Ocheh Emmanuel`s paradigm on personality

“EVERY INDIVIDUAL PERSONALITY IS A DIRECT
FUNCTION AND PRODUCT OF 70% SOCIAL, CULTURAL
AND ENVIRONMENTAL FACTORS AND STRUCTURES,
25% MINDSET OR MENTALITY, 5% GENE OR
HEREDITY”
I shall expatiate more on this in three stages;
First stage- Definition of subject matter i.e.
personality.
Second stage- An overview of suggested factors.
1. Social factors
2. Cultural factors
3. Environmental factors
4. Mindset and mentality
5. Gene/hereditary
Third stage- Appointment of percentage values/
justification of values
First stage-
Personality- Is the combination of characteristics or
qualities that forms the distinct character of an
individual, it is the qualities that makes someone
interesting or popular. It is also supreme realization of
the innate idiosyncrasy of a living being. Personality
arises from within the individual and remains firmly
consistent throughout life. It can also be seen as the
particular combination of emotional, attitudinal and
behavioral response to patterns of an individual.
Personality can also be seen as the characteristic
pattern of thought, feelings and behaviours that make
a person unique. Almost everyday we describe and
access the personalities of the people around us
whether we realize it or not, these dearly musings on
how and why people behave as they do.
Second Stage
1. Social structures- Is a term used in social sciences
to refer to patterned social arrangements which forms
the society as a whole and which determines to some
varying degree the actions of individuals socialized
into that structure. The structure may include;
educational system, legal system, family system,
religion system, law, economy and class.
2. Cultural factors- Culture entails the totality of
people’s ways of living, or embodiment of ideologies,
heritage, beliefs, myths, mores, folkways, norms, laws
etc. that guides individuals, a society or community.
Therefore, the culture an individual grows into affect
totally the ideological mentality of that person,
because of the satisfying and gratifying nature of that
culture, the individual finds it difficult to welcome
other external ideologies therefore becoming part of
him and which also affects his or her interaction and
relationship in the society. For example, some people
grew up into cultures that forbids men from cooking or
entering the kitchen and it has generally been
observed that such men finds it difficult to even help
their wives in the kitchen or housework even in her
period of pregnancy.
3. Environmental factors- The type of environment an
individual is brought up determines more, what and
how the life of that individual becomes. It has been
psychologically and sociologically proved that an
individual who grows up in a harsh environment,
becomes a very shy and egocentric person and also
an individual who grows up under too much care of
the parents without consideration, enjoys whatever
he/she wants even when necessity demands or not,
will grow up to have great phobia for hard work in
his/her lifetime etc.
4. Mindset and mentality- As the saying goes,
‘whatever an individual conceives in the mind,
determines his/her direction and also your character
which further in turn determines your habit which is
the life itself. In other words everybody is a product of
his mentality about himself/herself, that is why
despite the environment one grows, if the mind is
made up in another direction the person tends to grow
in that direction. The human mind is a wonderful
thing that controls all conscious and sub-conscious
activities and mentality, the particular way of thinking
of a person or groups, which also can be fixed ideas
that somebody has and that is often difficult to
change. An overview of the mindset theory developed
and refined by G. Witzer (1990). Individuals are more
likely to fulfill some goals if they imagined when and
where they will implement these behaviours called
implementation intention. In implementing these
intentions it comprises two broad phases, each
phases initiates a distinctive profile of cognitive
processes. The first stage is called pre-decisional or
deliberative, during this phase individual need to
decide which goal or set of goals to pursue. Their
main objective is to choose the optimal goal and
therefore they consider the benefits and drawbacks of
each option openly without bias (Puca, 2001, Taylor
and Gollwitzer 1995). The second phase is called
post-decisional or implemental, during this phase
individuals must initiate and action to realize the goal
they selected, and their main objective is to remain
committed to the goal. Hence, they often consider the
benefits of the chosen goal neglecting contradictory
information (Puca, 2001, Taylor and Gollwtzer 1995)
5. Gene/heredity- Hereditary materials, traits that are
biologically transferred to a person, and these genes
contains 46 chromosomes, out of which 23
chromosomes are from the father and 23 are from the
mother. In these are contained the characteristics
features of the progenitors and these features which
are transferred to the progeny makes the progeny to
act likely to the progenitor, for example an individual
is likely to inherit temperamental excesses from the
progenitors i.e. anger, excitement etc.
Third Stage- Apportionment and justification of
percentage values, general workings of all factors;
The way, manner, reason people behave the way they
do are influenced and determined mostly by social,
cultural and environmental settings and that is why it
forms 70% of influencing factors of individual
personality. The genes also affect personality because
an individual cannot act outside what is inside of him
or her because these things are already inherent part
of that individual. The genes occupies 5% of
determining factors of individual personality because
the genes can be suppressed by the environment and
also the environment makes the genes manifested to
its fullest medium depending on how favourable the
environment is. The mind which is the conscious and
sub-conscious home of an individual also affects his/
her personality because it is what is determined here
an individual follows most often, if the mind does not
agree with other factors the individual cannot be
influenced by it and that is why it occupies 25% of the
influencing factors. This can be exemplified using
twins, twins are believed to have inherited the same
genes from both parents and now if this twins grew
up in the same social, cultural and environmental
setting, then generally it is believed that they should
possess the same personality and social behaviour,
but it is not so because the mind function of a person
is not the same with another person, no two
individuals think the same way at all times, that is why
even identical twins does not possess the same
characters because the mindset of each is different.
Hence, no individual can possess a well defined
personality without the workings of all these factors.
Nurture versus Nature according to Maclver, every
phenomenon of life is the product of both environment
and genes, each is as necessary to the result of other,
neither can ever be eliminated and neither can be
isolated. No society is a product of environment alone
for men inherit physical heritage.
There is an incessant interaction between the two,
they are inseparable. One man is a criminal, one is a
militarist and another pacifist, both of these have
been in operation since time immemorial to produce
every particular situation and much of these are
always produced by the interaction of gene substance
and their environment. All qualities of life are in the
genes, all the evocations of qualities depend on the
environment. Genes have potentialities and
environment offers a chance of bringing them out
which follows the principles that the higher the
potentiality, the greater the demand made on
environment. The more elastic the life, the more it is at
the mercy of the environment. That is why environment
affect us most in the earlier years of our life.
© 2011, May
©All rights reserved
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Contact Author@ emmanuelocheh@gmail.com,ochehe
mmanuel@yahoo.com, +2348064168207