The concept of personality development can be described as the vital process that every individual goes through where certain bases and guidelines of character and behavior are established from which the traits, values ​​and forms of organized and stable functioning are formed in that person's time.

These mechanisms become a reference for the person in their interactions with the context (environmental or physical and interpersonal or social) in which they usually develop.

personality factors

Thus, development is understood as the result of the bidirectional confluence between more biological or internal factors (genetic inheritance) and other contextual or external factors (environment). Temperament is included among the former, which is defined by an intrinsic and innate emotional and motivational disposition that mobilizes the subject for primary interests.

early life sciences, their motivation is oriented to govern their behavior based on their own decisions. Thus, a phase of constant ambivalence is generated between the need to depend on the adult and the search for autonomy with respect to him, which can lead to the manifestation of tantrums or other behavioral alterations as a sign of the intention to preserve her independence.

This is a delicate process, since added to the fact that the child can be very difficult to manage, it requires that the adult set strict and clear educational guidelines on the appropriate development path to take. This is one of the fundamental ideas to highlight in relation to the development of the child's autonomy.

It is important to remember that there must be a balance between the increasingly broad freedom of action that the child is adopting and the permanent role of guidance and orientation that the attachment and educational figures that the child has must play.

Another fundamental point lies in the relevance of the environmental context in which the individual develops, which shapes and considerably influences the indicated process of acquisition of autonomy. For this reason, each individual has its particularities and a universal pattern cannot be established that explains this process in a general way. Like most aspects related to the development of the person, it is characterized by its individuality and qualitative differentiation from other subjects.

Self-awareness, self-esteem and child self-worth
The beginning of the acquisition of self-awareness or self-concept is intrinsically related to the achievement of the phase of cognitive development of object permanence. The child internalizes that he remains the same being at different times or situations thanks to the proliferation and linguistic development that occurs from the second year of life. From that moment on, the subject begins to see himself as being different from other individuals and recognize his own ideas, values, beliefs, feelings, interests, and motivations. That is to say that he begins to relate the environment in which he is situated with his self.

This is a process that begins at this chronological moment; therefore, this differentiation and establishment of individual identity is not complete at all times and despite the fact that the aspects that are inherent to their person (personality) are assimilated, it is possible that some cognitive and/or emotional processes occur in a different way. unconscious.

Thus, it is a process by which what others express and what one interprets from their actions forms an image of oneself. In turn, this image is associated with a moral evaluation of it, which makes it more or less positive depending on the expectations and preferences of the boy or girl.

The role of self-esteem in boys and girls
With the appearance of the self-concept, its evaluative component, self-esteem, arises simultaneously. Self-esteem is a phenomenon that is closely linked to the achievement of a balanced and adaptive psychological development. Therefore, if the evaluation that the individual makes of his own value as a human being in interaction with the more cognitive aspects and qualities related to self-concept is positive, this fact will act as a protective factor in the future in the prevention of intense emotional disturbances, difficulties at a psychological level and, to a greater extent, problems in social interaction with other people.

It is very important that there is not a very high discrepancy between the real self (what the individual represents) and the ideal self (what the individual would like to represent) to consolidate an adaptive and adequate or balanced psychic and emotional development).

Another fundamental aspect is the role played by external evaluations on the level of self-esteem that each subject presents. Thus, the image that others have of oneself and the assessment they make of their skills or behaviors have a significant influence on the child's perception of himself.

From the third or fourth year, the search for approval by the adult would be related to this issue, since this motivation is carried out with the ultimate goal of establishing an acceptable level of self-esteem. As previously mentioned, at this stage conflicts may arise, at the level of the child's oppositional behavior towards educational figures and other adults, derived from the contrast between the protection of the adult and the child's search for autonomy. For this reason, a fundamental aspect to take into account becomes the educational style that parents exert on the child.

An educational style characterized by a balanced combination of control/discipline/authority and affection/understanding seems to promote a high level of self-esteem and, in addition, a lower probability of manifestation of rabi

On the other hand, environmental factors can be classified into common influences (norms, values, externally originating social and cultural beliefs) and personal influences (particular life experiences and circumstances of each subject, such as illness).

It can be said, therefore, that as the subject matures biologically and incorporates new experiences and external experiences, the process of development of their own personality takes place. How does this personality development take place during childhood?

affective development in early childhood
The most important phenomenon that characterizes the affective development of the boy or girl in the first years of life is the formation of the attachment or emotional/affective bond established between the child and one or several reference figures (usually subjects belonging to the family system, although it can be not be in all cases). Attachment is made up of three elements: attachment behaviors, mental representations, and feelings generated from the previous two.

The main function of the elaboration of the affective bond is both to facilitate an adaptive development in the emotional area which allows the subject to be able to establish future functional and adequate affective interpersonal relationships, as well as to ensure a balanced general personality development. Without this support, children are not able to establish the emotional bonds necessary to develop all their skills.

At the same time, attachment creates a context in which boys and girls can learn and explore their environment while feeling safe, which is essential for discovering their own abilities. These kinds of discoveries will shape their attitudes and a part of their personality, depending on whether they feel more or less competent in the areas in which they live on a regular basis.

The process of attachment formation
In the process of attachment formation, several phases can be distinguished depending on the distinction that the baby learns to make about the people in her social environment. Thus, in the first two months, her inability to discriminate between attachment figures and other people motivates her to feel a good predisposition for social interaction in general, regardless of the person in question.

After 6 months, this differentiation becomes more pronounced, so that the boy or girl shows her preference for the closest figures of affective proximity. At 8 months, the “eighth month anguish” phase takes place in which the baby shows her rejection of strangers or people who are not part of her closest attachment circle.

With the consolidation of the symbolic function, at 2 years of age, she is able to internalize the permanence of the object, even though it is not physically visible, which makes it possible to consolidate the affective bond. Subsequently, the child begins a stage characterized by a constant search for approval and affection from the adult, experiencing a certain emotional dependence and again showing a good predisposition for general social interaction.

Finally, between the ages of 4 and 6, the child's interest focuses on her relationship with peers, which strengthens the beginning of the socialization stage in environments other than the family, such as school.

The conquest of autonomy
The acquisition of the capacity for autonomy takes place in the first years of the boy or girl's childhood, once the process of self-concept has begun to be consolidated (as a differentiation from other subjects) and the affective dependence on the adult for oriented to the experimentation of the world independently.

Upon discovering that she can interact following the first notions of norms, values ​​and internalized beliefs (not always coincident with that of adults understood as a learning model) from experiences

taints and oppositional behavior. In this way, it is essential that educators understand the importance of the progressive increase in autonomy on the part of the child and that as his maturation as a human being takes place, the exhaustive control of all those decisions related to the child must be gradually reduced.

Are personality, character and temperament equivalent?
Although these three terms have been used in an undifferentiated way, the truth is that they are not conceptually equivalent. The definition of personality as a disposition or set of stable and permanent traits that guide behavior, reasoning and emotional expression in a generic way, would encompass both the concept of temperament and character.

That is, both temperament and character are elements that form the personality interacting together. They cannot be isolated individually, but they help to understand our behavior patterns globally and in all areas of life.

Temperament refers to the innate emotional and motivational predisposition whose manifestations are due to a more primitive biological or hereditary origin. It is a considerably stable phenomenon over time and is subject to a lesser extent to ethnic or cultural interference. In contrast, character, more cognitive and intentional in nature, derives from environmental and cultural influences and is the product of external life experiences.

source: 

0

0