The Role Of Learning In Developing Your Personality
Learning & Personality Development
Learning is a very important part in the development of someone’s personality, and two learning processes are especially important: operant conditioning and observational learning.
Operant Conditioning & Personality
Operant conditioning takes place when a behaviour is shaped by a reinforcer. A reinforcer is something which increases the occurrence of a particular type of behaviour.
If we apply this to personality development, it becomes obvious why learning plays such an important role in the type of personality we have.
For example, if as a child your parents always encouraged you to make friends and be an outgoing person, then your parents would essentially be reinforcing you to become an extraverted person.
As a result, when you grow older you will most likely make friends easily, and be an outgoing person who likes to spend their time in the company of other people.
If however your parents discouraged you from hanging around with certain people, or discouraged you from going out to places on your own, your parents would reinforce behaviours that are associated with introversion.
As a result, when you grow up you are likely to find making friends difficult, be fairly unadventurous and prefer to spend the majority of your time by yourself.
So however your parents treated you as a child, the reinforcers you received growing up played a significant role in determining what type of behaviours you now predominantly display as an adult (your personality).
Inborn Desires
Carl Jung who came up with the idea of introverted and extroverted personalities, believed that we are genetically predisposed towards one personality or the other.
If this is correct, then a person who is naturally introverted (genetically predisposed) will become a very introverted person if this type of behaviour is reinforced by their parents.
Likewise, someone who is naturally extroverted is likely to become a very extroverted person if this behaviour is reinforced by their parents.
However lets now suppose that a naturally introverted person receives reinforcement for extroverted behaviours by their parents.
This type of development is likely to result in an extroverted adult, but if this person is naturally introverted, then their resulting personality may be somewhat conflicted.
So even though this person may appear to be an extrovert, deep down inside they may not actually enjoy the extroverted behaviours they display, and instead prefer to spend time by themselves.
This type of scenario can often be found with celebrities who get a sudden break into show business, but later on decide that what they really want is to live a quite life and so withdraw from the public eye.
If this conflict is not resolved within such people, they may then resort to self destructive behaviours such as turning to drugs and alcohol.
Observational Learning & Personality
Observational learning is another form of learning which plays a highly influential role in shaping our personality.
Observational learning occurs when you watch someone else (a role model), and then attempt to imitate their behaviour and incorporate it as your own.
This is something which is very common amongst teenagers who often try to model famous actors or musicians.
However the first models we have are our parents, and as young children we unknowingly model them and their behaviour.
As a result, by the time we reach our early teens, we are already very much like our parents and we are not even aware of it.
Later in life as we are exposed to more models, we may decide we do not like the personality we acquired from our parents and so try to “rebel” against it.
The more models we are exposed to, the more our personality is likely to change, until eventually we find one that seems to “fit” and we stick with it.
So as you can from these examples, it is clear that learning plays a big role in shaping our personality throughout our entire life.
What we don’t know at the moment however, is whether or not our personality is genetically determined and how much of a role learning plays in shaping the type of personality we have.
Consciousness And Personality
Whilst there is no doubt that our parents and childhood play a big influence on the type of personality we display as adults, the fact that we are conscious beings means that we have the ability to think and make decisions for ourselves.
Therefore it is only natural to assume that consciousness also plays a role in shaping our personality, through the choices we make and the things we decide to do.
This is a view held by advocates of the humanistic viewpoint, such as Abraham Maslow, who believed that people have a choice as to how their life turns out and therefore do not have to be victims of their genetics or their childhood.
There is plenty of evidence to support the role of consciousness in shaping our personality, as there are many people who started life under extremely disadvantaged circumstances yet still managed to make a success of their life.
This idea of autonomy (the need to control and direct your own life) is something that was proposed by Maslow, who stated that we all have the choice to do things which will help us to realise our maximum potential in life.
Whether or not we choose to do these things is ultimately determined by ourselves, our consciousness.
Carl Rogers & The Self Concept
Another person who believed consciousness was important in shaping our personality was Carl Rogers, who placed great emphasis on the self-concept.
The self concept is how a person perceives their personality and exists in contrast to the ideal self, which is how a person would like their personality to be.
If the self-concept and ideal self are very far apart, then a person is said to be in a state of incongruence. This can then lead to depression and anxiety disorders.
Therefore, according to Rogers, one can achieve a state of balance and harmony in their life, if they are able to align their self concept with their ideal self.
However for some people their ideal self may be so unrealistic (usually as a result of something they have seen or read which they believe they can achieve, e.g. magical abilities) that they never achieve their ideal state, and so spend the result of their life in a fluctuating state of depression.
Summary
• Personality is influenced by the things we learn as we grow up.
• If personality is due to genetics, having the “wrong” personality type may cause conflict within us.
• Operant conditioning can result in certain types of behaviour being reinforced, causing us to display that behaviour later in life.
• Observational learning can affect our personality by trying to copy the behaviour of role models.
• Consciousness plays an important role in shaping our personality, because we all have the choice of what we choose to do in life.
• Our self concept is how we currently view our personality.
• Our ideal self is how we would like our personality to be.
• If our self concept and ideal self are radically different, we are said to be in a state of incongruence, which can lead to depression.
