Where does our personality come from?

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Does God provide us with our personality? Is it Satan? Or is it just random and natural, having no Divine purpose.

A clue may be found in Hasidim, which claims that our personality comes from the evil inclination, the animal soul. According to this view, the animal soul must be crushed, destroying the evil inclination and leaving the soul to soar on high. Will we really be that different from one another once the animal soul is crushed?
 
Animal souls are not evil. They animate the body; just look at the bunnies and chipmunks.
 
My opinion is that the capacity for “personality,” that is, the self, is a gift from God. How we shape that personality is the result of our choices in life.
 
God knew us before we were knitted in our mothers womb.

So, where were we before we were created in our current form? Now this is my own opinion formed by reading catholic teaching on Adam and Eve, The New Adam & New Eve, Tree of eternal life, and some prodestant wringing on such topics.

Anyways I believe that Jesus Christ was the tree of Eternal life in the Garden of Eden. I believe the Garden of Eden is a realm that is not physically located on our known Earth. Now we learn that Adam and Eve exchanged eatting from “Tree of Eternal Life” for eatting of the “Tree of knowledge of Good and Evil”. Since God declared that evil cannot last forever, he marked the time for humans to explore the knowledge of Good and evil with birth and death. It is my opinion that we formed our personalities in the Garden of Eden and that each individually choose to exchange eatting from the “Tree of Eternal Life” for the “Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil”. Therefore, we have from when we were born to when we die to explore good and evil. Jesus and Mary ( whom we believe to be sin free ) experienced the knowledge of good and evil without committing evil. Further, The good news is that Jesus Christ is the “Tree of Eternal Life” … So, in the end we have the opportunity to have it all : eternal life (through Jesus Christ) and knowledge of good and evil. Praise to you Lord Jesus Christ!
 
Why would God create in us the capacity to have individual personalities and souls if the objective would be to crush them?

One time I watched a father hold a pair of scissors in front of his toddler son. He’d say, “See this?” and the boy would reach for it. The father would say, “You can’t have it” and pull the scissors away. He did this over and over again.

I’m sure dad’s heart was in the right place, but the boy was probably incredibly confused.

Scissors can be dangerous. Scissors are also useful.
 
From what I understand, it is genetic and environmental factors that helps to develop our personalities. That’s pretty much a basic concept. Some theories talk about our personalities are developed in different stages. I think Freud had stages of Psychosexual development. Jung thought that your personality had a developmental process that went through a person’s life.
There are plenty of theories on this topic.
 
KendraDZ1902 said:
From what I understand, it is genetic and environmental factors that helps to develop our personalities. That’s pretty much a basic concept. Some theories talk about our personalities are developed in different stages. I think Freud had stages of Psychosexual development. Jung thought that your personality had a developmental process that went through a person’s life.
There are plenty of theories on this topic.
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Yes, if you buy into earthly science. But what about religion? I spent most of my life studying personality and I’m at a loss except for religion.
 
Arizona_Fat_Gir said:
Animal souls are not evil. They animate the body; just look at the bunnies and chipmunks.
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The Jewish Tanya states the we possess two souls, one animal (evil) and the other Godly (good), and that personality is from the animal soul.
 
Robert_Sock said:
The Jewish Tanya states the we possess two souls, one animal (evil) and the other Godly (good), and that personality is from the animal soul.
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The Catechism states that we have one soul, a human soul, immediately created by God. Our personality is a attribute of our self. It is influenced by external and internal factors. To the extent that our personalities lead us to virtue, these aspects of our personality ought to be nourished and strengthened. To the extent some aspects promote vice they need by starved and weakened.
 
I’m with the genetic and environmental group. I have seen myself become much more like my father throughout the years. God is not necessary to produce individual personality, IMHO.

John
 
davidv said:
The Catechism states that we have one soul, a human soul, immediately created by God. Our personality is a attribute of our self. It is influenced by external and internal factors. To the extent that our personalities lead us to virtue, these aspects of our personality ought to be nourished and strengthened. To the extent some aspects promote vice they need by starved and weakened.
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Where did you get that from? When I speak of personality, I think in lines of traits that are constant through time and across situations. The self, on the other hand, is that which does the experiencing.
 
