If personality is determined by genes/upbringing, does a person have any control over their adult behavior?

Question

For example, would it then follow that people who are depressed will always be so, and people who are spoiled as children will be dismal adults, and that this is irrevocable?

Answer 1

Absolutely not.

Genes and upbringing (nature vs. nurture) is an old argument. Just because someone's genetic pool contains material that points towards violence or depression does not mean that they will end up that way. The same goes for how a person is raised (or not raised.)

Yes, both create tendencies towards a future. Men with an extra Y chromosome tend to have more body hair and be prone to violence (there are cases of men who have two or three extra actually.) Surprisingly, not all of them were found to be hardened criminals with physically abusive tendencies. Some were found by accident - they did not fit the profile at all. Children who were raised by single parents who were left alone constantly did not all wander the streets and become problems if they survived adolescence. Some are actually prominent members of the communities they live in.

Yes, it is easy to blame problems on intangibles (it is in my blood, I can't help myself, etc.) but the fact remains that people are accountable for who they are. If there is a flaw, then it needs to be addressed by that person and overcome. Some problems are treatable (your afore mentioned issue with depression) while others are a matter of self discipline.

As a side note, it amazes me that some conditions, like ADD and ADHD, have been so widely diagnosed and medicated in an attempt to correct the deficit instead of trying to use discipline. Children constantly "act out" in order to push the limits of what they can and cannot do. Having personally had dealings as a Cub Scout pack leader in which 75% of my group had either ADD or ADHD diagnosed, I was troubled that they gave me no problems after about three weeks and paid absolute attention to what we were doing for 2 - 3 hours at a time. At first I thought that they must be coming to me medicated, but one of the parents told me that the school had begged he for a second dose since the first one wore off after lunch time. She had refused, preferring to have her child take it just before she came home after work. Other parents confirmed this, the children were supposed to be wild by the time they came to me. Some did not recognize their own children if they came in the room quietly while we were working on a project.

What was the secret? I set boundaries and kept to them. Raise your hand to talk, keep your hands to yourself, stay seated unless we are doing something active (which was frequent with the scouts,) respect others as you want them to respect you... the list is not that long, but it was firm. What was the proposed penalty? If you cannot behave, you are not coming back (and most of my kids were close friends.)

Answer 2

I am loathe to immediately agree with your assertion that personality is "determined" by anything, especially something as concrete as genetic information/upbringing. Current psychological thinking is that personalities are influenced by both genes and environment but also with a certain amount of plasticity - for example, resilience in an impoverished setting.

Babies are born with certain specific temperaments which interact with the environment in a wide variety of ways not totally dependent upon biology or environment.

A discussion on the development of personality would take forever, especially since we do not have all the answers. However, in answer to your question, we are each responsible for our own behaviour with the exception of those individuals who do not understand how their behaviour affects others. People with moderate to severe mental retardation simply cannot grasp how their actions may or may not be appropriate. Also, there is a mental illness called ASPD (antisocial personality disorder, also known as psychopathy or sociopathy) where these people simply cannot learn any social morals. They see people as objects for their amusement and simply do not see their antisocial actions as wrong.

Finally, I am quite concerned about the examples you choose, suggesting that those who suffer with depression will always have depression. The causes of depression are so varied that personality often plays only a minor role. As for children who are spoiled, what exactly do you mean by that? If, by spoiled, you mean babies who are held and cuddled and comforted then that is not spoiling per se. Babies cannot be spoiled because they lack the motivation to manipulate others around them. Some people conclude that babies are spoiled because they themselves have projected their own motivations onto them. However, if by spoiling, you mean the 5 year old who decides when he goes to bed, gets to eat anything she wants or watch as much television as he desires and at all times day or night, then you are identifying a family systems problem - not personality. Please think long and hard about such matters before drawing conclusions that "depressed" or "spoiled" individuals are like that due to personality.

Answer 3

Yes they do have some control, and that is also determined by upbringing... personality and identity characters are in constant moulding.
Behavior it's like a two party resultant, in which the way He/she was raised and the living experiences of that person are confronted, and combined to determine certain way of acting on any particular situation.

Answer 4

Everyone has control over their OWN behaviors. It just makes controlling your behavior a little more difficult if you have a "personality disorder". If you are smart enough to see and understand that you might not have been brought up properly, you CAN change it. You just have to work that much harder to do it. Just because your parents were raised/acted a certain way, does not mean that you must be the same. We are all individuals. We can change whatever we want to about ourselves...you just have to want it bad enough.

Answer 5

Well all of that is a load of dog do...I was spoiled as a child; I am not a dismal adult...if one is depressed because of a an inherited brain chemistry imbalance that is one thing. IF they chose not to take meds and stay depressed that is their decision NOT heredity...what people DECIDE to do and how they chose to live is up to them; it is NOT heredity that decides...

How tall you'll be, the color of your skin, the shape of your eyes...those are determined by heredity. Whether or not you have sicklecell anemia or the breast cancer gene is determined by heredity...whether or not you beat you child is determined BY YOU...

Good grief, people need to be responsible for themselves and quit whining about what their parents or society in general either did or did not do to them or for them...sheesh!

Answer 6

Short answer: no. Depression can be fixed through talk therapies and or drug treatments, and in extreme cases even ECT. Genetic FACTORS may help play a role in the development of certain behaviors, but they are not the sole causes.

Answer 7

yes I am sure they do myself and my brother had the same upbringing even though I was on a tighter rein just because i am female, yet I am a completely different person from the others ie I have different ideas,am more tolerent, better sense of humour, am not so critical of others and their ideas etc etc.
Actually I am glad of this, so I guess they did me a favour.

some people are just miserable bastards and always will be.

Answer 8

Behavior can be taught. It has nothing to do with genes, which can't be changed and your upbringing has already been done. Can't change that either.But spoiled children can change... that's a choice. See???

Answer 9

Man attempts to control all of nature. We can control our personalities and urges given favourable circumstances, altough looking at teenagers from a boring adults perspective, animals are animals. Despair!!!

Answer 10

The effects of the genes are probabilistic. Dyslexia is genetic; don't adults "control" that?