Think about that ONE aspect of your life/ personality that you would want to transform, if given a
chance. Also, share the reason for the proposed change.
Answers
Is it really possible to change your personality, or are our basic personality patterns fixed throughout life? While self-help books and websites often tout plans you can follow to change your habits and behaviors, there is a persistent belief that our underlying personalities are impervious to change.
The Austrian psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud suggested that personality was largely set in stone by the tender age of 5.
Even many modern psychologists suggest that overall personality is relatively fixed and stable throughout life.
But what if you want to change your personality? Can the right approach and hard work lead to real personality change, or are we stuck with undesirable traits that hold us back from achieving our goals?
Factors That Shape Personality -
To understand whether personality can be changed, we must first understand what exactly causes personality. The age-old nature versus nurture debate once again comes into play. Is personality shaped by our genetics (nature) or by our upbringing, experiences, and environment (nurture)?
In the past, theorists and philosophers often took a one-versus-the-other approach and advocated either for the importance of nature or nurture, but today most thinkers would agree that it is a mixture of the two forces that ultimately shape our personalities.
Not only that, but the constant interaction between genetics and the environment can help shape how personality is expressed. For example, you might be genetically predisposed to being friendly and laid back, but working in a high-stress environment might lead you to be more short-tempered and uptight than you might be in a different setting.
Dweck relates a story of identical twin boys separated after birth and reared apart. As adults, the two men married women with the same first names, shared similar hobbies, and had similar levels of certain traits measured on personality assessments.
It is such examples that provide the basis for the idea that our personalities are largely out of our control. Instead of being shaped by our environment and unique experiences, these twin studies point to the power of genetic influences.
Genetics is certainly important, but other studies also demonstrate that our upbringing and even our culture interact with our genetic blueprints to shape who we are.