Personality

Personality is an individual unique set of characteristics and tendencies, which shape a sense of self, and what that person does and the behavior they exhibit.
According to (Powell, 2010), it has been reported that, the term 'nature' and 'nurture' as a convenient catch-phrase for the roles of heredity and environment in human development can be traced back to the 13th century. In general, debates about nature verses nurture do not refer to physical traits. There is little doubt that a persons hair colour or skin colour is determined by his/her genes. Rather, the nature verses nurture debate seeks to understand how a person develops factors such as personality, behaviors and intelligence (Lending Tree, 2011).
To put in a simple way, nature is the belief and debate that personality is inherited through family, which means characteristics, and qualities. For example, an individuals mum or dad. An individual may have a quality the same as their parents such as being social-able that is believed to be inherited
Nurture on the other hand is the belief and debate that personality is developed in response to environmental factors and conditions. This means traits and characteristics are developed through environmental factors rather than nature of inheriting traits and personality through family.

In my opinion, it is difficult to draw a clear distinction between both nature and nurture approaches in relation to personality development. To some extent our personalities are determined by genetics factors. Our nature as children significantly predicts our behaviour in adulthood. For example some forms of psychopathology are heritable. Environmental factors (family, culture) influence our personality development. I believe genes may affect behaviour directly or may exert an indirect effect in a number of ways. However, in reality, it its most likely that an interaction of nature and nurture that affect the development of a person. Even in the womb, genes interact with hormones in the environment to signal the start of a new developmental phase (Schmid, 2009). The hormonal environment, likewise, does not act independently of the gineses and it cannot correct lethal errors in the genetic makep of a foetus (Ibid). The genes and the environment must be in sync for normal development (Stiles, 2011). Similarly, even if a person has inherited genes for taller than average height, the person may not grow to be as tall as is genetically possible if proper nutrition is not provided. Thus, it can be said, both heredity (nature) and environment (nurture) play a role in shaping our personalities and behaviours.

Nomothetic & Idiographic Approach:
There are two different views on whether all  traits and characteristics exist in all individuals. The first view is nomothetic, which is the study of an individual or a group of people. After the individual has studied, they put in a group to categorize them to their personality type. in a to represent a pop. The category's people are put in to represent the population and their corresponding personality traits and behaviours. The nomothetic view is fixed, based on statistical study of groups and objective questionnaires as well as personality types and predictions. Nomothetic has links to heredity, biology and genetics. Idiography on the other hand is a study of an individual person, as to what makes them unique and different from others. Self concept is an aspect of an individuals own understanding of their personality and interpretation of their identity. Unlike nomothetic a persons personality cannot be revealed in superficial paper and questionnaires.
(AlleyDog,2011) refer's to the nomothetic approach as traits and rules of personality that can be generalised to large amounts and types of people.
(Burger, 2004) said that the idiographic approach was a way of studying personality through in-depth analysis of one individual and the dimensions relevant to that persons personality.

Personality Test
As i completed this blog late the BBC link had expired so i couldn't do the personality test. I tried to to another one but they didn't send me the results and could not do it again as it was 43 questions long. As i couldn't do it decided to looks at the five different personalities below:

Openness
This trait is sometime known as 'Openness to experience'. People with low scores tend to have a fairly broad interests and are likely to find it easy to come up with original solutions to problems.

Conscientiousness
Conscientiousness describes how dependable, organised and hard-working a peson is likely to be. This ma be the reason why, of all the personality traits, it is the most consistent indicator of job success. People with high scores tend to be extremely dependable and organised.

Extroversion
Extroversion is characterised by positive emotions and the tendency to seek out pleasure-stimulating or risk-taking activities. People with scores like mine are often perceived as gregarious, expressive and energetic. Personality studues have shown that scoring highly on this often translates to a natural capacity for leadership. High extroversion may also indicate a tendency to earn more than those with lower scores, but the reasons for this are unclear.

Agreeableness
Agreeableness measures how sympathetic and considerate a person is likely to be. People with high scores often find it very easy to get along with people.

Neuroticism
In the context of the big five personality traits, this term relates to a persons response to threatening or stressful situations, People with high scores are often seen as being calm and even-tempered. They cope well with stressful situations and may seem tranquil despite adverse circumstances.

Conclusion


The nature versus nurture debate is not without its controversies. Some of the issues that have stirred conflict in the debate include homosexuality and obesity. While some scientists strongly believe that both sexuality and weight are inherited, many think that both are shaped, at least in part by our environment. It has been suggested that the key to understanding complex human personality is to study genes, the environment, and the interactions between the two equally (Stiles, 2011).




Bibliography:

AlleyDog (2011) Personality [Online] Available from: http://www.alleydog.com/topics/personality.php {Accessed on: 09/05/2012}

Burger, J. M (2004) Personality. 6th Edition. Wadsworth: Thompson Learning

Lending Tree (2011) Nature versus Nurture: Genetics and Environment [Online] Available from: http://www.nurture-or-nature.com/articles/nature-versus-nurture/index.php {Accessed on 09/05/2012}

Powell, K. (2010) Nature vs. Nurture Begins in the Womb [Online] Discovery Channel. Available from: http://genealogy.about.com/cs/geneticgenealogy/a/nature_nurture.htm {Accessed on: 09/05/2012}

Schmid, R. (2009) Nature vs. Nurture Begins in the Womb [Online] Discovery Channel. Available from: http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2009/02/03/nature-nurture.html {Accessed on: 09/05/2012}

Stiles, J. (2011) Brain Development and the Nature vs Nurture Debate. Progress in Brain Research. Pg 189