I was doing some thinking about how people's personailty develop and I started thinking that people don't have as much control over their personality as I had believed.

I think a person's personality is mainly determined by external factors. I believe people are born with a fairly 'nude' brain and through experiences, their brains mature into more complex entities, which dictate what a person does.

Now of course, a person's actions are intentional, but do a person's actions simply play as the effect of an uncontrollable cause? The varying decisions that different people have are based off of the varying mental states we all have. But what determines a person's mental state? Of course a person can't CHOOSE their mental state because choices come from a person's mental state. I think that a person's mental state is fully determined by their experiences and what their brains percieve.

Now, some people believe we have control over our decisions and we have control over our decisions. I don't believe this to be the case. I think that a person's brain forms based off what it percieves and makes decisions based off that. But can a person control what their brains percieve? I don't think so. I think their perception of life is all determined by a series events that they happen to come across, and not determined by some inner power.

Now ask yourself: Did you really choose your personality? Did you really decide your character? Or does your brain simply make outputs based off of the inputs from the outside world? Where did yor morals come from? Parents? Friends? Random? Did you create your own morals? How? From outside factors? Or is there some inner power that makes them? Think about it.

Consider this scenario. You, as a person, may never in your life kill a person, right? Now imagine a person who goes on mass homocides all over the world, for whatever reason. You may think to yourself, "he's a bad person. Why did HE decide to kill all those people. He knew what he was doing." But what if your brain (at birth)g was miraculously placed in his body at birth, before any external entities could have effected either of you (barring any pregnancy problems of course). I know this sounds crazy, but here me out. Imagine your brain is placed into this infant seriel killer's body. You go through life, experiencing everything he did, seeing every event he has, having the exact same childhood, same outlook on life. Would your brain develop in the same way the seriel killer did? Would you become the seriel killer? Would you have the Exact same personality as him?

If you answered yes to the immediate previous question, then you must agree with me. A person's personality is determined by their perception, which they can't control.

If you answered no, then there are two possible things which you believe to be the reasoning as to why your brains turned out differently. The first is that your difference in personality comes from innate characteristics already about your brain (you can't control innate traits about yourself). In this case, you believe that a person's personality is already determined when they are born. In this case, you agree that you are out of control of your personality, but for a different reason. The second reasoning behind answering "no" could be because you believe that people can control theirselves regardless of what they've seen. In this case, you disagree with me and I'm interested in your opinion.

I believe the more intelligent you are the more control you have over yourself. That's why you usually see a dumb ass redneck with no shirt getting arrested on Cops for smacking their girlfriend for doing his meth. Smart people know better. The more intelligent you are, the more respect you have for yourself and the more introspective you are about how your personality develops. Intelligent people are also much more aware of how they are perceived by others and make an effort to be better today then they were yesterday. Less intelligent people tend to not give a shit about anything so long as they "gets what they're due".

Besides, our personality mainly develops in adolescence. Sure there are happy little kids and troubled little kids, but during adolescences we start to find things interesting on a more intellectual level. Some kids like trains, others like airplanes. Some like sports, others like reading. It's not a decision we make, it's what we find interested and what evokes emotion that drives us to want to learn more about things.

After adolescences, when we are adults, after we have already developed our likes and dislikes, we then have control and responsibility for your personality.

Perhaps in the beginning we are just the sum total of our experiences and the product of our genes, but there comes a point where we have learned and experienced enough to reinvent ourselves as we wish.

Good thread Jay!

To chime in, I'd say between some & most of it.

I personally don't think I can change my personality, but I do think I can control what I do with it>how to limit it.

To make an example, I personally get aggrevated-angry-negative about certain trivial things fairly quickly, it's just the way I am, and it's just the way my thought proccess works, that is not something I can control or change, how I respond to such situations on the other hand I can control to a certain degree.

To give a slightly skewed example:

I am pretty confident I could actually kill certain people without the slightest regret if I knew I wasn't ever going to get caught for it.

On the other hand, I am intelligent enough to understand the laws, to understand the concept of morals, and I know that just randomly killing someone is wrong-bad-unjustified, and this keeps me from doing such actions.

So I kind of agree with both you and kain.

But to note, medical conditions-changes-defects before, during or after birth can also change your personality I believe.

The first three posters seem to agree that people seem to reach a level of intellegence where they could have full control, or at leat dominant control, over their actions.

Part of me wants to question how we gain intellegence (along with our wants, morals, values, etc.) and if we can control that, but I want to think about it some more first.

So you're saying an intelligent person can change his personality just like that? That's bull.
Some peoples personalities are tied to their intelligence level.

For example, a super smart straight A student will most likely be a geek that's into comic books or technology...etc. That's his personality. Can this geek (since he is so smart) turn in to a football playing Jock if he wants to? No.

Our personality is in our genes. Nature plays a bigger part than Nurture.

@ VGking I get your point but your example is flawed. Being a football playing jock is not entirely dependent upon personality. A lot of it depends on physical ability and genetics.

Also, don't call other people's opinion "bull".

Dude that's not normal. That means you are psychotic. There are treatments for this and if you really have ever thought about killing someone, you should probably seek help. Doesn't matter if you won't act on it. Your symptons will most likely get worse over time. 

compelling argument, but your killer scenario holds little water with me buddy, otherwise, i'd be a drug dealer instead of a college grad, with no job, and little prospects for one. every male on my fathers side of the family (except his father and youngest brother), sold drugs, went to jail, changed their lives, and 2 of them have there own businesses.

my brother has seen death right in front of him, but has never killed anyone, and like me doesn't fear death. we've embraced it. why not, it's going to happen someday right?

some peoples environment, can dictate how they perceive life, and the decisions they make, but not always their philosophy on life.

it's going to happen so why not embrace it, your parents are liberals, but you're a fiscal conservative, broken values, moderates, love makes the world go round (bullshit), life is not like a box of chocolate, growing up seeing only black women, but preferring redheads.

the real question is what would you do if given no other choice but to do so. would you pull the switch to save your family, or shoot yourself to save the world, and you only had 5 seconds to decide? and if you failed to do either in the 5 seconds, everyone would die.

what would you do on impulse gun to gun, knowing it's a life or death situation? would you A: pull the trigger to shoot your mother, or B: let her kill you because she your mother. arrest your father, or let him go free?

yea yea personalty, morals, religion, blah blah blah blah. chances are, not one of these things will help you make choices you'll likely only see in movies, and never have to deal with in life, but if it happens, what would you do.

if you want my answers, quote me and i'll give them to you.

I voted none of it but I read the question wrong.

I do believe personality is part nature and part the accumulation of your experiences. Since I think the brain is deterministic, I don't believe you have any control over either of those 2 factors, thus have no control over your personality.

But since you ask how much your personality is controlled by your 'self', the question is what is the 'self'. If the 'self' is formed by your experiences and consequent thought processes then I guess the answer is most of it.

Saying people with higher intelligence can easily change their personality is a fallacy imo. They might have more complex personalities, but still don't have any control over it. Simply more checks and balances in the equations.