Personality Through Nature and Experiences

While there is no agreed-upon definition of personality, it can include a set of cognitions, emotions, and behaviors arranged in a specific pattern and evolve from biological environments. Various trait-based personality theories can be used to define personality, such as Raymond Cattell, which identifies a trait as a prediction of an individual’s behavior (Carballo et al., 2020). Many factors contribute to the development of one’s personality. They include life experiences, particularly during childhood through adolescence, which significantly impact an individual’s life in adulthood. Another way that personality can be developed is through genetics, where some traits are inherited through nature and nurtured through life (Bucher & Samuel, 2019). Therefore, personality makes a person unique and is recognized soon after birth as it has several components that include character, temperament, and the environment.

Case analysis

In this case, I will use my two daughters, Autumn and Rylee, since I know their personalities well. Although they are sisters, they have different experiences besides having different fathers, becoming other inherited traits. According to Abrahams et al. (2019), a personality trait such as temperament includes genetically modified behaviors that determine a child’s approach to the world and learn through various life events using their inherited genes. In this regard, there are no genes that specify a personality trait, but the genes can control the development of the nervous system, which controls behavior (Rings & Allehyani, 2020). Back to my case, the father to Autumn was killed when his daughter was one-year-old, so she did not know the father, while Rylee was born ten years later. In general, I see some similarities among the two children and with their two paternal families. In this regard, I will explore personality development with the two children using what I have learned through the course.

Autumn

Autumn was taken away from her mother at the tender age of eight months, with the paternal family refusing to return the baby up until the death of her father, and her grandmother, who was the caregiver then, battled with cancer. Looking into her paternal health history, Autumn’s biological father was diagnosed with schizophrenia before being killed. At the same time, his mother, Autumn’s grandmother, battled with drug addiction, depression, and anxiety disorders. After regaining custody of my daughter, at which she was eight years old, we sought counseling since she had abandonment and separation anxiety, depression, and even had suicidal thoughts at some point when she was nine years. In this case, the hereditary personal traits and early life experiences were the main contributors to the life events at this stage. According to Nunes et al. (2018), a set of genes can determine a person’s personality as they control the development of behavior. Quintus et al. (2021) observe that an individual’s personality comes from adaptive patterns specific to a given environment.

While staying with paternal parents, Autumn developed hypochondria related to her great-grandparents, who exhibited Munchausen’s by proxy, a form of mental illness from child abuse. At this point, Autumn knew a lot of medical terms, symptoms, and diseases introduced to her immediately after the death of her father. In so doing, people around her become sympathetic and friendly to her. After counseling, we adopted another approach of care to her which involved sports that could help her transition between the two families. Autumn even joined the cheerleading team and competitive sports, which allowed her to regain her self-esteem. However, she became fiercely jealous of other girls around her mother, with this behavior attributed to the abandonment and separation anxiety. Later, Autumn discovered that she had a learning disability linked to dyslexia among the family members.

When Ryle was born, Autumn was 10 years old and continued her jealous and fighting behavior over her sister. She became over-protective and developed a low agreeableness personality trait. According to Katic et al. (2018), agreeableness describes a person’s tendency to place other people ahead of their own and corporate rather than compete with others. People who are high in agreeableness usually experience a great deal of empathy and get pleasure from serving and taking care of other people (Przepiorka & Blachnio, 2017). Such people are always trusting and forgiving, which was not the case with Autumn, who was always confrontational. Low scores of agreeability with Autumn can be described as hostile, antagonistic, and competitive and tend to have more conflictual relationships and constantly fall out with people. Therefore, to change the trait of Autumn, she needed to be mentored and spend time with a person that would calm her anxieties. In this case, Autumn’s stepfather, who was the father of Ryle, was deployed to Afghanistan, so we had time to bond and reduce Autumn’s anxieties.

After moving to Germany, Autumn was enrolled in an international school where she struggled to adapt to the new way of life. At the time, she started introducing herself concerning her deceased father and telling lies to her friends about her family to gain sympathy. She seemed to thrive in the lies until she had to apologize and tell the truth, which ended her sympathy path, which identified her as having low conscientiousness. According to Yilmaz et al. (2017), conscientiousness is a person’s ability to practice self-discipline and control their pursue of their goals. A person scoring high in this trait can be organized and determined and forego immediate gratification for the sake of long-term achievements, with low scores leading to impulsive and easily getting sidetracked. Generally, conscientiousness usually focuses on the dilemma that people face. People should ask themselves if they have to do what feels good now or instead do less fun and participate in an act that pays off later in the future.

While in Germany, Autumn began recovering and developed the art of reading and was supported to pursue arts and literature and put more energy into such activities. She later joined sports and learned to coexist with friends without introducing her deceased father. As she traveled in various countries, she learned about different cultures and became more hospitable, and now she is open to criticism and builds relationships. In 2012, she moved to Japan, where she joined JROTC. He made many friends and, hence, developing extroversion, a tendency to be predominantly concerned with obtaining gratification and is characterized by preferences for orientation to engage socially with others. Autumn has a boyfriend she meets more often, who they are in good terms, in relation to the previous breakup, which was ugly and depicted hormonal impact on personality and neuroticism. Autumn jealously towards her sister comes to the peak in a terrible family argument.

