Do we control our personality, or just our behavior?

Any psychiatrist will tell you personality disorders are the most intractable . . and can only be managed with behavioral/cognitive therapy. What does that tell you?

Personality is a trait and are born with… Your behavior is something you learned from example or by another and or verbally taught..

I think they are connected to each other.
Example, I saw Green Zone yesterday on my own. Some people say it’s pathetic, but I don’t mind it. I’ve got a pretty thick sense of independence and it does often dictate my behavior.

These aren’t poetic terms; they’re technical. Their meanings don’t depend on how individuals “view” them. Look em up in a basic psych textbook.

That wasn’t very nice, @susanc. Was that just rude behaviour or was that your personality showing?

If personality and behaviour are separate, then what is personality? Behaviour, I think, means your actions, speech, and decisions, especially when around other people. But what exactly is personality and how do you know it exists at all?

Your personality is a relatively stable set of behavioural traits and characteristics that are a result of inherited characteristics that have interacted with your environment through your childhood and adolescence.

You are unlikely to change your personality.

You can however be taught to choose more appropriate behaviours that are more suitable to particular situations.

I am a psychologist with a doctorate in personality and clinical.

^^ I was going to say something similar yet far less articulate and learned as @Dr_Lawrence. So I won’t and just say, “ditto”.

minus the last sentence, ‘natch

Behavior. Personality is determined by genetic and environmental factors.

I think you are born with a certain personality type, but behaviour is learned by example.

I would argue that most people control neither. Behaviours are a learnt thing, picked up from parents, family & our peers throughout life… & the vast majority of people I’ve met have neither the inclination nor the ability to change them. Our personalities, in my opinion, reflect our upbringing & our accepted social norms.

We control our behavior, not our personality. We can learn to control negative personality traits, but that is in essence controlling behavior.

This is a great question, and I don’t think it has a good answer. What is the personality of a person with a mental illness, who has bouts of wellness between bouts of illness? Perhaps he can control his behavior when well, but not when he is ill. As human beings, our self is a conjunction of what our physical brain does, and how our resulting mind senses and reacts to our exterior world. It’s all very complex. I would not enjoy serving on a jury, because I would have a hard time in many cases deciding how to judge the behavior of the accused, especially if a harsh penalty was involved.

I think our personality affects our behavior most of the time, however our behavior can be controlled through nurture.
To me personality is something we are born with. However through nurture we dress it up and learn what is appropiate behavior.
However sometimes your personality can be overwhelming.
An example. Someone who is very normally very loud may find it hard to control this fact when excited. So even though they have been taught not to be loud their personality will still occasionally come out, even if they know the behavior to be unacceptable.
As for your question as to whether I like myself. Nah, I LOVE ME!! :D

Infants are born with three basic personality types: easygoing, slow to warm up, and brittle. I bet for everyone you know, you could easily see their personality type that they were born with. This represents the person’s instinctual response to other people amd the unknown. Instincts don’t get programmed, but behaviors do.

Obviously there is a HUGE overlap between behavior and personality, but I feel if you really pressed yourself to change, you could change any behavior, but personality is hardwired.

I am the master of my universe.I have to control certain aspects of my personality or I would be living in jail.lol!
It would however,be nice to blame certain events on my “personality” .

Neither.

We just change up now and then.

It’s not nature vs nurture. It’s always both. Your genes contain the code for all kinds of behavior. Which behavior gets activated depends on your environment. For example, you live your life sitting at a desk, and your arms get fairly soft. Then you start lifting weights, and your muscles bulk up in response to the stress that has appeared in the environment.

Your genes have the code to respond to a wide variety of different environmental stresses. How they respond depends on the stresses you endure. Messenger RNA and transfer RNA are responsible for the process. The process, can, I believe, actually modify the DNA.

Although it happens infrequently, our brains do generate new cells. Perhaps these new cells might behave subtly different as a result of environmental conditions. Perhaps the tRNA can modify cells that are already existing. Maybe our ways of thinking and behaving change in response to the environment, using the tools encoded in our DNA.

Frankly, I don’t think it’s useful to try to engage in some kind of nurture/nature debate. I have bipolar disorder. It didn’t get activated until I was 51. That’s rare. Some stress in my environment triggered it. Now that I think about it, I have some candidates for that trigger. So environment and genes both conspired to change my personality. And boy did they do a job on me!

A great and insightful ‘tool’ into ones personality/temprament is the Enneagram personality test. You can Google ‘free enneagram test’ .

The premise that there are, I believe 9 distinct ‘types’ and the test will show how you will show up if you are healthy, average or unhealthy in your behaviors for your type and great for better understanding your friends, family, whomever you would like more insight into.

I am a #7 The Enthusiast with an 8 wing, The Leader.

I am a big enneagram fan!

I’m an 8.

A born leader!

Couldn’t figure me out. Wanted me to go read books. As if!

Consider neither, cause both will be fine as long as you pay attention to Truth.