The theory of personality developed in this work assumes that personality is multifaceted and multicomponent, and it is the variability of its constituent components that forms a plurality of uniquely dissimilar people. It can be stated — and the reasons why will be described later — that no two people are alike, which means that each personality is the product of a specific and selective experience. Thus, one of the first pillars in the formation of personality theory is based on the idea that personality is not an innate feature of the individual or their “soul” but a product of interaction with the environment.
This assertion, however, should not become a counterargument to the natural origins of personality, as long as people do not come into this world empty and ready to be filled. While acknowledging the primacy of the social, for the personality theory under development, it is important not to deny some influence of the individual’s innate attitudes, which are transmitted through epigenetic constructs along with parental genes. In this context, it is interesting to recall the example of the literary character Mowgli by Rudyard Kipling, who lived not among humans, that is, in society, but among animals.
In the personality theory, Mowgli cannot be called a fully formed person since the only primary animal beginnings could develop in the boy. Every newborn human being has this foundation, and as they interact with social relations and encounters cultural and political conflicts, the basis builds up. Thus, a second important pillar in personality theory is that personality is dynamic and changeable, which means that it is inappropriate to claim a fully completed personality in the case of a person who is still alive, and especially at a young age.
While acknowledging the primacy of society for the reflection of personality, it is essential to emphasize that not only are there no two identical personalities in the current moment, but they do not exist even in the historical cross-section. In simple words, no two identical personalities have ever existed in the history of humanity, since societies, the mood of the era, the progress made, and the challenges of the current agenda are the predictors that governed society at a particular stage, and thus were also reflected in personality.
It is interesting, however, to postulate that people’s character and behavior patterns are often similar. The personality theory under development postulated that different personalities are consistently found to be similar: they are found to have common traits, similar attitudes, and similar ideas. This phenomenon has led communities to try to classify all personality types into some specific clusters.
For instance, one of the most famous views is the division of personalities into twelve types according to their zodiac signs, although this has no scientific foundation. From an academic perspective, the American Myers-Briggs typology offers a division (and identification) of personalities into sixteen different types (King & Mason, 2020). Similar views were held by Soviet psychiatrist Andrey Lichko, who proposed a system of eleven personality types (Nikolaenko, 2018).
In all such divisions, it is important to understand that belonging to a particular type does not mean complete coincidence in all of the defined parameters but instead describes some of the layers of personality. Many authors do not acknowledge the authority and reliability of personality profiling tests at all, and this should also be taken into account (Perkins, 2019). Thus, the third pillar of the personality theory under development is the absolute recognition that personality cannot be measured entirely but that some facets are qualitatively describable. The similarity of this qualitative description makes it possible to classify personalities.
Thus, to summarize the general features under the personality theory being developed, it is worth saying that personality is primarily a dynamic, neurodevelopmental substance that determines an individual’s lifestyle, behavior, worldview, and emotional intelligence. Personality is constantly being superimposed and refined, but there is no endpoint to which personality strives, for no pattern can be discerned along the way. Importantly, personality is not a separate part of the individual, for the individual cannot exist without personality.
The Driving Forces of Personality
The focus in the my theory of personality has been fully recognizing the idea of the dynamism and variability of personality under certain conditions. The individual adapts to the environment as they develop, changing their behavior patterns and constructing a specific reactive construct. In particular, the same society will not affect two different individuals in the same way but may elicit opposite responses from them. One individual, for example, will be patient and courteous, accepting the laws and rules of society and adapting himself on their basis. The other, on the contrary, may take a non-conformist path and resist social morality, and this too will be a response to society.
In either case, the environment is always paramount to the individual’s socialization, so inhorning this fact when discussing the driving forces in the formation of personality seems inappropriate. Society itself is not homogeneous, either geographically or temporally. The individual goes through several filters of socialization from childhood: through family, relatives, kindergarten, school, and universities, love relationships, and other forms of interaction with society.
I am assuming that each of these acts shapes and refines the individual’s personality, allowing new horizons to unfold within it. Again, it is critical to emphasize in this context that there are no universal rules for the influence of such forms of socialization on personality. It is a fallacy to claim that school always leads to aspects of personality such as discipline and education since the individual need not necessarily respond to this intervention with an approving response.
According to of the personality theory being created, another important factor that influences personality formation is culture. Culture, in general, should be seen as a product of social life, but there is no direct connection between living in a society and studying the culture of that society. In the era of globalization, the interstate framework is particularly blurred, and for this reason, the individual is exposed to many manifestations of different cultures from childhood. Personal experience with the cultural sphere generates specific patterns, motifs, and stories in the individual’s consciousness, which can influence future behavior, attitudes, and emotional intelligence.
For example, the coverage of acute social issues in contemporary films and books — racism, tolerance, sexism — is a reflection of the spirit of the era and has an educational function for the audience. For this reason, it is essential to carefully choose the cultural products with which a child will be exposed as a child since the basic psychosocial constructs are established at this age. Another necessary consequence of this aspect is forming a critical eye, which is necessary supposedly for an open-minded, independent personality. Parallel acquaintance with a multitude of cultures allows the construction of the ideas of different peoples and their traditions in the consciousness of the individual, which increases the diversity of perception. Constant travel or the study of new languages and the history of the world can be practices of this approach.
Whereas personal socialization and cultural background are forms that determine acquired patterns of personality, according to the theory under development, epigenetics is an innate mechanism. This important comparatively recently discovered fact is that gene interaction determines certain core aspects of personality, whether it be temperament, personality traits, or the ability to respond to stimuli.