As we dealt with two great grandmothers who were critically ill and had to travel to the US to take care of them, Autumn was always in an argument with the stepfather over her insecurities and anxiety in events that were seen to be dyslexia. Nevertheless, Autumn developed good friends in Japan and developed empathy and compassion as she incredibly exhibited her artistic skills. Autumn once surprised her family when she stated that she wanted to join the marine corps, which led her to join a boot camp where she learned more about herself and her character and that her childhood was not terrible through a letter sent home expressed her regrets and embarrassment. This turn of events indicated an increase in conscientiousness. At this point, Autumn was able to continue being creative in her artistic skills.

Overall, Autumn’s personality developed through two families from childhood through adolescence, from being anxious and depressed to being creative and friendly. A child who was once unable to learn the language, read and write was now good at it. She even joined the journalism club, where she sharpened her writing skills. After training, she was assigned to a Hawaii station and married her boyfriend from Japan. She later joined the marine corps, discharged due to anxiety issues. She suffered postpartum depression in her pregnancy after her cesarean birth. Her son was also born with a disability which increased stress and anxiety in her. Her behavior has become more worrisome in adulthood as she engages in outbursts similar to her late father diagnosed with schizophrenia, which is a neuroticism-developed personality trait. She currently has medication to control anxiety and depression, has returned to explore her artistic talent, and has become more open and exhibits agreeableness.

Rylee

Rylee’s behavior has many similarities with Autumn’s, but with many opposite behavior and attitudes. Rylee started her pre-K in Germany after we relocated there. She was good at making friends with one of her best friends, having cerebral palsy. She made relationships quickly, especially with children with disabilities who seemed alone. In this regard, she could be termed as being high in extroversion and openness. However, she was sensitive to issues and thought that she was being harassed and did not like people looking down on her. Her behavioral changes started showing when she was in Japan as she loved being with other children but struggled with her academics which led to her developing some anxiety issues in what is termed as neuroticism. According to Greenberg and Holekamp (2017), neuroticism is a personality trait where people tend to have more mood depression and suffer guilt, anger, and anxiety more frequently.

Rylee discovered that she had dyslexia, but the school did not consider it a learning disability. By the end of the first grade, she also struggled with anxiety issues, and we tried homeschooling, but nothing much changed. In her open and extroversion character, she continued to have problems in her academic work but later discovered her artistic side, just like Autumn. As her academia becomes more complex, she becomes low in her agreeableness and cuts herself from the children (Moghavvemi et al., 2017). We also noticed that she had moments where she would be rude to others through adverse reactions, did not listen to anyone, and got upset by little things. This personality trait is similar to her grandmother’s, which seemed hereditary low agreeableness, and low conscientiousness. By the time she reached middle school, she had become more complex and began showing signs of anxiety with the screen, especially her phone.

She began counseling sessions to help her overcome her negative feelings and develop coping skills. Rylee’s counselor also worked in an organization that supported art skills highly influenced while she was in Japan. Rylee showed that she could be good at artistic work in the seventh grade and preferred to engage more in art than in academic positions. We returned to homeschooling after the start of the COVID 19 pandemic due to lockdown. She enjoyed it more as schools had an online process of which she could not make it through in neuroticism behavior. During summer, she began withdrawing. She got worried about her sexuality and was sensitive to other people’s judgment. All this time, the family was supportive of her and did not leave her alone. At this stage, she enhanced social interactions with a few friends, which seemed to help in what was seen as an agreeable and extroversion trait.

In the eighth grade, Rylee started developing social anxiety in what was seen as introversion and neuroticism. She started fearing other people and did not want to leave the house. She developed an awful attitude about everything and even had suicidal thoughts. As vaccination for the COVID 19 started, Rylee became less fearful and started socializing with friends from the summertime before. Currently, there is an improvement in attitude and behavior with indications of being more extroversion, open, and agreeable (Schwaba & Bleidorn, 2019). This attitude and behavior have led to improved school work. Although the grades are not as good, they have improved. Social interactions positively affect what is seen as an environmental impact on personality (Liu et al., 2017). she at times has moments of lousy attitude, which is seen as a regular event for a teenager like her with hormonal changes. It is clear that hormonal changes also impact personality, especially in teenage girls.

Conclusion

Overall, the case of Autumn and Rylee presents evidence and understanding of personality traits, including individual characteristics and patterns of thinking, feeling, and behavioral elements. Various key points of agreement emerge from the case regarding specific behavioral traits and tendencies organized in broader categories a structure depicting how personality traits change over time through personality development. Many of the research focuses on people’s personality traits in adulthood, which is a traditional view of these mature psychological elements. However, other research has focused on personality traits for young individuals in childhood through adolescence, like the case of Rylee and Autumn. In this case, both Autumn and Rylee show varying personality traits regarding neuroticism, extroversion, openness, and agreeableness. Most of the characteristics exhibited by the girls are inherited from their parents and grandparents. Some of the traits seen in the two girls were environmentally instigated, primarily through people around them.