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Forums - General Discussion - How much control do people have over their personality?

 

How much of your personality is controlled by yourself?

All of it 7 12.07%
 
Most of it 16 27.59%
 
Some of it 29 50.00%
 
None of it 4 6.90%
 
What is this? 2 3.45%
 
Total:58
Mr Khan on 28 February 2012

Assuming no variation in mental health or intellectual ability, everyone is going to make the same decisions in the same scenarios. People with psychological problems will make different decisions, as will people at different levels of intellect (mostly because they are better or worse able to fit the scenario into the bigger picture)

The rest of it just comes down to circumstances: how you were raised and where you go with yourself.



Monster Hunter: pissing me off since 2010.

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blkfish92 on 28 February 2012

I have full control, but people with no common sense usually have close to no control.



           

Rath on 28 February 2012

I think that with a high level of self-awareness and a very large amount of will-power it's possible (but not at all easy) to consciously change your personality.

In agreement with the others - that level of self-awareness probably requires a degree of intelligence.



Jay520 on 28 February 2012

Edit



Jay520 on 28 February 2012
Mr Khan said:
Assuming no variation in mental health or intellectual ability, everyone is going to make the same decisions in the same scenarios. People with psychological problems will make different decisions, as will people at different levels of intellect (mostly because they are better or worse able to fit the scenario into the bigger picture)

The rest of it just comes down to circumstances: how you were raised and where you go with yourself.


Finally, someone responds to the scenario. (Well, MDJ did also but I really didn't understand his post)

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Jay520 on 28 February 2012
Rath said:
I think that with a high level of self-awareness and a very large amount of will-power it's possible (but not at all easy) to consciously change your personality.

In agreement with the others - that level of self-awareness probably requires a degree of intelligence.


Do you think humans have control over achiving a high level of self-awareness & intelligence, or is it simply something (some) humans attain given the appropriate perception?

Jay520 on 28 February 2012
MARCUSDJACKSON said:
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.



sur give them to me.

MrBubbles on 28 February 2012

you can definitely consciously alter your personality.

just as your personality can constantly change with new stimuli.

actually...it honestly annoys me to see some people say otherwise...so much so that i was very tempted to type very rude words.

an example being a rape victim who seems to completely change because of the rape...but then consciously works at overcoming it.



"I like my steaks how i like my women.  Bloody and all over my face"

"Its like sex, but with a winner!"

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SvennoJ on 28 February 2012
Mr Khan said:
Assuming no variation in mental health or intellectual ability, everyone is going to make the same decisions in the same scenarios. People with psychological problems will make different decisions, as will people at different levels of intellect (mostly because they are better or worse able to fit the scenario into the bigger picture)

The rest of it just comes down to circumstances: how you were raised and where you go with yourself.

Under the exact same conditions maybe, and mostly the same outcome most of the time. However next to determinism I also think chaos theory has an impact on the brain. Just a small variation in the input or your current mental state can sometimes cause a completely different outcome. These one off changes can even be responsible for personality changes together with how the brain reinforces previous behaviour.

Anyway people make different choices with the same mental health and intellectual ability. For example I have been part of a couple of prisoner's dilemma type experiments in economics and pshycology. There wouldn't be much point to these experiments if all the students would make the same decision.



Etanclan4life on 28 February 2012

You will always have one set personality but it often changes because of hormones or experiences in life, for instance, if you are a 16 year old in high school like I am, your personality will probably change once a month, every human has 17 different emotions, unless you're a sociopath, but since you're wondering about this you probably aren't. Being that we all have at least 17 different emotions it is highly unlikely that we can completely control our personality 100%.



Etan