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Socializing the individual. Chapter 5. What is personality?. What comes to mind when you hear this term? Most people probably think of someone’s social skills , or social appeal .
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Socializing the individual Chapter 5
What is personality? • What comes to mind when you hear this term? • Most people probably think of someone’s social skills, or social appeal. • The term is often used to describe someone’s specific characteristics or as an explanation for achievements or failures.
What is personality? • When sociologists use the term, they are referring to more than an individual’s most striking characteristics. • To social scientists, personality is the sum total of behaviors, attitudes, beliefs, and values that are characteristic of an individual. • Our personality traits determine how we adjust to our environment and how we react in specific situations. • No two individuals have exactly the same personality. Each individual has his or her own way of interacting with other people and with his or her social environment.
What is personality? • People’s personalities continue to develop throughout their lifetimes. • Traits change at different rates and to different degrees. • Some traits seem to remain basically constant throughout a person’s life, while other traits undergo dramatic changes. • Personality development is more obvious during childhood, when people are experiencing rapid physical, emotional, and intellectual growth. • Once people reach adulthood, personality traits change at a slower rate. Most adults appear to maintain stable personalities over time.
Nature Versus Nurture • Social scientists have heatedly debated what determines personality and social behavior. • Some argue that it is heredity – the transmission of genetic characteristics from parents to children. • Others suggest that the social environment – contact with other people – determines personality. • This debate is usually referred to in terms of nature versus nurture, or inherited genetic characteristics versus environment and social learning.
Nature Versus Nurture • Most social scientists assume that personality and social behavior result from a blending of hereditary and social environmental influences. • They believe that environmental factors have the greatest influence.
Factors that affect the development of personality • Most social scientists believe that four factors have the greatest influence. • These factors include: heredity, birth order, parents, and the cultural environment. • These factors are among the principal factors that social scientists see influencing personality and behavior.
Heredity • Physical traits • Aptitudes • Inherited characteristics • Biological drives
Birth Order • Personalities are also influenced by whether we have brothers, sisters, both, or neither. • Children with siblings have a different view of the world than children who have no brothers or sisters. • The order in which we born into our families also influences our personalities. • People born first or last in a family have a different perspective than people born in the middle.
Parental Characteristics • Personality development in children is also influenced by the characteristics of their parents. • Some parental characteristics that can influence a child’s personality are level of education, religious orientation, economic status, cultural heritage, and occupational background.
Cultural Environment • Culture has a strong influence on personality development. • The cultural environment determines the basic types of personalities that will be found in a society. • Each culture gives rise to a series of personality traits that are typical of members of that society. • How we experience our culture also influences our personalities. • Subcultural differences also affect personality development. • The region of the country or the type of neighborhood in which an individual is raised also affects personality.