[willed]

Some say that your personality is set by the time you're three years old. Do you think that this is true? Can you wilfully change your own personality?

Discuss.

1,500 words on my desk by tomorrow morning class

[philzilla]

you're surrounded by people who do it on a daily basis. it's called "internet personality," and i expect to be credited when you get that paper marked.

[tomdavidson69]

If you are dead set on being, say calmer, then you can do but it takes a lot of work. It's a bit of a battle between your natural state and what you want to be. The aim being, obviously, to enforce the new behaviour to make it your 'natural' behaviour.

[quandarry]

Originally posted by willed:
Some say that your personality is set by the time you're three years old. Do you think that this is true? Can you wilfully change your own personality?

Discuss.

1,500 words on my desk by tomorrow morning class

why? have you been sentenced to anger management?

[Twilly Spree]

No I don't think people can change their personality. In my experience one can nudge it and polish it a bit but not to such degree that it changes fundamentally.

[sniffer]

Agree with the above, but I also think you change a lot more dramatically if abusing certain drugs as the brain will change a lot over time.
I saw a documentary about a poor fellow that said his biggest loss was that he lost his old personality after years of drug abuse.

[Eriamjh]

What is one's personality? And if one purposely acts a certain way, doesn't that make it their personality?

Or is it only how they act when drunk?

[mitchell_pgh]

Yes, you can change your own personality. I think it's important to say It's impossible to change the personality of those you love and hate.

I was once very poor with money, made bad decisions, constantly was getting in to trouble... generally not good.

I feel I've come a long way... Some I attribute to growing older, others were choices I've made (drinking less, finding more productive hobbies, managing my money...)

I'm not saying I'm a saint or that I'm the richest person in the forum, but I'm much better off now then I was say five years ago.

[voyageur]

Hmm..
If by personality, you mean temperament, then I would say yes, that's probably set by the time you're born. Harvard's Jerome Kagan has done a lot of research on this in different cultures, and finds that infants who startle easily and are more fearful generally grow up to be more cautious and shy adults. Infants on the other end of the spectrum, those who don't startle easily, generally become sociable, outgoing, and relatively fearless adults. And of course there's a whole range of temperaments in between.

However, temperament is just a base on which the rest of one's personality is built. Of course, what we ultimately become depends on environmental influences as well. And that includes self-imposed environmental influences, like those mentioned by the previous posters. In my own case, I'm quite shy and it's something I try to compensate for. Like, by posting in a public forum.

[theolein]

Originally posted by voyageur:
Hmm..
....
In my own case, I'm quite shy and it's something I try to compensate for. Like, by posting in a public forum.

Welcome to the club, and I think that was quite good of you to admit.

[willed]

Originally posted by philzilla:
you're surrounded by people who do it on a daily basis. it's called "internet personality," and i expect to be credited when you get that paper marked.

Hmm, not bad, although short on content and high on cynicism. 7/10.

Although your case may well be backed up by this:

Originally posted by quandarry
why? have you been sentenced to anger management?

I'm generally quite relaxed in real life, although I don't know how far you were joking with this or if that's the kind of impression of me you get from my posts. I guess it is easier to be harsh on people when you're 2000 miles away from them!

As for voyageur - no offence obviously but I generally consider poting on the net to be one of the more introverted things I do. It doesn't IMO constitute real social interaction. OTOH there are those who can't bring themselves to do more than lurk, so well done I guess!

[Lerkfish]

*things that make you go hmmmmm*

I'm intrigued that some people who argue against the persistence of a soul vs. chemical and synaptic response of the brain as an organism would also argue just as steadfastly that a person's personality is persistent and resistant to change.

If a person's personality is simply biological, as many claim, then changing it completely would be a simple biochemical process.

but its not.

Personalities CAN change, but it requires an act of will or a decision to do so. This can be affected by chemicals, such as psychotropic or mind altering drugs....or addictive dependencies....but essentially the will of the person (spirit) has to be actively involved in the process for a change to occur.

IMHO, of course.

[willed]

Originally posted by Lerkfish:
*things that make you go hmmmmm*

I'm intrigued that some people who argue against the persistence of a soul vs. chemical and synaptic response of the brain as an organism would also argue just as steadfastly that a person's personality is persistent and resistant to change.

If a person's personality is simply biological, as many claim, then changing it completely would be a simple biochemical process.

but its not.

Personalities CAN change, but it requires an act of will or a decision to do so. This can be affected by chemicals, such as psychotropic or mind altering drugs....or addictive dependencies....but essentially the will of the person (spirit) has to be actively involved in the process for a change to occur.



IMHO, of course.

Well of course many would argue that our personalities, at their deepest levels, are to do with our DNA make-up; I would guess that the child of two introverted parents, even if adopted by extroverts, would end up more introverted, for example... Could this be the source of this immutable soul of yours?
Also of course you claim that personality change isn't a simple biochemical process; but you then go on to say that various chemicals can change your personality. Of course these chemicals are not permanently present (unless you're always drunk, Phil) but if they were would this constitute the simple biochemical change that you claimed was impossible?

