So, I was doing some reading on the net and from my gut instinct and came to the conclusion that we have a set personality from birth. As we grow through this life and go through these exp. it slightly alters our set personality from "before".

I would love to hear opinions on this and see what others think/experienced through this as im very curious about this subject.
Seems some people are just born evil and others good despite the upbringing.

Peace fellow Nexians!
Namaste, ---dls---

This is a rather large and convoluted topic that has a whole field dedicated to it's study. I'll do my best to summarize it simply, but know this is going to be a very cursory overview and there is quite a bit more going on than can be stuffed into a few paragraphs.

In modern personality psychology there are basically 5 different approaches that researchers take to understanding personality.

The first is the trait approach which basically looks at the differences in people's thoughts, feelings, and behaviors which appear as a unique makeup of individual traits. At the heart of this is a debate known as the person-situation debate. On the person side of the debate the idea is that a person's behavior in any situation can be more or less predicted based on their unique makeup of traits. The situation side of the debate says that traits aren't really that important and the situation itself is key in determining a persons behavior, that attempting to make predictions based on traits is a bit silly since people will react so differently when put in different situations. In the end like everything else in psychology it's likely a both-and rather and an either-or situation, that behavior is determined by the interaction of a person's specific personality traits with the situation they find themselves in, and people with certain traits will be more likely to place themselves in certain situations and so on.

The second is the biological approach, which is fairly self explanatory. At its most base level it is the study of how the brain and nervous system are related to personality, it's too much to get into here, but basically neurochemistry and biological processes play a huge role in the way we think, feel, and behave. The other half of the biological approach is looking at genetics how we inherit personality dispositions genetically from parents/relatives and alongside that we have the evolutionary approach which explores how certain personality factors are expressed and passed along because they provide some kind of evolutionary advantage.

The third approach is the psychoanalytic approach which explores the role of unconscious processes and internal motivations and conflict in determining personality. There is a huge variety of approaches and theories that fall under this heading and it's a bit hard to pin down a general overview, but it basically all starts with Freud's psychoanalytic approach and over the decades many many researchers have expanded upon, modified, and put their own spin on Freud's early theories of psychosocial development and the role of the unconscious mind.

The fourth approach is the humanistic approach which as the name suggests focuses on what makes humans unique; consciousness, awareness, experience, free will and the like. This one is really meaty and deals with things like phenomenology, existentialism, self-determination, self-actualization, personal constructs, and such. This approach also focuses on the role of culture in determining personality and studies similarities in personality that occur universally across cultures and difference in personality between cultures.

The fifth approach is the learning and cognitive approach which focuses on how the environment and mental processes such as motivation, memory, and emotion shape personality. The learning approach is very much a behaviorist approach focusing on things like punishments and reward and a myriad of social learning theories. The cognitive approach focuses on perception, cognition, subjective experience, goals and motivation, emotions and moods, and the various subtle definitions and experiences of the self.

As you can see each approach takes a different view of what personality is and what underlying processes determine how it is expressed. In many cases there is a lot of overlap, but at the same time several of the approaches are at odds with one another. The thing to be emphasized is that these approaches are not mutually exclusive, getting back to the both-and theme in psychology, they all fit together to give us a more complete picture of what is going on. It's not nature vs. nurture really, it seems to be a case of nature + nurture. So your gut is right on that count, we are born with certain genetic inheritances and predispositions but it's really our experiences and our environment that shape exactly who we become and how we will ultimately express ourselves.

I hope that very limited overview gives you a better idea of how this has been and is being studied and the various approaches we take to understanding just why people are the way they are.

Source: Funder, David C. The personality puzzle. New York: W.W. Norton, 2013

From a biological standpoint, there is no debate on that male and female brains devepop differently in utero, owning to how they perceive different signals; yet male vs female brain development are not black-and-white terms, and natural variations in both environmental and congenital factors point a greyer picture for most of us.

When it comes to " set behavioral traits" or "set personality", these topics are influenced by so many confounding factors that it is safer to not bother atm but rather ask " why do you care so much knowing"?

Also, don't just read stuff on the net, the net is so much ladden with misinformation it sounds like the worst choice of primary opinion-forming source.

The lines between perceived "good" and "evil" are blurred in my opinion. A person may have different personality traits that contrast each other. For instance, he may love animals and nurture an injured bird back to health. The same person may walk past a human being who's dieing, and walk on by without a care in the world, and smile with joy at the other persons agony. This is (kind of) an extreme example it could happen.

Another example, although extreme can happen. You could have a loving father who adores his children, and worries sick when they are not in the house, are they safe? The same person could be a ruthless criminal earning money from crime, tainted by blood.

Are these people good or evil? They have good aspects and evil aspects. Psychology and Psychiatry are so deep. I'm no expert at all, but to me it seems the human personality is more like a finger print or compound made up of many and various components.

