RETROSPECTIVE ANALYSIS OF PERSONALITY
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The personality of an individual is not a static condition but rather a dynamic one which is affected by the environment as well as the nature of the individual. Changes in the personality of a person is inevitable especially in a continuously changing environment. That person requires new mechanisms to be able to cope with the environmental changes. However, some personalities are consistent even with these changes. The events we experience in our lives are very crucial in shaping our personalities.There are however other factors that were very crucial to the same. The most important of them all is culture. Culture is one of the most influential factors and is the values, beliefs and norms shared by a specific group of individuals. The way we behave and live in the society is influenced by our culture thus having a great impact in our personality development. This is evident with most people hailing from the same area have many similar personality traits (Kohler E, 2002).
As a child I was naïve and always made several mistakes in life. Sometimes I would even try to do something I had been warned not to do just to know the reason for been denied that chance. Trusting individuals was a problem as the people I was open to were my parents and some close relatives. This trait has changed over time and nowadays I have close friends with whom I can share my troubles with within my age group. I have been able to establish strong intimate relationships and trust my partner. Another personality that has changed with time is ignorance to important issues at school and home too. This goes in hand with being more responsible. Joining school was hectic to me and didn’t like doing my assignments or taking responsibilities back at home. I felt this like a burden am not supposed to take care of. However, as time passed by, I realized the importance of studying hard at school, finishing my assignments on time and been responsible at home. As one grows up, he/she matures and realizes the responsibilities to take care in his/her life (Kohler E, 2002).
As a teenager, trying several adventures was always what I wanted. This is a developmental stage and wanted to enjoy my life without being responsible for the mistakes we make. Experimenting this with my life such as drugs and being involved in some risky behaviors is part of that stage. I was able to battle with identifying myself at that stage and know what I wanted to be in life and chose the right way to proceed with my life.
Some personality aspects have remained consistent within my life. I like adventures and trying out new things in life, be at places I have never been. Furthermore, being social has been a part of my life since early stages in my life. These aspects have not changed but developed significantly with time (Rizzolatti G, Craighero, 2004).
My personality has been influenced and shaped by both nature and nurture.The extentto which each of the above two factors have influenced my personality differs with the aspect of personality affected.It’s difficult to ignore either of them as nature has proven effective in influencing the personality of people. In my life, nurture has been crucial as experience has made me more mature and responsible. The life events that I have experience have been shaping my personality over the years (Santrock, 2004). On the other hand, nature still has influence especially to the personality aspects that have been consistent with changing environment.To confirm that none of them can work on its own, nature will ensure that we develop our personality early in life and changing them later would be a problem. The experiences we get in life are part of nurture and would mean that, changes in our personality would be more often since each change will require change in personality.
It’s very important to draw the difference between the influence of nature and nurture on our personalities since they contradict in the manner in which they affect it. Nature will make personalities develop in early life stages and be difficult to alter in time while nurture will be on the contrast with the personality being influenced by the events we experience in life. Furthermore, scientific research is being conducted to establish whether our genetic traits have significant influence on our personalities and to what extent they affect it (Satterly D, 1987).
Retrospective analysis can sometimes be biased. It’s not possible to remember most of the things we did or experienced in life. The development in our cognitive abilities is continuous and there are some things we might have done in the past and forget them. Some other life experiences and witnesses may be biased since we could not clearly understand the reason behind the events we saw and it will be difficult to establish the real matter on hand. Such actions may lead to getting inaccurate information based on memory. There are some events that might have happened in our past lives and we cover them with better memories to prevent the real nature of the event from haunting us in our present (Kail, Robert V. & Cavanaugh, John, 2004).
Due to such biases and inaccuracy in such information, psychologist are now been more dependent on scientific results. Scientific results are evidence based and the possibility of them being inaccurate are very low. Personal experiences have biases and this individual in contest might hide some of the events experienced to cover himself/herself.Personal stories and tales can be overrated or underrated depending on the nature of the events discussed. Having tangible evidence makes it easy for psychologists to establish a link between the history of an individual with the past life experiences. Traumatizing events such as child abuse or being in a war zone have significant mental effect years after the experience. The current mental health status can then be monitored and a link established.

References
Kail, Robert V. & Cavanaugh, John C. (2004). Human development: A life-span view (3rd Ed.). Belmont, CA: Thomson/Wadsworth. p. 16.
Satterly D. (1987). Piaget and education in RL Gregory. The oxford companion to the mind oxford.Oxford university press.
Santrock, J. W. (2004). Life-Span Development. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Kohler E, Keysers C, Umiltà MA, Fogassi L, Gallese V, Rizzolatti G.(2002). Hearing sounds, understanding actions: Action representation in mirror neurons. Science. 297:846–848.
Rizzolatti G, Craighero L. (2004). The mirror-neuron system. Annual Review of Neuroscience. 27:169–192.

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