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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
Etanclan4life on 28 February 2012

For instance, I have a very rational personality, I take everything into account about a situation and figure the very worst thing that could come out of it, that is why i am often a jackass to others, I dont really think anything of it, but its just my personality.



Etan

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MARCUSDJACKSON on 28 February 2012
Jay520 said:

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.

ok because you didn't understand i'll break it down. the part in Italic was about the environment they lived in. drugs are an easy way to make money, or an influence for some. didn't influence my choices, and i didn't follow in the foot septs of my father and uncles. it's the same environment i lived in, but i chose a different path.

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?

my brother saw death, held a gun, at all times while selling drugs, but never killed anyone. that goes back to your serial killer scenario. being trapped in the mind of a serial killer.

my brother knows the reasons the people killed, and got killed, so he was in there heads. he hung out with them everyday, but it partly  influence the changes he made in his life to live better, and make better decisions.

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

not everyones environment, influences there choices. they may make some bad decisions but their thinking may be, i have no other choice, although it goes against their philosophy, or personal feelings about the situation.

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.

again, the influence of your environment. i didn't want to make the post that long, so i didn't include allot of text. this is basically what you see, or hear every day. as a kid, you may have heard someone say life is like a box of chocolate, but have you found that to be true? sure, it's not always sweat.


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. find another solution, or take everyone with me.

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?

i'd shoot my mothers hand/arm. jail doesn't scare my father, he's been their enough times already, and he'd be going back.

just because you've been given an option, doesn't it's the only answer. whats the most logical answer?
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.

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


sur give them to me.

i hope you understood the breakdown. i'm very complexed and have allot of thoughts in my head. i'm big on logic, so i try to convey that in my post, so it may involve some needless text sometimes.



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Mr Khan on 28 February 2012
SvennoJ said:
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.

This is true. I had forgotten to factor hormones into the cycle. Which is stupid of me, because i seem to be caught in some sort of post-puberty hormonal cycle in my early adulthood, making me feel different ways at different times, and sometimes to act accordingly.



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Samus_Aran on 29 February 2012

It's a mixture of genetics and environment, so most of the recent text books say. Although I think a lot of recent research points toward genetic factors. That's not to say you can't change your personality, because you can change your emotional and behavioural responses to different environments. The idea of a blank slate, that two people will react the same in a given environment, is not popular anymore in contemporary psychology. A lot of research on this, good place to start is http://search.apa.org/search?query=personality%20genetic%20environment



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Millenium on 29 February 2012
VGKing said:
Millenium said:
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.

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. 



Interesting perception mate, but I have to disagree, the ability to commit murder in cold blood in and of itself does not make one psychotic, and nor am I.

I'll expand this post in a few hours, it's 5AM atm, and it's difficult to type on my mobile.



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MARCUSDJACKSON on 29 February 2012

Jay520 said:
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.

that would mean that you have control over your emotions, which isn't always the case. you can also decide not to trust your instincts, which also may conflict with your moral values. you're not always going to do what you're thinking, even if it conflicts with your morals, or what you want to do. you may choose another option or make a different decision.

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

don't bother, i've done the same thing.





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IIIIITHE1IIIII on 29 February 2012

I'd strictly sad "no", you don't control any of your personality at all. Here's why I think so in case anyone would care.



Galaki on 29 February 2012

You have no control. I am controlling you.



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MrBubbles on 29 February 2012
Galaki said:
You have no control. I am controlling you.


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Slimebeast on 29 February 2012

It's the eternal question of free will. I don't know if we have free will but if we do it is small (and supernatural since there is no natural explanation for free will).

The dilemma with the "no true free will" question is that it's nearly impossible for a normal sane person to live as if he had no free will, because you would never have reason to question your own actions, you can just do whatever you want or feel like and think "this was meant to happen just so and I couldn't have done it in any other way, so I won't take any responsibility or guilt for anything I might have done wrong". Try it, it's almost impossible to act and live like you have no free will.