Environmental Influences on Personality

Who is the “real” Britney Spears?Loving mother or flamboyant performer?

Environmental Influences

• The way most people think of personality is meaningless

• Personality changes according to environment– Awards and punishment

• If you change the environment, you can change the personality

What is the “Environment?”

• We will consider…1. The particular situations you find yourself in.2. How your parents treat you.3. Who your peers are.

Situations and Social Learning

• People often behave one way at home and a different way with their friends.

• Behaviorists believe this is due to different behaviors being rewarded, punished, or ignored in different contexts.

You will more likely be extroverted here…

…Than here.

Social-Cognitive Learning Theory

• Personality traits result from your learning history and your resulting expectations and beliefs.

Social-Cognitive Learning Theory

• Child who studies hard and gets…– Good grades– Teacher attention– Admiration from friends– Praise from parents

WILL BECOME…ambitious,industrious

Social-Cognitive Learning Theory

• Child who studies hard and gets…– Bad grades– Ignored by teachers– Peer humiliation– Criticism by parents

WILL BECOME…unambitious,

lazy

Reciprocal (Mutual) Determinism

Your temper, habits, and beliefs influence (1) how you respond to others, (2) whom you hang out with, and (3) the situations you seek. AND VICE VERSA.

Parental Influence—And Its Limits

• August 1999—Columbine Massacre

• People blamed…– Genes– Media– Violent video

games– Availability of guns– Their parents

Evidence to the Contrary

1. Shared environment of the home has little if any influence on personality.– Correlation between

personality traits of adoptive children and their adoptive parents weak to nonexistent.

Evidence to the Contrary

2. Few parents have a single child-rearing style that is consistent over time and that they use with all their children.– Child rearing

inconsistent day to day– Dependent on stress,

mood, marital satisfaction, etc.

Evidence to the Contrary

3. Little relation between what parents do and how the children turn out.– Some children of troubled

and abusive parents do not suffer emotional damage

– Some children of kind, nurturing parents succumb to drugs, mental illness, or gangs.

But Parents DO Influence…

• Beliefs• Intellectual and

occupational interests• Self-esteem• Gender stereotypes• Helpfulness to others• Skills• Values

The Power of Peers

• As soon as children leave the house, they conform to dress, habits, language, and rules of their peers.

• Winning respect of peers usually trumps parental influence.

Power of Peers Study

• Study of 15,000 students at 9 American high schools

• Researched reasons for the average difference in school performance of Asian-Americans, African-Americans, Latinos, and whites.

Results?

• Asian-Americans = highest test scores, highest level of peer support– Studied in groups, cheered each

other on, praised each other’s success

• African-Americans = lowest test scores, lowest level of peer support– Equate academic success with

“selling out to the white establishment”

Practice!

• I want to nurture your appreciation of quizzes because it’s in our nature to give them to you.

Practice!

1. What three lines of evidence have disputed the belief that parents are the major influence on their children’s personalities?

2. Which contributes most to the variation among siblings in their personality traits:

a) The family environment that all of them shareb) The way their parents treat themc) The unique experiences they have that are not shared with families

How’d You Do??

1. The shared family environment has little, if any influence. Few parents have a consistent child-rearing style. Even when parents try to be consistent in the way they treat their children, there may be little relation between what they do and how the children turn out.

2. C = The unique experiences they have that are not shared with families