i. Heredity
The role of heredity in the development of personality is an old argument in personality theory. Heredity refers to those factors that were determined at conception. Physical stature, facial attractiveness, energy level, muscle composition and reflexes and biological rhythms are characteristics that are generally considered to be imported either completely or substantially by one’s parents. The heredity approach argues that the ultimate explanation of an individual’s personality is the molecular structure of the genes, located in the chromosomes which contain thousands of genes, which seem to be transmitters of traits. The role of heredity on personality development is still an unsettled area of understanding. The problem is that geneticists face a major obstacle in gathering information scientifically on the human being. Nevertheless, the role of heredity on personality development cannot be totally minimized. Physical attributes, for instance, may be largely attributed to heredity.
The following classification of characteristics is said to be inherited by all humans a. Physical Structure (how tall or short one is, whether one has a long or short nose, large or small feet — briefly, how one is put together)
b. Reflexes (direct response to stimuli, such as withdrawing from a pin prick, blinking when something approaches the eye)
c. Innate drives (impulses to act based on physiological tensions; but these must be linked through learning with activities which will reduce the tensions)
d. Intelligence (the capacity to learn, to modify responses)
e. Temperament (patterned and recurrent responses associated with basic emotional makeup for e.g.- phlegmatic, excitable and or lethargic)
ii. Environment
If all personality characteristics were by heredity, they would be fixed at birth and no amount of experience could alter them. Personality development owes as much to environment as it does to heredity. Environment is a broad term and includes such factors as culture. Culture establishes norms, attitudes and values that are passed along from one generation to the next and create consistencies overtime. Anthropologists, to whom culture as a subject belongs, have clearly demonstrated the important role culture plays in the development of the human personality.
While growing, the child learns to behave in ways expected by the culture of the family into which the baby was born. Most cultures expect different behaviour from males than from females.
Every culture has its own subcultures, each with its own views about such qualities as moral values, standards of cleanliness, style of dress and definitions of success. The cultural sub-group exerts its influence on personality. All boys are expected to show certain personality characteristics (as compared with girls), but a poor boy raised in an urban slum is expected to behave differently in some respects than a well-to-do raised in a middle class suburb.
Although culture has significant influence on personality development, linear relationship cannot be established between personality and the given culture, for 2 reasons: a. The culture impacts upon an individual are not uniform, because they are transmitted by certain people-parents and others who are not all alike in their values and practices.
b. The individual has some experiences that are unique. Each individual reacts in his own way to social pressures, differences in behaviour being caused by biological factors.
iii. Contribution from the family
The family has considerable influence on personality development, particularly in the early stages. The parents play an important part in the identification process which is important to an individual’s early development. The process can be examined from three different perspectives:
a. First, identification can be viewed as the similarity of behaviour (including feelings and attitudes between child and model)
b. Second, identification can be looked upon as the child’s motives or desires to be like the model.
c. Third, identification can be viewed as the process through which the child actually takes on the attributes of the model.
The overall home environment created by the parents, in addition to their direct influence, is critical to personality development. Siblings (brothers and sisters) also contribute to personality. It has been argued that, sibling position is an important psychological variable because it represents a microcosm of the significant social experience of adolescence and adulthood. It is argued that those first born are more prone to be schizophrenic, more susceptible to social pressures and more dependent than those later-born. The first born are also more likely to experience the world as more orderly, predictable and rational than later-
born children.
iv. Socialization process
There is greater realization that other relevant persons, groups and organizations exercise their due role in personality development. This is commonly called the socialization process. It is especially relevant to organizational behaviour, because the process is not confined to early childhood, rather taking place throughout one’s life. In particular, evidence is accumulating that, socialization may be one of the best explanations of why employees behave the way they do in today’s organizations.
Socializations involves the process by which a person acquires, from the enormously wide range of behavioural potentialities that are open to him or her, starting at birth, those behaviour patterns that are customary and acceptable to the standards of, initial’, the family, and later the social group and the employing organization. Thus, socialization starts with the initial contact between mother and her new infant. After infancy, other members of immediate family (father, brothers, sisters and close relatives or friends) followed by the social group (peers, school friends and members of the working group) play influential roles.
v. Situational considerations
Above determinants discussed are no doubt important to personality, but it must be recognized that, it is the immediate situation which may predominate finally.
While it seems logical to suppose that, situations will influence an individual’s personality, a neat classification scheme that would tell us the impact of various types of situations has so far eluded us. However. we do know that certain situations are more relevant than others in influencing personality. What is of taxonomically, wrote Lee Sechrest, is that situations seems to differ substantially in the constraints they impose on behaviour with some situations, e.g. church. constraining many behaviours and others, e.g., a picnic in a public park — constraining relative few. From the above discussion, it is clear that personality is a complex concept that reflects many influences both within and outside the individual. Personality progresses through identifiable stages and never really stops developing. One can, however, examine personality at any point in time within its developmental sequence in order to compare and contrast individual personalities.
Titany answered the question on September 7, 2021 at 12:05