Peace

Macre

As for reading off the net I went to about five different sources and developed my own opinion since its so blurred from the beginning, I used my own intellect off of the info that was presented to me, im an analyzation expert even though I have no degree for the skill, I made it part of me to read people, as for caring, I may be going into phycology as a major, I just want to help people, not throw em on meds and say "Comeback ina week and see how your doing..." soo my interests are just, plus knowledge is power.

Macre,

Its filling your life with good choices, not bad ones, if you go out to kill to feed your family, your doing wrong, even tho its for a "good" cause in their eyes. What about those other family's members that lost that one that you killed or hurt? There is no justification in this, you might as well kill your own family member since we are all brothers and sisters. I agree some people are just evil, no matter what their upbringing, cushy life, loving parents, but they just feel the need to hurt and kill (this is just an extreme example, as different, not as serious issues arise from humanity aka. stealing, lying, cheating, etc.) Even though these behaviors arn't taught.

dreamer042, beautiful description of different possibilities! I copied and pastes to my notes thanks again buddy!

Its do what's right, not what you think is right...

Bottom line, I still believe that set personality is true, as im a Canadate for this research and the rest of you are too...

Namaste

---dls---

I'm not sure I agree with these arbitrary definitions of good and evil. These are very subjective terms and we must remember our view does not represent the view of anyone else.

Let's take the example of the man who kills to feed his family. Is it evil for the farmer to kill the cow he raised to feed his children? Is it evil for the hunter to kill the deer to have meat for the winter? The vegan will tell you most assuredly yes on both counts, the hungry children will give you an emphatic no. What about the farmer who kills endangered wolves to protect his cows so he can make a living and feed his family? Is it wrong for the lion to kill the gazelle, or is that just in it's nature? Is it different when it comes to a human?

Is it evil for the soldier to go to war and kill for his country if that helps feed his family? Is it honorable? Is it evil for the man with bombs falling in his village to pick up a rifle and kill to defend his children? Is it honorable? Is it wrong for the humane society to euthanize animals that are not adopted? How about when you consider that feral populations are out of control and animals are living brutally harsh lives and dying in the street every day? Is it compassionate?

Is it wrong to poop in a flush toilet filled with clean water while people in Africa are dying from a lack of clean water? Is it wrong for a man to steal a loaf of bread from Walmart if his family is starving to death? What about when we keep in mind Walmart's history of exploiting its workers and utilizing slave labor?

If you found yourself stranded with no choice but to eat another human to survive, would you do it? Would it be wrong/evil/bad if you did? Could you justify it to yourself? If you would do it, does that make you an evil person at heart? Were you born that way? Perhaps you are just a victim of circumstances?

These are tough questions and everyone will answer them a little differently bespeaking the differences in our moral judgements and value systems.

Here is a nice short story that is somewhat relevant:

Yeah Infundibulum Strassman's recent contib to the Nexian has me asking "if so, so what?" so often. It really helps formulate a line of thinking which I interpreted your "why do you want to know?" question.

and dreamer042, nice story, that's awesome.

It's so hard to not make a judgement on what is good and evil. I only know one thing for certain, and that is how a situation makes me feel on a vibrational level. Those people/events/modalities of perception/music/tastes/smells/etc. that make me feel whole, unified, expanded, I am a fan of. Those same energies listed above that make me feel disoriented/compressed/disharmonized/uncomfortable I avoid.

It's that easy. I don't pass judgement on the thing making me feel that way, I just seek another route.

I think that the limits of human cognitive data-processing are fairly limited/fixed, but with respect to personality, I like to think of it in terms of something I learned in PHI101. I can't remember who it is attributed to; I wanna say Hume, but maybe someone can help me out on that.

This person's view on personality was that, as self-conscious beings, we can decide on a moment by moment basis who we want to be. It is a privilege of self-conscious beings only that we are completely free in that way.

On a side note...
As is, this claim leaves a loophole which is that "who we want to be" may be determined by fixed biological factors. I could continue by claiming that we are free decide to want certain things, but I would be getting myself caught in an infinite regression at the heart of the mystery that is consciousness.

From the Hopkins team...

Single Dose of Hallucinogen May Create Lasting Personality Change

Great link Snozz,

I forgot to also mention that yes with a born set personality, you are still susceptible to changes in yourself, if you let it. But this happens when a person undergoes immense stress, change in environment, and people associated with, and not knowing how to deal with these kind of problems, so the problems change you. All these factors leave a pretty wide window open for possibilities on personality change. The thing is to remember you are you. Don't let the rest influence your way of thinking I guess is what im saying. I have lost myself only to rediscover who I am with these substances. It was pretty damn rough...

This whole article that snoss had posted, makes a lot of sense in a sense that it takes something extreme to change a personality or opinion, for better, or for worse.

Namaste,

---dls---