How Personality Develops

“Personality thickens with layers over the life course”.¹Lapsley, 2016

Personality can be seen in the earliest form in newborns. Children are born with individual differences that are observable from birth. These differences are thought to have a strong inherited and genetic basis and are often described using the term temperament²De Pauw & Mervielde, 2010. If we think of personality development as a process that occurs in layers over time, temperament might be considered the first layer.

Over time, personality deepens into the full expression of personality that can be measured and observed in adults.³McAdams & Olson, 2010 Personality traits can be defined as the individual differences between people’s personalities, that are relatively stable in adulthood and account for how people behave.⁴Burton, Westen, & Kowolski, 2015

Personality thickens in layers over time.

The stability of personality in adults has been measured in research and has been found to reach relative stability in adulthood, meaning it changes very little, particularly between the ages of 50-70.⁵Allemand, Steiger & Hill, 2013 Whilst life experiences can impact or change personality traits, these effects are considered to be relatively small in scale.⁶Costa & MaCrae,1986

A popular way of defining personality is according to the “Big Five” model of personality that defines personality according to the following five traits: including conscientiousness or working hard, openness to new experiences, agreeableness with other people, neuroticism, and extraversion which describes how sociable and outgoing someone is.⁷McAdams & Olson, 2010

The process by which temperament evolves into the personality traits we measure into adulthood is complex. Three core principles of the theory, “developmental contextualism” help to explain the connections between the development of personality and their environment growing up.⁸Lerner, 1995

These include:

1. Children impact their environment and are impacted by their environment, and
2. development of personality is deeply influenced by a person’s relationships, and;
3. development of personality occurs over time.⁹Richardson, 2014

This theory explains that personality development occurs through the exchanges between a child and their environment over time. Whilst a child influences their environment, their environment and relationships will also heavily influence a child.¹⁰Lerner, 1995

The second layer of personality development: Environment and Relationships

From the moment an infant is born, children start to connect with the environment they are in.¹¹Rothbart, 2011 Two principles of developmental contextualism are valuable to appreciate here, that children impact their environment and are impacted by their environment, and that the development of personality is deeply influenced by a person’s relationships.¹²Lerner, 1995

Firstly, children can influence their environment. For example, if a baby smiles more and is easy to comfort, this may mean that the child’s parent feels warmer and behaves more sensitively to the child than if they found that child more difficult to comfort. This, in turn, might influence how sociable and agreeable that child grows up to be.¹³McAdams & Olson, 2010

A child that has developed to be more sociable and extraverted, might then later choose to have a lot of friends and choose to engage socially with others under lots of circumstances, which reinforces the tendencies of the child to be very social. Whilst genes might influence the child’s initial responses, over time, the child’s environment has played a large role in the evolution of a child’s temperament into the personality that can be measured and observed in adulthood.¹⁴McAdams & Olson, 2010

Further to this, the shaping of a child’s personality is deeply influenced by a person’s relationships.¹⁵Richardson, 2014 Children are deeply influenced by the type of parenting relationship they experience. Higher levels of sensitive and warm parenting have been found to decrease the number of negative reactions that children have.¹⁶Bates et al., 2012

Whereas harsh parenting, and less sensitive parenting have been linked with increases in children’s negative responses and increased fear responses.¹⁷Bornstein et al., 2015

The third layer of personality development: development of personality occurs over time.
Generally, it is accepted that there is some element of personality that is inherited and genetic.¹⁸Bornalova et al., 2009 Researchers have tried to work out what degree of personality is inherited using twin studies and studies that measures children’s personality change over time.

One study on 1000 children born in Dunedin, New Zealand found significant links between temperament at age 3 and personality traits at age 26. For example, children who were rated as shy and withdrawn by caregivers at age 3, grew up to be less extraverted and to hold back more¹⁹Townsend et al., 2016.

Whilst there are some elements of the personality that is thought to change very little over time, there has also been a lot of research evidence that shows how much personality changes over time.

For example, researchers have found when studying personality trait changes in children, they found that children tend to be more agreeable with others and are rated as more conscientious after the first three years of life, which corresponds to an increase in their ability to control their emotions and behaviour more effectively.²⁰Slobodskaya, 2021

Beyond temperament and the inherited or genetic elements of personality, many other features deepen personality over time.²¹Lapsley, 2016 Children’s developing moral compass, their desire to achieve certain goals, their developing sense of their own independence, the responsibilities they take on, and how hard they work, all make up the developing personality of a child.²²McAdams & Olson, 2010

However, it is important to note that all of these experiences are linked to the relationships that guide children and shape them in these areas. Developmental contextualism recognises that it is through relationships with others that a person develops and grows and changes.²³Lerner, 1995

To summarise, the development of personality and personality disorders in children appears to be an emerging process that develops over time. Whilst there is a genetic element, this paper has demonstrated the large impact of relationships, environmental influences and life circumstances that can influence the development of personality and on the development of personality disorders.

References

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