Personality Change

[Trooper5445]

Got into a debate with someone over this and I could see both sides of the argument.

Does personality change? Or do different circumstances just reveal characteristics that already existed?

 

[Redcoat-Mic]

Course it does, you're not the same person you were years ago, I was shy now I'm not. I was passive, now I can get quite tempramental etc etc.

 

[Trooper5445]

How do you know that you weren't always not shy and shy and that merely based on circumstances in your life changing your approach and behavior change whereas your actually personality doesn't?

 

[Nash]

It depends how you're defining personality, really.

 

[Redcoat-Mic]

How do you know that you weren't always not shy and shy and that merely based on circumstances in your life changing your approach

That's what personality is...

 

[mrcrotch]

I've got so much more confident since university so I suppose it does. I was also shy when I was younger aswell.
Same with me, Michael, but only when I'm drunk  . But I never used to be like that with drink in me. The other night I started a guy because he kissed my sister. (He's a 23 year old scum bag...She's 16.) I keep confronting people if they say anything to me...and I can't fight for ****!

 

[Trooper5445]

You'd be amazed how many fights you can get out of purely by being willing to fight.

 

[mrcrotch]

Yeh but not in Strabane and Manchester! I'm amazed how I haven't been stabbed.

 

[Papa Lazarou]

Psychologists say personality is relatively stable over the lifespan...

 

[Swadius 2.0]

Your argument would be pointless if both of you didn't concede that neither of you can ever in your life time know anything for certain about another person.
Does a person have all the personality traits after a certain point in their life and will never progress personally? I don't think so, to say this would mean that everyone you will meet and everything that will happen to you will mean that they won't really have an effect on you. People's chemical distribution and balance in their brains differ from age, a ten year old's brain chemistry will be vastly different from the same child 10 years afterwards. This would constitute a change no?
It is possible, but whether it happens or not, no one knows. We can't look inside another person's head. We don't even know if other minds exists outside of our own. To infer about a person's true personality would be going a bit far if you're not telepathic.

 

[Trooper5445]

It's a theoretical question.

 

[Redcoat-Mic]

I've got so much more confident since university so I suppose it does. I was also shy when I was younger aswell.
Same with me, Michael, but only when I'm drunk  . But I never used to be like that with drink in me. The other night I started a guy because he kissed my sister. (He's a 23 year old scum bag...She's 16.) I keep confronting people if they say anything to me...and I can't fight for ****!

I do that.

Skinny 10 stone guy walking up to my female friend who's talking to big hulking boys who are clearly annoying her.

"This guy annoying you?"
"You wha-"
"Shut up, I'm not talking to you."


Me Irish brother from another mother.

 

[mrcrotch]

Same dad though.

 

[Pavlov]

Personality does not change much. What you see is what you get, and what you're going to keep getting. Which is why it's always amusing to hear *****es rambling on about how they are going to change their man for the better or whatever. No, stupid *****, you won't. He's going to keep drinking and beating you.

 

[pedrodiniz92]

Yeah, well, scpecialists say personaily forms until when about 7 years old.

From that on, change are (nearly), if not, impossible.

This is not to say one can hardly lose shyness, it's about the deeper things; the way you see and deal with other people's actions, etc.

Well, I'm a determinist. I believe you are what you live with.

Although it could be argued that you don't necessarily incorporate all of your friends' patterns of behaviour, for example, I'd say you don't really, but that's because you already had a base to start with before.

I didn't like classical music at first, but it was my father's constant hearing of it when with me that got me into it. As strange as it might sound coming from a teen, I can't imagine myself without Bach and other great composers of "ancient" times.

So, unless you spend very long periods with conditions that make you general behaviour and personality change, I'd tell you no, personality does not change.

 

[Llew2]

They change.

 

[Swadius 2.0]

It's a theoretical question.

The original question was whether or not personalities change or does the external environment make it adapt and use other parts not previously used. The person has expressed a different personality from the one before, though the question still inquires whether or no the underlying personality has changed.

This is a very easy question to answer, the question is likewise asking if change is possible; there's no explicit question about the percentage of people of a population and some such. It's simply, does it change, can it change?

Yes. The is a record of a man getting a metal mining rod shot through the bottom of his jaw and through the roof of his skull. He fully recovered, but was extremely volatile and impulsive, compared to the relaxed calculating man before (allegedly). Lobotomies also do this- brain damage that affects the function of the brain. The person will display a different personality. We don't know what goes on in people's heads, we don't know what they are thinking. ****, we barely know how our own minds work and that of our personality.
The change in this respect is almost indistinguishable from that of other traits being shown. It's likely that it's both. Though one may play a bigger part than the other.
All that matters is, is that personalities can change, we have data that seems like they do, but that same data would also correlate with the theory that personalities only reveal more parts, simply because we don't know what goes on inside the mind.
Personalities can change, if you think the mind is a physical thing.

 

[pedrodiniz92]

It's a theoretical question.

The original question was whether or not personalities change or does the external environment make it adapt and use other parts not previously used. The person has expressed a different personality from the one before, though the question still inquires whether or no the underlying personality has changed.

This is a very easy question to answer, the question is likewise asking if change is possible; there's no explicit question about the percentage of people of a population and some such. It's simply, does it change, can it change?

Yes. The is a record of a man getting a metal mining rod shot through the bottom of his jaw and through the roof of his skull. He fully recovered, but was extremely volatile and impulsive, compared to the relaxed calculating man before (allegedly). Lobotomies also do this- brain damage that affects the function of the brain. The person will display a different personality. We don't know what goes on in people's heads, we don't know what they are thinking. ****, we barely know how our own minds work and that of our personality.
The change in this respect is almost indistinguishable from that of other traits being shown. It's likely that it's both. Though one may play a bigger part than the other.
All that matters is, is that personalities can change, we have data that seems like they do, but that same data would also correlate with the theory that personalities only reveal more parts, simply because we don't know what goes on inside the mind.
Personalities can change, if you think the mind is a physical thing.

I believe the discussion going on here to be on the life of what I'd call an average person rather than of someone who has suffered severe head trauma or had some kind of tumor/accident or rare disease from which the person recovered.

 

[Swadius 2.0]

The question was, does personalities change over time. For us to conclude something does happen, we must prove that it is possible, that personalities can change. Then, we must somehow find evidence for it actually happening. The only evidence that can correlate with personalities changing works for both sides, since we can't rightly tell what in the world another person is like inside their head (ATM).

 

[pedrodiniz92]

The question was, does personalities change over time. For us to conclude something does happen, we must prove that it is possible, that personalities can change. Then, we must somehow find evidence for it actually happening. The only evidence that can correlate with personalities changing works for both sides, since we can't rightly tell what in the world another person is like inside their head (ATM).

Yet, you can't use an exception (health issues like severe trauma or accident) to a rule as a way to prove your point. Unless you're trying to prove the rule has exceptions, but that is already known by everyone.