Psychology Research Paper

How childhood development affects adult mentality

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Preface

“Human being is a social animal” we hear this phrase quite frequently. After deliberate contemplation, we come to know that actually this phrase has some hidden psychological meaning. When individual comes to this world, he has nothing but an empty mind—blank slate or tabula rasa of John Locke. With the passing time, social forces manifest their utmost existence and our tabula rasa starts imprinting new memories with the instant activation of hippocampus—the storage device of brain (Smith, 1898). Along with these happenings, human beings learn from all experiences that they extract from their social world—their parents, siblings, relatives, peer groups, teachers, colleagues, and other members of the community. Eventually, based on the reward and punishment mechanisms, human beings adapt newly learned experienced from their environment and apply them to accommodate their previously existing mental frameworks. This is why human being is said to be social animal.

Human personality, what is it?

Human being is the complex product of his genes and environment. Charles Darwin—an evolutionary biologist—propounded the most intriguing yet compelling notion about the concept of individual differences. He claimed that human beings possess certain innate predispositions that make them exceptionally distinctive from each other; these predispositions include their physical and anatomical characteristics, thinking patterns, feelings, emotions, perceptions, preferences, outlooks, orientations, problem solving, decision- making, coping, intelligence, temperament, resilience, organizing and management abilities, interests, aptitude and behaviors (Angell, 1909). Genetic predispositions and environmental experiences act collaboratively to develop human personality—the combination of implicit mental attributes and explicit behavioral manifestations. For example, an individual, when he was a child, had a genetic predisposition about demonstrating aggressive outbursts frequently; he acted this way most of the time but when he realized that his behavior is highly undesirable and society does not approve it, this social factor would attempt to modify his thinking patterns about the aggressive behaviors that in turn result in socially approved inhibited negative emotions. In this way, human personality comes into being after the dynamic and multidimensional interplay between genetic tendencies and social norms.

Role of childhood experiences—theoretical perspectives

The above presented explanation makes the idea clear that how human personality is formulated and is altered under the influence of environmental learning. Needless to say, genetic tendencies are not amenable to be altered but we can modify them under physically, socially, emotionally and psychologically controlled conditions (Neisser, 1967). After general explanation of human personality and significance of environmental experiences, hereby, some of the widely- acknowledged theoretical perspective will be presented for making the explanations more evident:

Psychodynamic perspective: this perspective is based on the unconscious motives that direct our mental processes and behaviors—we act in a certain way because we possess some hidden memories from our childhood that are invisible apparently but are actually there and empower our personality development. Sigmund Freud, Alfred Adler, and Carl Jung are some of the renowned Psychologists that emphasized the significance of past experiences as underlying reasons for personality development. For example, according to Freud, a child may develop Obsessive Compulsive tendencies if his mother is too restrictive in toilet training. In the same way, the child may develop addiction and unstable interpersonal relationships in future if his mother does not nurture his basic needs consistently and leaves him helpless or crying for longer periods (Freud, 1915).

Cognitive perspective: cognitive perspective suggests that mental processes of human beings direct their behavior. This perspective eliminates the incorporation of environmental factors in shaping human personality and behavior. Jane Piaget, a versatile Cognitive Psychologist proposed that children are innately programmed motivated learners that look at environmental factors through their own customized thinking and develop cognitive schemas—the fundamental cognitive frameworks that they develop during childhood. He further suggested that these schemas are dynamic and can be modified through assimilation and accommodation of upcoming novel stimuli (Neisser, 1967). For example, children are instinctually motivated to execute role playing in which they create simulated environment to perform their future social roles such as parents, teachers and students. With the passing time, they develop realization that these roles are temporary and they have a long way to attain realistic roles. Careful parenting at this stage helps children to develop healthy cognitive schemas and in turn healthy personality.

Social Learning Perspective: this perspective is personally my favorite because it holds the most logical and realistic grounds for explaining the impact of childhood experiences on personality. This perspective, in fact, is highly behavior- oriented in nature—our behaviors are what define the behaviors of others. How can this be possible? The answer is unexpectedly simple; through observation. Since, Piaget propounded the notion that children are active and motivated learns; the social learning perspective modifies this concept to develop a radical approach. According to this perspective, children observe their models (parents, siblings, teachers, cartoons, animated characters and so on), pay close attention to their behaviors, keep their memories in mind, retrieve them and apply whenever they encounter similar situation (Bandura, 1977). The BOBO doll experiment of Albert Bandura is the best possible depiction of this theory.

Conclusion

In a nutshell, childhood experiences provide basis to the development of personality in future—Psychodynamic, Cognitive and Social Learning Perspective defined this relationship elaborately. This is why children who encountered troubled parenting, traumatic events such as sexual assault, physical violence, child labor and bullying at schools develop psychological deteriorations in future including depression, anxiety, somatic concerns, attention problems, impulsivity, unstable relationships, aggression, and deteriorated self- esteem, self- concept and self- efficacy. Hence, this sensitive period of cognitive, emotional and social development must be catered carefully by parents, teachers and other community members.

References

Angell, J. (1909). The influence of Darwin on psychology. Psychological Review, 16(3), pp.152-169.

Bandura, A. (1977). Social learning theory. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Freud, S. (1915). The unconscious. SE, 14: 159-204.

Neisser, U (1967). Cognitive psychology. Appleton-Century-Crofts: New York

Smith, W. (1898). Cornish, F. Warre (ed.). A Concise Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities. London: Spottiswoode and Co. pp. 608–9.