For example, a certain academic discourse determines the possibility of a killer gene in a son if the male family line has been aggressive, violent people (Leiber, 2020). At the same time, children of people with alcohol addiction are more susceptible to these diseases because their genomes have been taught to take pleasure through addiction (Brown-Rice et al., 2018). In other words, the unique interplay of genes that carry information about ancestral life plays no small part in shaping personality.
The Uniqueness of Personality
Hence, if the personality is diminutive and infinite in terms of developmental potential, it is important to discuss n my theory what exactly makes one individual different from another. For this purpose, it is useful to use a conditional experiment: to observe two twins who were born, raised, and socialized in identical conditions. The fact that both children are twins indicates the formation of the same genome, which means that epigenetic considerations about the difference in organisms are irrelevant supposedly. Thus, if both children faced identical challenges throughout their lives, solved identical problems, and did not differ from each other at all, then according to my theory, their personalities will be the same at the end of life as well.
This is because having two people with the same foundation does not mean having two personalities: a personality is more complex. A person becomes a personality as the theory being developed said when they go through conflicts, interactions, and points of contact with society and nature. Personalities will always differ from one another in their experiences and their fomented perception of objective reality. Two twins will differ from each other because each of them has experienced their own socialization, and therefore has their own, maybe even opposing, views of life.
It should be emphasized that personalities cannot differ from one another in the literal sense by demographic traits. Nationality, ethnicity, occupation, education, and even physical appearance are not aspects that qualitatively distinguish individuals from one another. On the contrary, the listed attributes influence the formation of personality through the construction of certain patterns of behavior and reactions to the external environment, and it is these environments of the two personalities that differ from each other. Consequently, one of the best questions to know the personalities of different people is to measure their attitudes toward the same issue, such as political or social character. The difference in the personalities’ attitudes toward the topic being asked helps to clarify more deeply the different sides of the individuals and to draw conclusions about their differences.
Personality Change
As under the theory being developed, personality is not something conservative or permanent, but rather it undergoes a constant metamorphosis. Personality, as described, is formed throughout life, and so change is a natural part of this development. As a person matures and is socialized, they constantly absorb various environmental lessons that allow them to build up and improve. These processes are intrinsic to the individual not only in childhood but also in adulthood when the individual is exposed to new aspects of the external environment. This often happens when the individual changes their perspective on phenomena that they used to look at from a different perspective.
For example, a person who denies the idea of veganism may, after some time, come to this approach to nutrition because their views — and thus the personal attitude to this issue — will change. In extrapolation of this, it can be assumed that people tend to hide deeply even from themselves some aspects of their personality of which they were not previously aware. Regarding veganism, a person may have denied the idea because they blamed himself for not doing it before, and through this blame, they thus interact with the ideas of veganism in society. However, this is not universal, and it cannot be said even more so that personality from birth has innate traits that can manifest themselves in the course of life since this contradicts the proposed theory of personality.
On the question of personality change, nevertheless, it is important to emphasize in particular that personality is unlikely to undergo radical changes in the short term. While it is recognized that attitudes can change and an anti-vegan can become a vegan, this transition requires a long time and a restructuring of consciousness. Likewise, a violent, aggressive criminal cannot become a happy and kind person in one day presumably. This summarizes that personality is dynamic but not quickly adaptable, which means that such adaptations take time.
Personality Dysfunctionality
Another consequence of changes in personality according to the theory being developed, is the likelihood of detrimental changes that result in a person becoming dysfunctional. To clarify, functionality refers to a personality that is capable and capable of performing the behaviors that are characteristic of a personality: interaction with the environment, communication, and conflict. A personality can become dysfunctional if it is deprived of these behaviors. Such examples could be people who have lost their connection with society: they are outcasts, feral people, or ascetics who, for a number of reasons, have ceased to be socialized and have gone into seclusion and isolation. Indeed, the person is not deprived of their identity in this case and retains “themselves,” but they become dysfunctional.
Outcasts stop communicating and interacting with other individuals. In addition, people who suffer from neurodegenerative diseases also gradually become dysfunctional as their social skills are erased. Eventually, such a patient becomes incapable of self-care, they lose their psychoanalytic functions and ceases to be a person in the usual sense. Interestingly, loss of memory is not equivalent to dysfunctionality. If one draws an analogy between personality and data that are recorded on a computer — the machine is the body, and the set of files and data is the personality — then the loss of memory nullifies the personality and leaves the basic attitudes.
The person, in this case, may get a chance to socialize anew and completely change their personality if the memory loss is total. In addition, it is important to add that although there is the concept of a “dysfunctional family” in which the individual is subjected to inadequate and abusive treatment that provokes deviant behavior or humiliation of dignity, a raised child cannot be called dysfunctional. Indeed, a person may be aggressive and fearful, experiencing constant stress and anxiety, but their personality will supposedly not be dysfunctional because essential role functions are not impaired.
References
Brown-Rice, K. A., Scholl, J. L., Fercho, K. A., Pearson, K., Kallsen, N. A., Davies, G. E.,… & Forster, G. L. (2018). Neural and psychological characteristics of college students with alcoholic parents differ depending on current alcohol use. Progress in Neuro-Psychopharmacology and Biological Psychiatry, 81, 284-296.
King, S. P., & Mason, B. A. (2020). Myers‐Briggs type indicator. The Wiley Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences: Measurement and Assessment, 315-319.
Leiber, S. J. (2020). Melissa McCarty & Kelly McLear announce ‘killer genes’ podcast. BWM. Web.
Nikolaenko, Y. (2018). Diagnostics of character accentuations in different variants of psychophysiological responses dynamics. Modern psychophysiology. The Vibraimage Technology, 230-235.
Perkins, K. (2019). Personality tests don’t work, here’s why and the alternatives. Nobl Academy. Web.