Personality Analysis Life History Like Most People,

Personality Analysis

Life History

Like most people, I have experienced ups and downs, highs and lows. The major upheavals in my life have revealed some of the core personality traits that have been with me since childhood. I believe that crisis and stress challenge us, and also bring to light our true selves. However, I also believe strongly in the power of each person to change. I used to have anger management problems and other emotional issues, just like most people. Mainly these problems were related to my not having in place a set of established coping mechanisms in my life. Part of this is related to the culture and upbringing, and part also to personality traits. Yet after I was divorced from a husband of 22 years, it was a shock. I did not feel like myself because my emotions were getting the best of me. Knowing this, I joined support groups and saw a therapist. These tools helped, but only temporarily. I failed to see long-term change until I made a conscientious decision to walk away from negative emotion entirely. This was accomplished in conjunction with spiritual growth and development. I had asked a friend for help, and she suggested I see her pastor. By working with this pastor and praying regularly, I felt empowered to change my cognitions and belief systems. I realized that I could walk away from negative feelings like anger, sadness, and fear. My children also inspired me to be stronger and transform negative emotions into positive actions.

Working on my spiritual growth and development has brought out the true and good nature inside me. I no longer pass by homeless people or ignore people in need. I share the power I have with others, which has strengthened me further. Also, I am taking better care of myself by exercising regularly.

Nature and Nurture

When analyzing my personality retrospectively, I can see that part of who I am is related to my upbringing and other environmental or nurture variables. It is impossible to say that nature or nurture is more important than the other, because they are both equally as significant in shaping personality. Research substantiates this. Recent research shows that parental influences are not deterministic, but they are important. The prevailing research shows a "more sophisticated and less deterministic explanations than did earlier theory and research," (Collins, Maccoby, Steinberg & Hetherington, 2000, p. 218). For example, my parents did not teach me exactly how to deal with a divorce. I had to learn that on my own. I have been socialized to enable negative emotions and feelings, because such things have become normalized. I was never taught the types of spiritual lessons I learned, such as surrendering to Christ, and deriving strength from Him instead of mistaking my negative emotions for being real. However, there are also innate patterns of thought and characteristics that show that nature also has a bearing on my personality. Looking back, I was always a deeply caring and sensitive person but I needed the right triggers to bring out those characteristics.

It is important to move beyond the need to even ask whether nature or nurture provide the most important features of a personality, because doing so reduces the human being unnecessarily. "Development is an immensely complex, dynamic, embedded, interdependent, and probabilistic process and, therefore, renders simplistic questions such as whether a particular behavioral capacity is innate or acquired scientifically uninteresting," (Lewkowitz, 2011, p. 331). I agree with Sameroff (2010), who advocates, "a dialectical perspective emphasizing the interconnectedness of individual and context," (p. 6). This unified theory is helpful in situations like a retrospective analysis because it can "integrate personal change, context, regulation, and representational models of development," (Sameroff, 2010, p. 6).

The Biases of Memory

Memory is not fully reliable. Research shows that people are more likely to remember potentially traumatic events than nontraumatic events, arguably due to their emotional content (Lalande, Bonanno & George, 2011). When we remember something, we are recalling not necessarily facts but the context surrounding those facts. We know what that memory does to our patterns of thought now. Thus, if I had a bad experience talking in front of the class in which I was embarrassed as a child, I might retain a fear of public speaking for the rest of my life without even knowing what triggers the fear. Thus, our memories are already skewed in favor of trauma with the ordinary events of daily life more obscure.

There are other reasons why our memories are biased. We never remember something exactly how it occurred, because we are humans and not robots. Memories are skewed in many ways, including the way we perceive ourselves and others (Jussim, 2012). Stereotypes and self-fulfilling prophesies are examples of cognitive foibles related to the biases of memory.

When conducting a retrospective analysis of my personality, I need to be aware that some of my memories are shaped by emotion, trauma, and biased beliefs. It may be helpful to ask other people around me what their perception was, to have someone to corroborate any of the events I recall. Yet even then, other people are sometimes sources of our own biases. Sometimes, our memories were planted there. We believe what our parents told us happened, and thus our memory is our parent's memory and not actually our own.

Even more recent history can lead to biased memories. It may, for example, take me many more years to accurately recall and process the events surrounding my divorce. Similarly, I need to become more aware of how my children's memories are being formed in relation to their identity and their family.

The Science of Psychology