Personality and Traits are Not Static but Continue to Advance throughout Ones Life - Assignment Example

Thesis: Personality And Traits Are Not Static But Continue To Advance Throughout One’s Life. Introduction Personality refers to one’s external attributes that can be seen by others and, which differentiates a person from the other. How people behave, react and act when relating with other people in daily duties define their personality (Engler, 2009). Some of the Personal traits are heredity while others are acquired from others and environment. Theory of human personality was first suggested by a clinical neurologist Sigmund Freud in the 19th century. As a psychoanalyst, he learnt that people are different in their behaviors, emotions and thoughts, and there is a need to handle each individual differently. Other philosophers and theorists have continued to explain why people behave the way they behave and how they act depending on their environment. According to behaviorists, personality is the accretion of different reactions learnt for a period from different stimuli or a formation of habit (Engler, 2009). Personality, being the tolerable qualities, it is not easy to forecast how a person will behave in certain situations. This explains why personality traits are not rigid, but variant depending with situations and the surrounding. Personality and traits are not static, but continue to advance throughout one’s life. For many years, researchers have argued on the number of personality traits in human beings. Other than the visible characteristics, there are other traits that cannot be seen and are hidden in an individual. It is possible for people to mask themselves with different traits. It is until a person open up that these attributes are seen (Engler, 2009). In the past years, people understood that personality traits are permanent and at the same time ignoring the development matter. It is after longitudinal studies relating to traits depicted that traits continuity change. Allport, a researcher argues that there are more than 4000 different personality traits that exist while Raymond suggests 16. Currently, many researchers are supporting that, there are five expansive personality traits that create human personality. These are the five factor theory of personality which include; extraversion, agreeableness, openness, conscientiousness and neuroticism (John, Robins & Pervin, 2010). Conscientiousness trait is related to work commitment and performance, and it means being disciplined, in order and being organized. It changes throughout the age range being high when one is in 20s. Agreeableness refers to being welcoming, supportive, trust and associative and it is related to relationships and sociable behaviors. This trait decreases from childhood to teenage and increases from adolescence to the age of 30s (John, Robins & Pervin, 2010). Neuroticism refers to anxiety, emotional changes and worry, and is related to mental health and sadness. Its changes are different from men to women where in females it rises from childhood to adolescence. It decreases from adolescence to adulthood while in males, neuroticism decreases slowly from child age to teenage and to adulthood. Openness to experience decreases from tender age to teenage and then increases in adulthood in females while in males, it decreases gradually from childhood to adolescence then increases in adulthood. Extraversion only affects females where it decreases with no noticeable change in males (John, Robins & Pervin, 2010). All developments in adulthoods are totally different from developments in adolescence and in childhood. This shows that personality and traits in an individual are different as time lapses hence not rigid. Other than changes related to these five star traits, it is possible to change the behaviors and attributes of an individual. This is especially to children who are experiencing growth and development than to adults and old age group. Children tend to adapt and change depending with the environment and the people relating with. A child brought up in a quarreling and frequent conflict family tends to be aggressive in order to fit in and develop mechanisms. It is vague to affirm the change or the static nature of an individual personality. This is the same case to individual traits for a time or change of personality according to sample or population level. This is because changes in personality attribute do not depend on another person. Personality trait and change are governed by various principles like identity development, cumulative continuity, maturity, role continuity, and social investment principle (Christiansen & Tett, 2013). The identity development principle states that as one grows, personality becomes consistence due to commitment, development and identity maintenance. Regular duties lead to stability in personality as time lapse, but not remaining in the same environment (Engler, 2009). In addition, personality traits as to needs hierarchy increases in order called rank-order consistency all over the life of an individual. This is explained by cumulative continuity principle. Personality attribute are affected by environment since they are open systems and people tend be aware, sociable and satisfying as they age. Persuasion and compliance are some of the ways used to change people’s behaviours and traits (Christiansen & Tett, 2013). According to social learning theory, every individual need love