*hmmmmm*

[Lerkfish]

Originally posted by willed:
Well of course many would argue that our personalities, at their deepest levels, are to do with our DNA make-up; I would guess that the child of two introverted parents, even if adopted by extroverts, would end up more introverted, for example... Could this be the source of this immutable soul of yours?
Also of course you claim that personality change isn't a simple biochemical process; but you then go on to say that various chemicals can change your personality. Of course these chemicals are not permanently present (unless you're always drunk, Phil) but if they were would this constitute the simple biochemical change that you claimed was impossible?

*hmmmmm*

you're being way too argumentative for the opinion I posted.
If DNA were the basis for personality, then identical twins would have the same personality, and that's not been my experience.
but, I think we might also differ on the definition of "personality".

and, if you'll reread my post again, you'll see I did not say that various chemicals can change your personality. I said they can influence the process, but that "but essentially the will of the person (spirit) has to be actively involved in the process for a change to occur."

I don't think a change can happen unless a person decides to change. BUT I think people decide to change all the time, so I don't think the soul is "immutable".

nice try. Next time, up your reading comprehension.

[macroy]

I think people often have different 'personalities' - no I don't mean we talk to ourselves in 5 different voices. But I do think the environment we're in often dictates how we behave - high stress situations often make use more short-fused... or vice versa.

But you can also change it yourself with time.. i.e. both my wife and I were pretty "introverted". But we make an attempt to be outgoing when meeting new people.... over time, its become easier to walk up to someone and start talking to them.

Or are we just fake then ?

[Tulkas]

I'm a fairly introverted person until you get to know me.

I think major events/problem/upheavals can change our personality or urge ourselves to do so.

[willed]

Originally posted by Lerkfish:
you're being way too argumentative for the opinion I posted.
If DNA were the basis for personality, then identical twins would have the same personality, and that's not been my experience.
but, I think we might also differ on the definition of "personality".

and, if you'll reread my post again, you'll see I did not say that various chemicals can change your personality. I said they can influence the process, but that "but essentially the will of the person (spirit) has to be actively involved in the process for a change to occur."

I don't think a change can happen unless a person decides to change. BUT I think people decide to change all the time, so I don't think the soul is "immutable".

nice try. Next time, up your reading comprehension.

No need to get tetchy. Just trying to have a reasoned debate, next time maybe I won't bother. FYI identical twins wouldn't have identical personalities as I didn't rule out environmental influence. It's scary how similar twins separated at birth still are in their personalities though.

I apologise for coming over as insulting... maybe that's where quandarry's impression comes from.

[Lerkfish]

Originally posted by willed:
No need to get tetchy. Just trying to have a reasoned debate, next time maybe I won't bother. FYI identical twins wouldn't have identical personalities as I didn't rule out environmental influence. It's scary how similar twins separated at birth still are in their personalities though.

I apologise for coming over as insulting... maybe that's where quandarry's impression comes from.

sorry, I get a little "tetchy" when people misunderstand me and then argue against that misunderstanding instead of my actual point.

This has more to do with another poster than you, but it has made me overly tetchy when it occurs, I suppose.

[swrate]

Originally posted by Tulkas:
I'm a fairly introverted person until you get to know me.

I think major events/problem/upheavals can change our personality or urge ourselves to do so.

yes Personality before 3 ?

-Temper- as Voyageur said. Age 3, we haven�t learned yet how to express our personality, dad or mom or both choose, not us.
We build our personality with experience.
One can tell a child�s temper early, but not the way he/she will go through life nor how he will resist short changes.
I believe not only chemicals, but also education and traumas make differences.
spiritual and earthly food,
After age 3, during childhood, a lot of events can happen who bring a character to change.

we say here, �la timidit� c�est une maladie qui se soigne�
Shyness, a curable disease. It just takes time, practice and the will to open to the outside.
Shyness stays latent and emerges as soon as emotions and doubts take over imo

[wolfen]

Anyone else here take a college level course in Personality? It's somewhat illuminating. Personality is as nearly as complex as the brain. A couple things stand out to me from that class and other social research:

1) Your environment, and how you perceive it, affects your personality/behavior/temperament significantly moment-by-moment. You can see that quite clearly in the Lounge -- notice how people respond to certain topics with a very different personality than they approach other topics. And this also changes by who is involved in the conversation. In effect, you are a different person in different settings even if you don't consciously perceive or change anything. The notion of the "stable and persistent personality" is still a very controversial one, believe it or not. It's more like we respond to certain things more consistently than we respond to other things -- but overall we're very changeable.

This argues for "Yes you can change your personality if you can become more aware of how you respond to various things" -- the basis for psychological counseling/therapy.

2) You abuse what you're good at. The old argument "When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail" is quite useful to understanding people's behavior. People lean on those skills/attributes/self-perceptions which have reliably helped them overcome perceived obstacles. So, for example, if you're very good at being a smarta$$ and turning things into an argument -- you probably do that because you're accustomed to feeling victorious in those situations. Likewise with turning to humor, analytical tendencies, and outright ego-inflating mockery. You do what you're good at doing -- even when it would be to your advantage to learn other skills and learn how to affect your environment in a more adaptive way.


wolfen