How much control do people have over their personality?

[Jay520]

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.