Taking a trip down memory lane my personality has undergone many changes; certain aspects of my personality have remained the same whereas others have considerably changed. At times it becomes tricky describing my personality because one day I presume I'm very extroverted while the next those around me feel I'm introverted. However, I have learned to embrace all these changes positively as they continue to shape me into a better person. For years, certain aspects of my personality such as my height and skin color have remained consistent for a long time. After undergoing all the adolescence changes, I have always been at 5'3 whereas my skin complexion has equally been the same despite the different lotions I use. Moreover, I have always been generous and have loved helping out others since I was young to date, and this has not changed. I have always loved keeping my problems to myself and sadly this has also not changed as I have always found it hard trusting others from a tender age. On the other hand, when I was younger I was very shy and speaking before a large crowd was very frightening on my part. However, over time my eloquence has significantly improved, and I have become such a great debater. Additionally, I love holding conversations with different people mostly because of my fluency in English and other languages. As a teenager, I only interacted with people I share similar ideologies with, however, I have learned to be very accommodative and argue out carefully with those who hold different opinions from me. My knowledge base has also increased, and it keeps changing based on different experiences, reading materials, and certain circumstances. This shows that personality undergoes different transformations based on certain factors resulting to the diverse personality traits individuals possess (Burger, 2010).
Nature and nurture play a very big role in shaping of one's personality over the years. Nature can be defined as the genetic inheritance or make-up (Burger, 2010). Nature is the information that is encoded in the genes that are inherited from both parents and carried all through life. Aspects of personality such as gender, height, talents, eye color and risk for some illnesses are all inherited. Nature, therefore, refers to certain inherited biological tendencies that people acquire from conception as they grow up (Burger, 2010). Nurture, on the other hand, refers to the varying environmental factors that one is exposed to from birth (Burger, 2010). These environment factors incorporate different dimensions such as the physical and social environment. The physical environment involves aspects such as prenatal nutrition whereas social environments involve different social interactions such as media, peers, families, neighborhoods, schools, religious institutions and even the government (Burger, 2010). For instance, at teenage hood, peers play a vital role in influencing one's personality whereas the family influences personality at childhood.
Nature poses a greater effect on human behavior and resultant personality. Certain aspects such as height and skin color are determined by nature. Therefore, nature plays a vital role in determining one's personality and shaping their human behavior. Every individual is born with certain personality traits such as how to deal with problems, openness, and boldness among others. These personality traits help in determining the paths in environment or nurture which in turn affect their personality (Burger, 2010). Personally, nature and nurture have affected certain aspects of my personality such as my height, skin complexion, helping others and friendliness. Genetic effects such as my height and skin tone are the roles of nature which have influenced my personality and will remain constant throughout my life as they are inborn (Burger, 2010). Nurture, on the other hand, has affected aspects of my personality such as my skills, knowledge base, and learning abilities. These variables keep changing because of the different environments I'm exposed to. Both nature and nurture have played an important role in the shaping of my personality and making me different from the other personalities I interact with.
Looking back as I grew up certain aspects of my personality have been affected by sources of bias and inaccuracy. This deficiency in the thinking process is known as cognitive bias because of the error of memory or certain flaws in judgment that arise from factors such as social attributions and miscalculations (Reisbery & Hertel, 2004).Cognitive bias affects our personality by aligning our thinking in a certain way which in turn affects the different decision-making process. There are different cognitive and memory biases that have affected my personality through the years such as anchoring bias, belief bias, and attention bias (Reisbery & Hertel, 2004). Anchoring bias is the tendency to rely heavily on only one trait or information and formulating decisions based on that basis only. Belief bias is an effect where one's evaluation of certain conclusions is entirely biased. Attention bias is the bias resulting from recurring thoughts that in turn affect our perceptions (Reisbery & Hertel, 2004). These different types of cognitive bias affect one's personality and how they behave in certain situations, for instance, I tend to be very racist because of the history of slavery that was passed on to me from a tender age from my family.
The science of psychology is known for placing more emphasis on results based on scientific studies as opposed to relying on personal experience or anecdotes. Through the years, science has been dependent on facts to create concrete evidence in describing different life realities (Argyle, 2013). According to science, once evidence is collected it is evaluated using set rules to ascertain that the evidence reflects reality. On the other hand, evidence from personal experience is only rooted in feelings making it difficult to create theories or descriptions based on the evidence collected. In psychology, however, it is almost impossible to subject people to certain tests to collect facts as this would mean putting them through certain unethical considerations (Argyle, 2013). Unlike other animals such as rats that may be killed and tests conducted on them, the same procedure cannot be performed on human beings. Drawing conclusions based on personal experiences will in most cases turn out to be varying and misleading, for this reason, psychology tends to more align towards scientific studies results as they provide concrete evidence making it easier to formulate different theories (Argyle, 2013).
References
Burger, J. (2010). Personality. Belmont, CA: Cengage Learning
Argyle, M. (2013). The Scientific Study of Social Behavior (Psychology Revivals). London, UK: Routledge
Reisbery, D., & Hertel, P. (2004). Memory and Emotion. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