Robert_Sock said:
Yes, if you buy into earthly science. But what about religion? I spent most of my life studying personality and I’m at a loss except for religion.
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Well, I have no problem with “earthly” science and the church doesn’t either. Thank God for humans learning “earthly” sciences or we definitely wouldn’t have most comforts of today.

Advances in medicine: from properly cleaning wounds to major surgeries. Can’t forget about pharmaceuticals. Without science we wouldn’t have the medicines we have. We wouldn’t be able to allow a deaf child to hear for the first time.
Living in 2015, life is almost impossible without electricity, especially in first world countries.
We wouldn’t be online right now if it wasn’t for science.
Science allows people to walk on the moon and have satellites in orbit.
Science has taught us about balanced diets.
“Earthly” science has given us the microwave, microscope, telescope, xray, MRI machines, transportation, and on and on and on.
Pope Francis has like, a Master’s in Chemistry.

I totally “buy” into earthly science.
 
Robert_Sock said:
Where did you get that from?
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From my understanding and experience.
When I speak of personality, I think in lines of traits that are constant through time and across situations. The self, on the other hand, is that which does the experiencing.
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That is consistent with what I was thinking.
 
The personality is the part of our psychology that others see; it is like a skin for our minds.

Both are crucial to life, but just as the human skin is not the whole body, likewise the personality is not the entire mind.

ICXC NIKA
 
GEddie said:
The personality is the part of our psychology that others see; it is like a skin for our minds.

Both are crucial to life, but just as the human skin is not the whole body, likewise the personality is not the entire mind.

ICXC NIKA
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Not quite. IQ, for example, is certainly a part of our personality, but cannot be easily seen by others.
 
davidv said:
What definition of personality includes IQ?

This ones certainly would not include IQ:
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I’m not sure of the definitions, but personality was my field; I have a PhD. It’s just common knowledge in the field that IQ is a most central component in personality.

One small reference: blogs.scientificamerican.com/beautiful-minds/2014/04/21/how-does-iq-relate-to-personality/

Anyway, I quite being a research psychologist so that I could become a more devout Catholic.

The average correlation between traits and behaviors are surprisingly low, usually under r=.30.
 
What exactly is “personality”? What are its constituent parts? Does the expression of instinct play a role? Definitions would be helpful.
 
Hazen_Pingree said:
What exactly is “personality”? What are its constituent parts? Does the expression of instinct play a role? Definitions would be helpful.
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Instincts are not a part of personality.

Personality refers to individual differences in characteristic patterns of thinking, feeling and behaving. The study of personality focuses on two broad areas: One is understanding individual differences in particular personality characteristics, such as sociability or irritability. The other is understanding how the various parts of a person come together as a whole.

-Adapted from the Encyclopedia of Psychology
 
The reason I brought up instinct was that it seems to be an essential aspect of being, and personality (the individual differences in characteristic patterns of thinking, feeling and behaving) seems to be an essential part of being as well. In my previous post, I asked about how the *expression *of instinct (not instinct itself) might play a role in personality. Our personalities can be understood (in part) by how we behave.

I used to own Labrador Retrievers. I remember well a particular litter of dogs who were all very good at retrieving because they responded very naturally to their instincts in this regard. They required very little training in the art of retrieval and took to the trait right away, and all the dogs were trained alike. But there was one dog out of that litter who seemed to be incapable of learning how to retrieve. He was a normal dog in every other way physically, intellectually and emotionally – but his personality was different. I suspect that, in many ways, he was smarter than the others. He seemed to be more sensitive to the expectations and moods of his human owner, was quick to respond to commands and was eager to learn. He was a very fine dog in every way – but he wouldn’t hunt.

In the definition given, behavior is linked to personality. But it is also my understanding that instinct is linked to behavior – and instinct is a “characteristic pattern” that can be observed. There are some subtleties here – especially in a comparison of dogs to humans – but, in observing behavior patterns – in trying to answer the question of where our personalities come from – it seems wise to discern how much (or how little) we respond to pre-set or reflexive behavior – how we express ourselves against the ground of instinct. That may give us a key to unlock one of the doors that explain where our personalities come from.

I will check back here tomorrow to see if there are any thoughts on all of this. I thank you for bringing this question to the fore.

God bless
HP
 
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