Personality

I was looking at this thread: http://sythe.org/showthread.php?t=974015 and thought I'd generalize it.

Is a personality founded from a persons attitude towards the world, or the worlds attitude towards the person? Does it vary? Explain your answer.

I'll post my view after a few responses.

 

Combination of both
Edit: Awesome quote, Epicurus was definitely a wise man

 

I believe that personality is culturally constructed, you aren't born with a preset kind of personality/opinions. Its what you experience in the world as you grow that determine the kind of person you become.

 

First person to know the origin of that one.
Yeah he was, to say something like that in 23 A.D. is just extraordinary.

So you're saying that what you're born in to doesn't effect your personality? What usually creates the circumstances in our lives that make us change our personality?

 

this, in very general terms, is correct

 

Answer that, if you agree with it.

 

Some preferences are genetically embedded in our brains from birth. Others are inherited as a result of environment. Like being gay for example. You can be raised by straight parents and never even have contact with any people who are homosexual but still develop a preference to males. Or like taste. I hate onions because I had a bad experience one time, so I never eat them.

 

To me, personality is the visible effect of how a person handles his culture and environment. It's how someone reacts, but it's also how the reaction is perceived, making the evaluation of personality a highly subjective thing.

So a person who, say, grows up in a highly conservative area views gays as unacceptable. His fellow conservatives may perceive the person and his/her behaviors towards homosexuals as justified or fair while more liberal people may see the person as discriminating.

So it's a relationship between what you're taught, and what other people think about how you were taught that characterizes your personality.

 

I'd say it's founded by genetics because a good deal of who you are comes from the DNA of both parents. You're "encoded" to be a certain way, while at the same time it's founded by the environment because what you live around everyday, such as family influences as well as friends and even strangers who pass through your life can influence your thinking. As a child you might pick up on one or both of your parents' way of thinking, temper, etc. As you get older, you will be influenced by friends, teachers, politicians, tv, etc. You will always be who you are at the core, but what you take in through the senses and how you process it is the meat on the bones.

 

Can you prove that some are genetically embedded, though?
Yes, finally a valid point, experiences, especially at earlier ages, does create a pattern of likes and dislikes, and attitudes towards certain views.

Is it really about how a reaction is perceived, or who the reaction is perceived by. Different people do have different perceptions.

Interesting, so you're saying there's a relationship between factors. What kind of learning process would have a stronger and more enduring personality, in your opinion?

Can you prove that a personality is encoded? So basically what you're saying is that at core, basically, you're you, but the thing we all perceive as a personality is really an outer shell?

What makes you think that this encoded personality exists?

Interesting thoughts @ all of you. My replies are more of to aim you away from generalized statements. I rather enjoy this topic, so I'd like to see how far we can get on it.

 

Like I said, there is a certain subjectivity from who perceives the personality at work, so I think it's about who perceives the behavior and how they perceive it as an individual (which of course relates back to their own personality, and the results vary by how the interaction reciprocate between the two persons and their learned behaviors)

imo an ethnocentric learning environment causes the deepest facets in someone's personality. Initially, children (who are most mailable at those ages) learn how to behave towards different groups from their teachers and parents when the lesson pertains to said groups such as nationalities or sexualities.

For example, it may become someone's personality trait to have a sense of superiority towards colored people because they were taught that Columbus' adventures into the new world was a righteous and grand endeavor, despite the inhumane way he treated the "savages" that he encountered (or his treatment of others may not have even been presented in the facts of the lesson!) Same with European settlers and the founding of the USA.

Now, adding in the second factor in the equation, another person may come along who have learned of Columbus' adventures in a more modest and objective manner, maybe even someone of color, or relation to someone of color. Because of their different learning experience, they may have more of a sense of equality-- let's say-- and would therefore view the first person in a much different way others who may have been taught the same way as the first person. He may say person #1 is racist, and someone from #1's school would say he's factual.