and a sense of belonging. In order for one to fit in a particular group of people, you must have common characteristics or behaviors. In learning institution, teachers tend to be more authoritative to pupils on their acts and behaviors and they discourage some behaviors to students. In case a student is punished for behaving in a certain way, he or she will tend to change in order to conform to teachers needs. This is called the teacher pupil relationship. Parents and care givers may change the traits of their children according to the type of upbringing/parenting (Kaufman, 2005). Developmental theory tries to explain the different ways a person may depict to increase or decrease in personal attributes for a period of time. These individual changes are different as sample and population change (Kaufman, 2005). Change in personal trait is variable as people are different in growth and development. In order to understand development traits of an individual, one has to observe one’s differences for period of time. Additionally, the stability test and average change need to be studied before making a conclusion. According to Kersting (2003), personality change in most cases is to the right directions and moves as one grows. As one grows and become mature, the traits change to being more responsible, understanding and caring among others. This show that time is a factor that contributes to personality trait change. Hence, there is no representation that can apply to development of individual traits. The character traits obtained after change tend to remain in a person for the rest of their lives. This explains why it is hard for people in old age to change their personality as compared to children and adolescences. The only thing that can lead to personality change in old age is mental illness as explained by the Neuroticism trait. Teacher pupil relationship, employer employee, parent child relationship, environment and birth order are the main factors that influence personality trait and change (Butler, Dahlin & Fifth, 2002). The social surroundings play a role in personality trait stability and change. Researches done shows that the environment a person relates to contributes much to stability of personality compared to change. Birth order Recent studies have cleared the stereotype about child behavior and birth order that first born tend to be more responsible while last born are said to be irresponsible. Birth order as well as the size of a family are directly related with one’s personality and can influence the type of friends to associate with. According to researchers, first born are more loved and cared for as compared to middle born. This explains why middle born is less concerned with family matters and responsibility (Hops, et al, 1987). They tend to develop a hatred attitude to their parents and family members as they perceive they are not needed. Last born tend to be stubborn and careless since parents take them as kids even when they are grownups. All these reasons influence the behaviors, personality and traits of children. On the other hand, it is not possible for an individual to have consistent traits from childhood to adult hood. This is because there are psychological, physical, environmental and social changes taking place as time lapses. Additionally, peer influence at different stage in life affect the personality and behaviors of an individual. Though heredity traits tend to be permanent from childhood to adulthood, one cannot survive with them only. Traits like aggressiveness can be acquired from the associative environment. Conclusion It is clear that individual’s characteristics and behaviors are open systems that are in continuity and consistently changes with time. The main reason being growth and development of a human being is a gradual process that changes with time and situations. Behaviors traits in childhood are mostly heredity and are influenced by the people’s behavior’s around them. Children at tender age should be given proper attention by the care givers in order to shape their personality positively. At adolescence age, people tend to have frequent changes due to hormonal changes taking place. Proper advice and attention is expected in order to ensure that one’s personality is not controlled by such changes. In addition, peers at this age tent to influence one’s behaviors which can develop and remain for life. Therefore, different factors can influence or change the personality traits of an individual positively or negatively References Butler, M., Dahlin S., & Fifth, S. (2002). Language factors affecting clients’ acceptance of forgiveness intervention in marital therapy. Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, 28 (3), 285-298. Christiansen, N., & Tett, R. (2013). Handbook of Personality at Work. London: Routledge. Engler, B. (2009). Personality theories: An introduction, (8th edition).Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning. Hops, H., et al. (1987). Home observations of family interactions of depressed woman. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 55 (3), 341-346. John, P.O., Robins, R.W., & Pervin, L. A. (2010). Handbook of Personality: Theory and Research. New York, NY: Guilford Press. Kaufman, A. S. (2005). Essentials of child psychopathology. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons. Kersting, K. (2003). Personality changes for the better with age. Monitor on psychology, 34 (7), 14-25. Read More