Five Influences On Personality
There are many different things which affect a person’s personality and shape who they are. Their biological sex appearance, psychological gender, the amount of creativity they possess, even the myths or religious docturns they are exposed to form their core moral values and the way they choose to live life and the challenges they will meet throughout it. Personality theories all try to assess the natural characteristics of the mind which work to process activity and respond to experiences, forming a person’s individual tendencies and outlook on life. Together these characteristics paint a portrait of a person, expressing who they are and all of the physical, social, and psychological factors that made them who they are. Creativity, myths, sex, and gender all change a person’s perspective of the world and their reactions to the actions and appearance of others.
Personality theories go a long way towards illustrating the primary components of the mind’s influence on the personality. In Chapter 13 of The World of Psychology by Samuel E. Wood, Ellen Green Wood, and Denise Boyd, "Personality Theory and Assessment," One set of interlinked theories is Freud’s own concept of the layers of personality called the iceburg theory (458). This is the idea of a built-in mindset of different consciousnesses and the structure of thoughts developed from birth, which are necessary for survival. To start with, the conscious part of the mind processes thoughts, feelings, and ideas as a situation takes place. The ego is the rational part of this which a person uses to make decisions, projecting these thoughts into real-life actions (457). The preconscious mind holds all of a person’s memories, information, and past experiences. The superego then uses this knowledge to develop a conscience and a personal ideal of what is right and what is wrong (457-8). These experiences and knowledge is what a person would use to base the decisions that they use their conscious ego to make...
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