Who or what determines your character?

One of the many characteristics you inherit from your parents is your personality. At least, a part of it. So are you yourself responsible for your personality? Or is it determined by something else? In short, who or what determines your character, and can you change it yourself?

Behaviour and character

Both your genes (nature) and environment (nurture) influence your character, so you could say that you yourself are partially responsible for your character, but is that really true? And when it comes to children with behavioural problems, is this a problem with their behaviour or with their character? And what is the difference between the two?

Your character

What exactly determines your character, nobody really knows, not even in the medical and psychological sector, but it is clear that genes play an important role. You see this often in children. They often have the same traits as their parents,even if the parents were not involved in their children's upbringing. Nonetheless, your environment largely determines who you are and how you behave. Take for example children who copy the behaviour of others, or twins who want to be independent of each other, causing one of them to behave different from the other. This is all purely psychological.

Your upbringing and your own experiences determine part of your personality. But there are many other factors that determine your personality as well, such as the location where you were raised, the school you went to, the people and friends you associate with, your daily actions, your hobbies and the knowledge you acquire in many different ways. I believe that genetic and congenital factors play a role too. Perhaps you were born with some sort of basic character, and based on what you experience in life this character is supplemented and shaped into one specific personality that's characteristic for you.  What makes me think this? When you are born an enthusiast, not even environmental factors will turn you into a pessimist. The only thing these factors might do, is change the way you think about optimism, make you think and act more realistic, and cause you to see more sides of a problem apart from the optimistic one. In this case you just become more aware of other ideas and views, other factors, but your own idea has not changed, supplemented at most. This is a good thing though, because life is more than just optimism.

If you're easily stressed by nature, you will never become a yoga teacher. At most you will learn how to handle your stress better and how to change your actions to make you less sensitive to stress. And what about reincarnation? Do you believe in that? For people who do believe in it, things may have happened in their previous lives, which determine their characters in their current lives.

Children and behavioural problems

How do you explain training by coaches? It has been tried to change the behaviour of children with serious behavioural problems, but does this also change the child's character? Personally, I don't think so. Behaviour is something else than character. Character is merely a part of your behaviour emanating from the way your character was shaped. Behaviour is something that is shaped by your experiences in the world around you. Hey, but, wasn't character shaped by your experiences as well? Yes, that's true. But character is just part of it. Without a certain character, you won't show certain behaviour, but you always have both. Personality is usually what characterizes your emotional behaviour, behaviour is your intellect and the way you act in relationships. Sometimes, people do something that makes other people say "I didn't expect that from him/her": that is behaviour. The fact that people around him/her say they're not used to that behaviour from him/her, is because nobody has ever seen him/her act like that before, because it doesn't fit his/her character.

Why do some kids have problems with their behaviour? Is that part of their character? No. This is determined by influences of their environment, the factors the child encounters in life, and by the way the child is raised. So you can ask yourself, can this so easily be solved with training by a coach?

Does this mean a child with behavioural problems can be changed by character coaches? On the one hand I'm inclined to say yes, because your character is influenced by different persons and agencies and children get a different outlook on the events around them and change their behaviour accordingly. On the other hand I'm inclined to say no, because behaviour depends on what's going on at that moment and children act according to the events that take place at that moment.

Conscious and subconscious behaviour

 

Motivation leads to behaviour. We can see this in training by character coaches. We can distinguish between conscious or planned behaviour and subconscious or automatic behaviour. Only 5% of all our behaviour is likely to be conscious and planned. These are, however, 5 important percents. These 5 percent include life choices and choices affecting the long term. Adults or children, who decide to stop their study, is a choice of conscious behaviour.

Our other behaviour is usually subconscious and automatic. It is behaviour stimulated by things happening here and now. Automatic or routine habits save time and energy. Very useful, but ideally we keep an open mind so we can learn new ways to deal with our environment. Behaviour is a reaction to something, a response, to incentives and other stimulating factors. When we automatically react to these incentives, we develop a routine, which is unconscious behaviour. So, unlike what most people think, the only behaviour that can be changed, is subconscious behaviour. Concious behaviour can't be changed, because it is decided the moment a certain situation, that requires action, occurs.

Conclusion

Character is determined by many things around a person, but there definitely is some sort of basic character. Can a character be changed? No, a character can't be changed, but it can be supplemented by events that influence your behaviour, and thus your character.

Sources: www.todio.nl