Personality and Emotional Development

Personality & Emotional Development
By Aaron Schwartz

The question of personality is one of the central notions in the psychological science but it also deals with a lot of other sciences. The study of personality is interesting not only to scholars and scientists but to all of us as it’s a thing each of us possesses and can’t ignore. The personality is defined as perceiving and thinking about yourself, others and surrounding environments which is usually shown in social and personal contexts. There are different theories which try to measure the influence of born characteristics and the surrounding environment to the forming and development of the personality. Such factors as heredity, learned behaviors, environment influence the personality. The question is what has a greater influence on the development of personality – hereditary factors or the environment. Hereditary factors such as intellect, motor skills, abilities and disabilities have an indubitable influence on us but such factor as environment starts influencing on us at once after our birth through the behavioral patterns presented by our parents, later friends and colleagues, mass media and social surrounding. Most people adopt the traditions, rules, manners, and biases of their culture. The first environment the children get right after the birth is a family. Children adopt the patterns of behavior presented by their parents and close relatives and use them during all further life. Most probably their own family will look like the family of their parents with the type of relationship and attitude built there. Together with the language children acquire the culture of their country or social group. They adopt not the language itself, but the language used in context of the communicative situation which is almost always influenced by the cultural context. Together with the family and close relatives school is another most important environment which influences the personality development. Together with the necessary basic knowledge on the subjects school gives the communicative social skills and unstated norms, values and beliefs that are involuntary absorbed in everyday communication. Religion is another criterion that influences greatly the person from the time he or she learns the language. Religions contains the set of believes which give answer to the basic questions of life and usually are taken for granted. Religion gives the ways to cope with stress and mistrust, ways to solve the problems and to build the family, etc. Latest researches prove that the pupils from the poor families tend to have worse marks at school and higher rate of social and emotional problems. We may conclude that the economical factors also influence the development of personality.

Personality can be expressed only in regard to other people or personalities as it can be expressed in society only. It was proved by the cases when the children lost in forest were raised by the animals and didn’t have the sense of self-identity at all when found by people. Socialization is inevitable, and unless individuals are completely isolated, socialization will occur. Erikson formulated the phases of socialization each of which is regarded as psychological crisis and only worked out can be transformed into another stage. First stage is called mistrust and when overcame enables children to ask for help of others. Another stage is called autonomy and deals with the freedom of decisions and is responsible for the sense of self-respect and self approval. Third stage is called initiative and develops the state of personal adequacy and will to act and meet challenges. Forth stage is called industry and is responsible for the interest in getting the new knowledge and producing the ideas of your own. Fifth stage called identifies or identity confusion and overcoming this crisis the person learns to exhibit stable self-concepts and to take responsibilities.