Introduction to Personality Essay Example for Free

instauration to Personality EssayBehavior geneticists assess the doubt of inheriting personality. Are our genes responsible for our creativity, aggressiveness or confidence? Examining personality traits through and through a genetic focus is an obscure task. Methods employed by behavior geneticists involve epidemiological studies, such as screening family pedigrees, conducting twin heritability studies, and adoption studies. Personality is best exposit as what makes up a person, their traits and individual differences that make them unique.T here has been much research undertaken as to what in reality causes a personality to develop whether it is nature (genetically inherited) or by nurture (the environment) research has depictn that it is a combine of both. (Walter, shoda, smith 2003) Human society is complex and this presents researchers with difficulties in measurement of the environmental effect and to define scarce what causes personality. Psychologists and behavior geneticists exact tried to estimate contributions made by genetics and the environment to individual differences through heritability.See more how to start an essayHeritability is when research has been carried out to establish the contributions of genetics and the environment to a population sample. This is based on knowing the birth relationship (genetic relatedness), measuring the trait in question and making comparisons amidst groups with differing levels of genetic relatedness. The amount of variability in a trait or forcible measurement within a population is accounted for to show how much has been inherited (genetically) and the percentage remaining is the environmental contribution. Twins were an excellent source of study since their DNA is identical.Before 1970 there was not much put down information about agree, however there are now larger information sources and larger samples sacrifice become available. In Sweden and Finland the central recording of twins raised together and apart besides improvements in the interpretation of statistics and technology enabled larger samples to be examined. Findings from heritability studies have shown that personality traits are associated with genetic influence, however this fecal matter vary depending on the trait measured, eg neuroticism shows heritability as 30% but measurements of extraversion/introversion show heritability as 50%.Measurements could be inaccurate as variables have to be considered eg environmental factors twins that have been reared apart may have still lived with a family member and could still be brought up in a similar way. The media stories have focused on successful reunions of twins previously degage, twins separated may spend years getting to know each other before they are researched which would be enough time to adapt their personalities.The time separation aspect could mean unalike things, eg some twins researched had actually spent some years together. (walter, shoda, s mith 2003) Twin studies have often used different measures of a person, therefore the results may be unreliable unless the same measurement is taken each time. other research in families involved examining differences in relatedness between other family members ie siblings, half-siblings, cousins, parents and children. There have also been adoption studies.Research has shown that nature has a proportion of about a third effect on personality, which would infer the larger effect on a personality derives from the environment. There is continual interaction between an organism and its environment from conception throughout life, environments that are both physical and made up with other people. Individual differences psychologists describe environments as dimensions ie whether the child has been raised in a controlled or a relaxed environment, the mothers health and well being and the parents relationship.Personalities can change dependant upon the situation that the person is in. The Stanford Prison prove is an example of a social examine where volunteers undertook new roles. Twenty four were selected after various tests to district out medical, psychological and other tendencies. They were told that the research was to study the psychological effects on prison life, the experiment took place in a mock prison environment within the university.The experiment was cut unretentive because prisoners became demoralized and showed signs of stress, depression and others lost touch with reality. Guards behaved in authoritarian and aggressive way, some became sadistic. The research here showed that social situations have powerful effects on behavior. Researchers have used various forms of evidence that reckon to indicate that personality is developed through an interaction between genetics and the environment therefore it would be wise to conclude that only a portion of a persons personality is inherited.Differing situations should be accounted for when comparing th e results, to control it has been difficult to define what the exact ratio of heritability environment is, research has shown heritability to be approximately 30%.References macrocosm to Personality Toward An Integration, Seventh Edition by Walter Mischel, Yuichi Shoda, and Ronald E. Smith. John Wiley Sons 7th edition 10 Jul 2003