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Introduction
I am a female aged 28 and the oldest of four sisters and a brother. I am a student and work at a hospital as a diet aide. I see myself as social and organized. Lastly, I live with my parents. My reaction to several stimulants in society is varied. I do things based on what I think is important and correct. However, the importance and correctness of what I do are not static in all situations.
For example, I will obey instructions from my lecturer because they are a requirement for my graduation hence their importance, and it’s expected of me as a student to follow instructions from my lecturer. My personality is defined by the consistent patterns of emotion and attitudes and behaviors and interpersonal processes that originate from me. These traits vary in me as an individual the same way the importance and correctness of my response vary (Burger, 2011).
My Personality as a Result of Social Learning
In seeking to understand why my responses to situations vary, I will use several personality theories. I am debating whether my behaviors result from external factors that define the correctness or importance of a situation or are the internal factors buried deep inside within me. First of all, I embrace Bandura’s theory, which states that I am an agent of my environment and that in as much as I am influenced by it, I also influence my environment.
Bandura suggests that I know of the consequences of reacting in a certain way, in this case, the reaction of my parents and such important people in my life, which shapes the importance of the situation, a fact he refers to as forethought. How I react to the situation would have taken into account what I feel about it and what I intend to get out of it. Only after I have considered these factors I will then react in a certain way.
If I adopt Bandura’s theory, I gauge the importance of the situation based on what I want and what I feel is the correct way of achieving that. Going by the lecturer example, Bandura suggests that I will obey the lecturer’s instructions because my environment, graduation, parents, rules and regulations, and peers dictate that I obey those instructions. In extensions to that, my choice to obey the instructions depends on my previous experience of obeying or disobeying the instructions, a fact that will influence my resolve. Therefore in some cases, I will fail to obey the same instructions under the same circumstances because previously, I failed, and it turned out fine.
I am accepting influence by my environment and learning the environment based on my previous interactions, which is influencing my subsequent outcomes. My choice to disobey after a series of obedience can be explained by Bandura’s theory when explained further that after learning, my environment can alter my behavior when a new stimulus presents itself. In my case, the stimulus to disobey may be that there is no punishment in disobeying.
That is just a single example; what of my whole personality? Extrinsic reinforcements affect my reaction to situations; they are social situations like the reward of an A after obeying lecture instructions. In some other situations, I react based on what I feel psychologically. These have been referred to as intrinsic reinforcements. Lastly, my obedience maybe a self-motivation referred to as self-enforcement, or I may have learned of it from someone else who succeeded by reacting in the same way, also called vicarious reinforcement by Bandura. Finally, my decision to obey is determined by self-efficacy (Engler, 2009).
I now know of reinforcements, but how much do these influence my traits and behaviors? This question is answerable by Rotter’s theory of locus of control, which explains my behavior is determined by whether I think is responsible for the results I get or whether I think I do not influence the results. So if I see myself as a failure, I feel that no matter what I do, I have no power to influence my results of failure, which makes me have an external locus of control. If I had an internal locus of control, I would consider that my lack of hard work is the cause of my failure and that it’s my responsibility to work hard or remain a failure.
So, according to Rotter’s, my personality results from how I interpret my reinforcements, and someone who knows this can predict my behavior if they know the chances of me responding certainly to a situation, a variable Rotter calls my behavioral potential. In addition to that, my obedience to my lectures instructions can be predicted using the importance or preference I have attached to the matter.
So if someone knows I highly regard a subject and prefer written to oral examinations, they can correctly admit that I will choose a written examination and study hard for it, instead of an oral one that might be easier. This variable is called reinforcement value. The other two variables that one can use to predict my behavior are my expectancy of outcomes and the present psychological situation that I am in (Engler, 2009). So if I am a conqueror, that personality is a combination of my locus of control and motivation variables to determine my behavior and traits.
My Personality as a Result of Nature and Biology
So far, I have theories that have explained my personality based on how I react to the situation. They have shown that, to a large extent, my traits and behaviors are a result of my environment. Contrary to this, Cattell’s theory suggests that my peacefulness and playfulness are not caused by the environment but are caused by inner variables which he calls source traits. If I follow Cattell’s theory, my personality results from whether I possess any of the big five source traits, namely; openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism. I see myself as a social person; therefore, using Cartell’s theory, the cause of my socialness is the source trait of agreeableness. I also note that any of the big five source traits that reside in me might have been inherited or adopted from the environment (Burstein, 2011).
Conclusion
Therefore as I have shown, my behavior and other personal traits that make up my personality profile are subject to the part of full influence of the environment on me, or they may be as a result of one of the big five fundamental character traits that are in me due to my genetic makeup or my upbringing.
References
Bernstein D. A. (2011). Essentials of psychology, 5th ed. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning.
Burger, J. M. (2008). Personality. 7thed Belmont, CA: Thomson Wadsworth.
Engler, B. (2009). Personality theories: An introduction. 8th ed. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
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