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

I don't think there's a definite psychological knowledge regarding this. I myself have most certainly turned from an introvert to an extrovert, and it's been at least partly deliberate.

Introversion/Extraversion is the scale of whether you draw strength (or relaxation) from being alone, and expend that energy in being with others (intraversion) or whether you draw strength or energy from being with others, and expend energy being alone (extroversion).

Things that have stuck out for me
- a house settling on it's foundations
- the distinction between behavior and personality
and this:
Specifically, as you get older you notice how less energy you have, and how less you will have in the future, and it becomes a goal to just get things - housing, companionship, a career - to a state where it's off the "to worry about" list, to stop them being a drain on what you have left to live your life.

As I've gotten older things I used to care about greatly - going out, meeting people, being stylish and "cool" - just aren't important anymore. I tend to believe this is a natural part of growing older but many of my acquaintences, many older than me, still seem to have the same values and same lifestyle I did 6 or 7 years ago. So perhaps these are personality elements for these people?

I've found myself becoming happier as I've learned to drop my more shallow ideas about what's important in life. Instead I've learned to just focus on what makes me happy, a simple goal that often leads to the most simple and basic things.

Maybe from the outside this would seem like a change of personality but I think it's just a deepening of self-awareness. I know people who know me best, like my family, would say I've never changed through out all the phases and periods of my life. I've been probably the same core person since I was 13. (I would say the same about them)

Something that perplexes me on this thread is the constant bringing in of romantic relationships. how does this influence who you are anymore than other relationships?

Well, I think such scale would be almost impossible to measure in any objective way, so you can't claim science proves introversion/extroversion manifests at an early age and doesn't change after that. All we have is people's interpretations of themselves.

learning to be patient and nice with other people is part of my quotidian behavior now, but that took a lot (A LOT) of breaking in

A relationship I was in a few years ago did change me for the worse for awhile. It took awhile to heal those wounds and feel whole again. It's amazing how much damage abusive, fucked-up people can inflict on you - esp. when you think you're not suseptible to that anymore.

I've been in therapy since I was 19 and even though sometiems it's a drag I feel it's been absolutely essential to my happiness and stability. But therapy is often like a relationship and you have to find the right person for it work best. I'm grateful I've been seeing the same woman since the beginning. More like a long deep friendship really.

This is very true, and I'm probably walking proof of that. But also, I've been affected more - good and bad - on a personality-shaping level by close friends than by lovers. So I place more importance on them.

My observation is that people - especially women, but also men - feel more pressure to change their personalities in order to attract mates. Do people feel the same pressure to change to attract friends? Maybe they do. I've always been fairly blind to peer pressure and don't really understand its mechanics. But I do feel and am overly aware of the pressures to act, look, *be* a certain way in order to attract males.

The disdaining of changing one's core personality for a lover is part of mine own growth (?) / changing, trying not to put SO MUCH PRESSURE on myself to have a lover, (which I did to myself, for much of my life) and accepting that a single state is a valid lifestyle.

Actually, that's not entirely true. I do understand its mechanics, I just seem utterly powerless to follow the principles, and wouldn't even want to in most cases.

The trick, I suppose, is to cultivate friends who embody your ideals and hope that the peer pressure will be positive. I think I am a more positive person for being in the influence of people like Ed and Emsk, for example.

it isn't! Ever heard of Jungian tests? I-E S-N F-T J-P and all that?

There have been whole threads about these tests, and although they may not be "objective" the results that they provide are certainly meaningful as descriptive tools.

Are actions always true to inward thoughts though? You can alter your behaviour to be contrary to your personality. (though maybe that tendency is a personality trait itself.)

Yeah, but not meaningful in this discussion, because they're based on the assumption of a relatively stable self rather than self-in-a-flux, and therefore are biased towards proving the former.

I think we all do really, and you're right about all the other stuff too (obv. we care more than anyone else does about ourselves).

My take on it, is that behaviour *may* be an outward manifestation of personality, but it may also be influenced by external influences that are nothing to do with personality.

You see Behaviour as foremost, I see Personality as foremost. That's a difference of gestalt or worldview or whatever the word is.

Yeah, but not meaningful in this discussion, because they're based on the assumption of a relatively stable self rather than self-in-a-flux, and therefore are biased towards proving the former.

Well, I've been taking these tests on and off for twenty years, and they have stayed fairly stable in their results! I'm not sure what you want to read into that.

Yeah, but there's always a reason (an inward thought, that is) for you behaving against what you/others perceive as your personality. One can't truly act against one's "inner self", only against some fixed idea of it.

I'm not saying some, or even most people don't stay stable throughout their lives. All I'm saying is that deliberate change is not impossible.

how much is 'deliberate change' cheating on the tests?

1) it would be funny if I'd been taking these psychological tests longer than you've been alive
2) I am curious to see if your fairly behaviourist view on personality as a thing in constant flux is due to your still being in the intense flux-period

When I have it's usually due to some outside force like drug abuse.

Also, deliberate change is much easier in adolescence - even into your early to mid 20s. Even if semi-set, the personality then is still a lot more malleable then than it is at 30 or 40 or later.

But these life-changing personality-changing events - heartbreak, bereavement, etc. - is that the equivalent of a structural support being knocked out of the foundations of your house? Or is it the cracking of this lovely gloss and paint and plasterwork with which you've covered your perceived faults.

Ed, it might not be cheating but... idealising, instead.

I'm 27, but I don't think that's important. My own personality has been pretty stable for several years now, but that hasn't made me think it is totally impossible for it to change (though I agree it's probably less likely as we get older). And I don't see myself as a behaviourist, I don't think people are automatons, but I don't think their personalities are totally separate from outside forces either. In fact, people who think everything is set in childhood or teenage seem to have a more deterministic view than I have.

If a flaw doens't come through, is never ever demonstrated, does it exist? Because we're very close to thought-crime here.

many of the questions on the Jung tests, I have to kind of think "well, this is different depending on the phase of mania or depression" and try to judge which answer is more relevant. Maybe that goes along with the idealising thing.

I'd say that's a lack of self-awareness and/or self confidence which the person might need to address. I do think you can learn to be more self-aware, and I do think it's entirely possibly to become more self-confident and to be able to trust one's own judgement better. Outside influences play a huge part in this, i.e. learning to trust others, and having the good sense to keep away from people who hurt you or exacerbate your own personal insecurities withe the way they behave towards you.

I may be rambling now.

Yes, of course it does. A person may appear breathtakingly confident (in the context of a relationship, say) but still suffer pangs of jealousy and insecurity. Just because they keep it under control and don't allow it to sabotage the relationship, it doesn't mean to say it's not still there inside them.

An overall personality can be considered set, but there are always changes taking place. As a species we learn from experience (or at least we should) and this in turn affects our behaviour in similar situations. I know behaviour doesn't necessarily always equate to personality but it plays a huge role in how others see us (which in turns affects how we see ourselves).

People (or most people) tend to want to be liked. This affects, if not their personality, then at least the persona they put across. Sometimes it's not even a conscious thing.

I can't define the "real" me, but I do know that me at work != me at home != me out with friends != me on the internets but there are big enough overlaps that I don't consider myself to have multiple personalities, just different modes, or something.

During certain parts of my cycle, I think about suicide an average of 3 or 4 times an hour. I don't actually go to the doctor until they start to become detailed plans and active desire, rather than flitting almost reflexive impulses.

But a thought never has to have expression in order to have effect, and to be part of a personality. That background of suicidal hum is part of my personality, though I do my best to suppress and ignore it.