At What Point In Your Life Did Your Personality Get "Set" (If Indeed, It Ever Did)

I think I would disagree with Tuomas on that. I've had my fair share of 'meaningful experiences' ... becoming a parent, coping with bereavement etc etc .. but those experiences haven't changed my essential identity. They've perhaps served to hone things, make me stronger, more able to deal with problems, given me a certain degree of maturity and understanding etc, but I do think underneath it all I am still very much the same person I have always been.

But this very quote depends on the idea that there is some single self, to be true to.

Yet there are some things - personality quirks, recurring interests, abilities - that seem to "set" at a certain age, and even though the external self may change from situation to situation, these quirks remain, some kind of core.

I had the ability to get intensely absorbed in books or films that would change the way I thought or acted for a while afterwards, in a way that never happens now.

There is a reason for this question - people in adolescence often go through very quick changes, and are malleable, and this is perfectly normal. In our society, adolescence often reaches into the early to mid 20s.

After that, my general experience is that in most people, there is a kind of a settling - not as in "settling for" but more the idea of a house settling on its foundations.

I'm just wondering if this observation is similar for people mine own age and older. Especially interested in the opinions of those that are older than me.

People who are constantly assuming and discarding new personnas produce a deep revulsion in me. It's not just disdain that I see it as being down to their assuming the personality of their latest lover, whatever that is. It is something deeper and more primeaval than that.

Ask me what the worst sin is, and I would probably answer "falseness".

I think of examples from art of chameleons - even artists who totally "reinvent themselves" on a regular basis - David Bowie and Madonna spring to mind as the usual examples - seem to carry across many basic themes.

I think that people do "settle for" lifestyles or even lovers. But the idea that they could "settle for" a personality is absurd.

Are you either saying that 1) your lifestyle/partner/situation is in many ways your personality or that 2) people settle for certain aspects of their personality that they'd like to change?

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I always thought Bowie's chameleon nature is massively over-rated: "er, now I'm the Thin White Duke".

I suspect Stella Street captured him best.

A desire for security is perhaps a personality trait, perhaps a basic human need.

One you stop being open to any kind of change - e.g. Miss Haversham style - you could surely be said to have settled for a personality?

Settling for a lifestyle is the same as settling for a personality that can inhabit that lifestyle, I'd have said.

Words fail me.

Or at least they would if I didn't know what this thread was really about, in which case words are pointless.

Who's to say that wasn't their personality in the first place, that enabled them to "settle".

Also, what would appear to you to be settling - or to me to be settling - might actually be "growing up and getting a perspective on what is actually important" to others.

It's not saying that bereavement in itself is simply an 'aberration".

If you took an adapted Lockean idea of psychological continuity, then perhaps certain traits becoming a Fundamental to your personality are actually aspirants rather than realities - you are identifying your self with your future self who has none of the bad traits but all of the fundamentals. The bad bits don't belong to the same person. Having said this, the most continuous sides of 'me' appear to all be negative (but perhaps this still works - if one has changed in other ways then one hangs on to the awfulness because it is the only part left that makes you 'you').

Or perhaps this is all badly-explained psuedo-psychological bollocks.

But, like I say, that's not what this thread is actually about, so I'll shut up now.

[sucks through teeth, it'll cost yah but I've got these polish blokes who'll so it it double quick time]

Personality and self is very much about adapting to situation and experience through growth and change. There is a settling over time but it does not preclude radical change.

This is a very very interesting idea and one I need to think about.

That what we think of as our "selves" are maybe our "perfected self" that we would aspire to.

Though aspirations also change over the course of a lifetime. Somtimes.

All it takes to do something out of character or to go against your nature is a conscious decision to do so. It's really very easy - the difficulty, be it moral or spiritual or whatever, is something we manufacture.

Character or personaliy is a fascinating product of many different ingredients - social, familial, genetic, cultural, physical - and it will and does change as those ingredients change.

I am not really aware of what my personality is on any objective level - if asked I might reply glibly in a manner similar to anyone else; generous, fun, solemn, liberal, reserved, charming, whatever; but these terms are arbitrarily chosen. I don't know what "my voice" as a writer is, for instance, yet I'm told I have one by other people. I'm unconvinced.

I think we put too much emphasis on locating the self, in all probability.

Especially since tearing down and rebuilding is so costly and time-consuming.

And again, at middle age, when you realise that your body has hit its peak, and from now on, things don't necessarily renew themselves. This realisation about the body and the self - the mid life crisis - can be as life-changing and priority-changing as adolescence.

Also, I don't think this is necessarily true. For people with a certain character, some ideas will simply not even dawn on them, let alone the idea of acting on them. (We may call this character trait innocence, "goodness" or "willfull navite" depending on the act in question.)

