheimer’s disease. She was one of my mothers friends and I guess you could also call her my mother's mentor.

There are four major personality theories: psychodynamic, trait, humanistic, and social-cognitive. The psychodynamic theory focuses on the role of the unconscious mind in the development of personality. The humanistic theory focuses on the role of each person’s conscious life experiences and choices in personality development. The social-cognitive theory emphasizes the importance of both learning and cognitive processes play an important role in personality. Whereas, the trait theory is more concerned with the end result of personality as well as the characteristics themselves.

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.

In the article “Our Personality- Is it Genetically Inherited or Determined by The Environmental Factors” written by Alexandra Lupu, she demonstrates three possible process that is done to form one’s personality and argues that she believes individual’s personality is formed uniquely with environment inheritage interacting with each other. After stating her argument, Lupu explains the three types of approaches that divides the psychologist that determines one’s personality. First, nomothetic approaches, which is believed that one’s personality is constant and it is minimally influenced by external factors. Second, Idiographic approaches, which is similar to Lupu’s argument that both factors takes a big role in personality and finally, the complementary

During adolescence, personality development is characterised with a balance of change and continuity where their prior behaviour as dictated by parents and authority figures is applied in conjunction with their increasing maturity to critically justify their actions, referred to as the Maturation principle (Van den Akker, et. al, 2013). This maturation principle is represented through the five factor model (FFM) which cumulatively assesses central personality traits where lexical results denote trends of personality development. Although FFM analysis is predominately used when assessing adults, its use to assess maturity has shown openness to experience, agreeableness and emotional stability to increase whilst extraversion and conscientiousness decreases (Van den Akker & Alithe, 2014). This cross-sectional study reveals the change of personality that is undergone through maturation as perspectives and actions would be

Both nature and nurture interplay to determine personality characteristics. Nature is heredity and passed on at conception. Nurture is that which is environmentally developed. It is innate that a baby will crawl, but he needs the support of his environment (diet, etc.) if he is to ultimately survive. Our behaviour is the result of a combination of inborn traits and the situations in which we find ourselves. There are five categorise which help influence personality differences. Genetically, offspring tend to take on some of the characteristics of their parents. However, this could be due to long term exposure to the personalities of their parents rather than their genetic coding. Whether a person is male or female determines what gender role they take on. ‘Women are expected to be nurturing, attractive, emotional, weak, and subordinate to men; whereas, men are the strong, rational, objective, and financial providers’ (Loue and Sajatovic, 2007). Ones family experiences can also influence a person’s behaviour. Family experiences like: ‘family size, birth order, differential parental orientations towards children’ etc. will impact on the emergence of personality as well as a person’s suitability to leadership roles (Morley and Moore et al., 2004, pp. 28-52). Culture plays a very strong role in determining what is believed to be acceptable and unacceptable