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Psychology Reflective Journal

In: Philosophy and Psychology

Submitted By tongyukchoi
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Personality: Why are they different and the same? Referring to the Collins Dictionary of Sociology, Personality is ‘the characteristic ways of behaving of any individual person’ (Personality, 2006). Until now, the topic of personality is attracting to me as I think the knowledge of psychology can help interpret others’ behaviors and thoughts. Undoubtedly, the concept of personality is essential in the field of psychology together with our daily life. My cousins are twins, called Nicole and Mandy, and both of them are 15 years old. I would like to examine the biological, environment factors, lifestyles and social learning theory on personality through my own experiences. Even though they have a very similar appearance, their behaviors and temperaments are totally different. Every weekend, I will teach them mathematics. For example, once Nicole encountered some difficult questions, she lost her temper or even does not complete the rest of the questions. In contrast, Mandy was more patience while she got some problematic questions. She paid much more efforts to figure out how to finish the questions. Bouchard (1994) notes that in making one’s personality, is by the sound foundations in the emerging theory of nature and nurture, but a larger portion is still uncertain. Despite the fact that the heredity determines personality, especially Nicole and Mandy who have similar genes, it seems that they do not share the same personality traits. Nicole and Mandy’s illustration shows that genes are not the main factors for the formation of personality traits and how much personality traits are destined. During the lecture in psychology course, I learned that there are various factors affecting the personality. I strongly believed that the environment could change one’s personality. As long as he or she is exposed to the environment, the personality will change according to the environment. In Henry A. Murray’s view on personality, an individual is not only a part of the environment as ‘’ an organism is within an environment which largely determines its behavior’’ (Allen, 2003). The non-shared environment has a great influence on the personality traits. Due to the busyness of Nicole and Mandy’s parent, Nicole has to live with her grandparent when she was small separately. Also, her grandparent always pampers her by buying her many gifts and satisfying what she wants no matter how she behaves. This will probably give her a self-centered concept about herself without caring the others. As time goes by, such environment Nicole exposed explains why she always loses her temper easily. This matches the Murray’s view which Nicole and Mandy have different behavior towards the same event due to the non-shared environment. Personality traits are directed by the style of life and the creative power of the individual we each make original conceptions of our world and ourselves as we develop a style of life for pursuing the three great tasks results in the personality (1932, as cited in Allen, 2003). Different lifestyles also can seriously affect the personality traits as it can be deduced from Nicole’s case. In Mandy’s case, she puts many efforts on studying as I can see that she finishes all the extra exercises before each lesson. Moreover, she is highly self-discipline, as her parent is demanding on herself. However, Nicole only sees her parent once or twice a week so it is difficult for her parent to have such a high standard towards Nicole. This deduces that with unlike lifestyles, one’s personality traits will change according to our habits, attitudes, future goals, etc. According to Pervin and John’s journal about personality, environmental determinants based on social learning theory, plays an essential role in personality development (Pervin & John, 2001). During the lecture of psychology, I know that social learning theory from Albert Bandura’s view is formed by cognitive process and reciprocal determinism and personalities are learned by the observations through the observational learning. Somehow, Mandy and Nicole will learn from each other. Like Nicole, she was a lazy girl with no targets but what Mandy does has changed her entirely. Since Mandy is hard working and has her own goals about future, her attitude affects Nicole’s thought. Now, Nicole starts be willing to work hard for her academic results as she has located her goals in the field of universities. Most importantly, she learned how to care the feeling of the others from Mandy. Actually, after having the course of psychology on personality, I have a brighter mind about the change of personality of Nicole because of the environment and the sibling who Nicole spent a long time with Mandy. From the class in personality, I knew that the family takes part in the transformation of personality and plays a vital role in resulting in her changes, especially the parents and siblings. Until now, the formation of personality still is a controversial debate in psychology since one will experience thousands of things in the whole life. Still, many theories could fully apply to us. I am really glad that I know much more about Nicole and Mandy and learn more about why they are different even though they look alike. In the future, I hope that I can better use my psychological knowledge to analyze different cases. (857 words)

Reference

Allen, Bem P. (2003). Personality theories: development, growth, and diversity. USA: Pearson Education, Inc.

Bouchard, T. J. (1994, June 17). Genes, environment, and personality. Science , 1700.
Personality. (2006). Collins Dictionary of Sociology. Retrieved from http://www.credoreference.com.ezproxy.scu.edu.au/entry/collinssoc/personality
Pervin, L., & John, O. (2001). Personality theory: from everyday observations to systematic theories. Personality theory and research , 1-26.

Case http://detail.tmall.com/item.htm?id=20019243400&ali_refid=a3_419252_1006:1105534696:N:mac+air+%B1%A3%BB%A4%CC%D7:470737bac217a2ee3203a04134e0b2c4&ali_trackid=1_470737bac217a2ee3203a04134e0b2c4&spm=a2106.m5221.a314w.14.hpUEjQ&scm=1029.newlist-0.1.0 http://item.taobao.com/item.htm?spm=a2106.m5221.1000384.162.hpUEjQ&id=20843708373&scm=1029.newlist-0.1.0&ppath=&sku=&ug=#detail
http://item.taobao.com/item.htm?spm=a2106.m5221.1000384.183.hpUEjQ&id=40895279304&scm=1029.newlist-0.1.0&ppath=&sku=&ug=#detail

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