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I think **behaviour** does not equal **personality**. I can walk into a room of strangers and appear to be confident, friendly and at ease. I'm acting. Essentially I'm a loner - self-contained and happier on my own or with people that I know v.well. That's the way that I'll always be.

I know John Lilly did some research with floatation tanks - but thoughts didn't disappear in that isolated environment.

So THAT'S what happened in Altered States!

However, I've noticed that some people feel this sort of conscious changing yourself is somehow worse than just changing non-deliberately, and I can't see the reason for that.

No, I don't think so. So long as the change is internally-directed from your own desires and expectations, rather than an external pressure. Even if the external pressure may have "your best interests" at heart, change can only really come from inside. [/Dr. Cuddles, psychotherapist]

Was is Saussure who said that language structures identity? I forget (undergrad study is a long time ago now!) but nevertheless it's an idea I agree with largely. I think, for instance, that it's vastly significant psychologically that English is the only major world language that I know of which priviliges the self-singular pronoun by capitalising it - making "I" more important than "you", "we", "them" or "us" at a very basic, learn-it-at-school way. It stands to reason that if you learn this as an infant, and obey it, then it becomes a part of your socio-cultural make-up, your personality.

I agree with Tuomas re; deliberate and chosen character change. I've done it myself on occasion, and I find the idea that it's frowned upon by so many interesting.

There are schools of thought/psychology that disagree. (I don't necessarily agree, but there are.) That if you act a certain way on a regular basis (happy, self confident, etc.) you will eventually become that way.

Also, the "going native" experience - if you act a role for long enough and deep enough, you will become what you are acting.

But I don't necessarily agree - there are some things (intraversion/extroversion) which are hardwired into you, and may be from birth.

I just don't get this. It seems to me that for all meaningful purposes, you are what you do. Or rather I don't see why your self-image should be any truer than the way you behave.

But I'm going to be boring and say that there's no such thing as a stable identity, anyway.

I don't believe that; you can learn or train yourself out of these and other traits. Human nature is wonderfully malleable.

How do you separate between external pressures and your own desires? The desire to change is always a result of some external impulse, if nothing in the outside world made us reconsider our thinking and behaviour, change would never happen.

I also think though, and this is something I say to my girlfriend a lot when she says she doens't understand how some people can be naturally confident, that the people one might perceive as "confident" probably don't think of themselves in any defined and emphatic way as being "a confident person" - they're just doing stuff ina certain way. Obv. you get a certain type of person (EXETER GRADUATES!!!!) who say "I'm a confident go-getter" but again, I imagine that's either hollow bragadoccio or deliberate obfuscation / self-help in many, many occasions.

Though going along with what I was saying above, Acting is an ability. By Acting, I mean, being able to convincingly feign actions that may be other than what you actually feel/are.

Abilities can be just as much a part of a personality as anything else - I would certainly say that my mathematical and musical abilities are integral to my personality.

Maybe it is that Abilities can become more honed and appear more natural and comfortable as you exercise them. If you act a part long enough, you may not become it, but you will appear to be it so thoroughly that a casual or even non-casual observer may no longer know the difference.

But I also know, from my too brief experience of being pregnant, that it's not really something you get a choice in, that it's very powerful and primal and hormonal. You can express that love badly, you can mingle it with resentment and other emotions, but it's something that happens on a neurotransmitter level, not a logical level.

Oh, this is making me very sad now. :-(

I wonder about this often in the case of abusive/neglectufl parents. You can chalk their actions up to their own emotional/mental issues but when that treatment of their children never changes. . .when they never acknowledge it, fix it, own up to it?

I can't say I have any massive love for my parents. My mother, yes some, but largely out of obligation. I'm not sure what I'll feel when she dies, probably some guilt, not sure. Overall I've made peace with keeping her at arm's length and disenganging her from my emotions and life as much as possible. She seems to have no problem with this and has never had much to do with my life anyway. I wish my father was already dead.

I now look back on childhood memories of dinner through a much different viewpoint.

http://www.awn.com/mag/issue1.3/images/Beck7.gif

So many people are damaged by addictions and undiagnosed mental illness. I'm sure they all have painful moments of lucidity about their parental failings. I don't think my father did, but, oh well.

my point was simply I don't think everyone has that essential parental chip that you and Dr. C were describing. Reproductive organs aside, not just anyone can be a parent.

My father was horribly abused as a kid and is GREAT with kids. Ophelia just loves him so much.

Whoa, I wouldn't go that far!

;-)

Uh... no.

Millions of years of further evolution will prove that I was in the right.

they might be surprised that i'm married, though. and rather more so if we spawn.

Kate: But one thing I've noticed from this thread is that things go more easily if you don't just react about something someone has said that you disagree with (and it's taken a few instances of self discipline to refrain from zings) but rather to ask questions and get the person to clarify and rephrase until you understand what they are saying, not just what you expect/think they are saying, due to your impression of what their personality is or isn't.

Says Ms "lalala, I'm not listening" - you'll notice from recent interaction on "your" thread that I have not resorting to zinging or cheap points-scoring, rather I have set out in detail some issues which may impinge on the way others see you, but all you've done is go "oh, fuck off already, I can't be arsed with this". But, hey, perhaps if I do it again you'll be more receptive to my points.

(also see your reaction to certain people on the vegetarianism thread (and other thread passim) based on other issues with them elsewhere...I hope your personality isn't so set in stone that you can't stop doing this all over the place)

no, it actually can change it, i've done it. there was stuff i was *really* bitter about in my early 20s (ok perhaps i don't count and am still in flux and am a mere babe at 28) and it made me miserable to myself and horrible to certain other people. it wasn't just huge things either, but small things would *really* get to me and i was angry and hateful. i decided i did not want to be like that, to myself or to anyone else, and after a lot of internal wrangling i have taught myself to be able to let go, to not be someone who carries badnesses with them like that. and sure, for ages it was literally gritting my teeth and telling myself "it.does.NOT.MATTER.let.it.GO." and reacting "gggrrrnnnghhhbut-but-but-waaaaargh" and so on and so on. but now it's different; i have actually changed.

Emsk - you are me and I claim my five pounds. Except I didn't really get the hang of this until a couple of years ago, and I'm six years older than you. So you aren't me, you're a younger yet wiser me, and you can keep your five pounds.

FWIW, I think I spent too long trying to be something I'm not. I'm happier now than I ever was.

And further, since so much upthread is based upon the involvement of a significant other, this internal change came about several years after I met my husband, and after we got married. And it had nothing, really, to do with him. He married me the way I used to be. I'm still the same, just a bit happier with it. And I'm reaping the rewards - I am more settled in myself, happier with my own company and with that of the friends I have and the company I keep (something I used to prioritise above all others when I was completely incapable of maintaining friendships with anyone, without realising I was going totally the wrong way about it).

I don't think my personality is set in stone yet, but I'm getting happier with it than I was.

(I have no idea what the catalyst for the start of this change was, btw)

Oh, sorry, you've all moved on and are now making jokes about skeletons. Carry on.

The importance of some sort of grounding in knowing how to be 'social' for lack of a better word is key. This doesn't mean, as Ailsa implies, a codependency or a feeling of 'if I just had *somebody* my life would be happier,' rather it's knowing how to balance out your own take on things (to put it in rough terms) with those of others, especially those whose company you value highly, as friends, relations and so forth.

(xpost)

Nah, just me being too subtle for my own good!

Allow me:

As Ailsa implies, this doesn't mean a codependency or a feeling of 'if I just had *somebody* my life would be happier,'

Is such an important lesson. Disengagement. Recognising when someone does exacerbate your worst qualities, and not letting them rile you up.

But it's really difficult when those people who do exacerbate your worst behaviour view such disengagement as being "la la, I can't hear you."

But it's really difficult when those people who do exacerbate your worst behaviour view such disengagement as being "la la, I can't hear you."

Right, so when you want to hear it, it's useful and you can learn from it. When it's something you *don't* want to hear, you can go "lalala not listening" and then claim you're disengaging for your own good when what you are actually doing is not wanting to hear something or deal with something because it's confronting your own personal insecurities and you're too egocentric to notice.

There's a marvellous little phrase you might want to bear in mind sometime. Namely "the truth hurts".

If you are going to continue to set out your personal bugbears for all to see, some people are going to react in ways you don't like. It won't do you a bit of harm to wonder if they actually have a point, rather than blithely "disengaging" (I'd call it ignoring, but, hey ho).

This is general advice, btw. I take criticism on board a lot - I've become a better and stronger person for it in some ways.

Stumbled over this thread doing a Search that was so remotely tangential to it that the connection was pure accident. There's a lot of fascinating discussion up thread, so I am reviving it.

As for me, I have a hard time grasping just what my personality consists of. My turn of mind is often quite literal-minded and simplistic, and so it is generally tethered very directly to whatever is under my nose.

Intellectually speaking, I instinctively submit to the wisdom of the Fool in King Lear, who said "Nothing comes of nothing, nuncle." Whatever my self is at this moment, it connects to what it was a few moments ago, and so on and on, following that thread down into the increasing dimness of the remote past. It all connects, right back to some unknown beginning. But what that amounts to in terms of my 'personality', it baffles me to say.

Taking another tack toward an answer to this conundrum, I once wrote a book. I was the only character in this book. When I wrote it, I had a good grip on what I was doing, but as other people read this book and I had a chance to talk to them about it, I discovered each reader had a different idea of what the book amounted to, which parts stood out, and which caught their interest. Their version was as valid as mine was. I suspect whatever my 'personality' is, it is much the same as what my book is - a complex thing that has no definitive version.

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have you lost your tiller?