Environment in Personality Development
Meaning of Environment
‘Environment’ is a term derived from the Latin word ‘Environ’ that means ‘to surround’. Environment refers to those forces, situations, or stimuli that affect the environment from outside. As per Environment (Protection) Act, 1986, environment includes all the physical and biological surroundings of an organism along with their interactions. According to P. Gisbert, “Environment’, as the term indicates, is anything immediately surrounding an object and exerting a direct influence on it.” The role of environment is so great that it can affect our society and our behaviour.
Environment in Personality Development
The natural environment sets limits to and provides opportunities for personality development. Social factors, including family, school, and cultural practices, significantly shape an individual’s temperament, attitudes, and character. The status within the family and society, as well as birth order, influence personality.
1. Sigmund Freud, a well known psycho-analyst has expressed the opinion that the personality of a person is fashioned in the first few years, the rest of the life being an expression of the tendencies already developed. The present psychologists also agree that the influence of environment of family upon the character, nature, mental tendencies, habits, behaviour of the individual is very great. This view has been verified by comparison of children brought up in families and those bred in government institutions.
2. Alfred Adler, a famous psychologist, maintained that even the birth order of the child in the family affects its personality. This may be understood by remembering that in the family mother, father, husband, wife, elder and younger brother, elder and younger sister, loved child, and unwanted off springs all have their respective statuses which affect their personality.
3. Ogburn and Nimkoff have stated, Russians appear to have a strong need for intensive interaction with others in immediate, direct, personal relationships. They have greater capacity for warm personal contact and enjoy such relationships more. They are not too anxiously concerned about others’ opinion of them. Americans, on the contrary, emphasise achievement more and the need for approval and autonomy. They fear too close or intimate association because it limits freedom. They desire recognition more and are more eager to be liked. The Russians are said to be more expressive, more highly aware of their impulses and more readily yield to the impulses and depend more on external controls applied by authority to keep in line. On the other hand, Americans rely more on self-control.
4. Culture or the social environment provides lot of scope for variation in personality. It has been observed that the Zuni people are said to be emotionally more secure, and most Alorese insecure. Further, the Zuni people are known for their co-operative spirit. They are calmed, gracious, non-competitive and maintain control even in the most exciting ceremonial dances. On the other hand, the Kwakiutl Indians (of the Pacific North West) are highly competitive in nature. They give more importance to prestige, rank and property and hence widespread competition is there to possess them. Similarly, the Ba Thonga people are crazy after women and beer. Eskimos are known for their skill and muscular strength. The Dakota people are known for their generosity, hospitality, bravery and fortitude (courage in pain or adversity).
To ascertain the influence of environment on personality, psychologists, sociologists and biologists studied identical and fraternal twins who were brought up in dissimilar environments. One case may be mentioned here.
‘Mildred’ and ‘Ruth’ are so called ‘identical twins’ whose mother died when they were three months old and who were immediately adopted by two different families of relatives. Mildred became the foster daughter of a banker who was also the mayor of a small city. He was a well educated man and made all facilities for Mildred to develop her-‘self. She read widely, studied music and played the violin in the high school orchestra. Further, she participated in various other social activities outside of the home.
Ruth, on the other hand, became the foster daughter of a foreman of labourers, a man of little; education who lived in a fairly large city. Ruth’s foster mother was not much educated and kept her? Closely confined to her home, where there were no books, no good music, and no intellectual activities.
Up to the age of 15 when these two girls were given extensive examinations their physical appearance and health records had been about the same. Their personalities, however, were vastly different. Mildred was a confident girl, expressive, talkative, without a lisp and happy in facial expression. Ruth, on the other hand, showed an inhibited personality- the different, silent, with lisping speech and an unhappy expression. Mentally there was also striking-difference. Despite the fact that their formal educational opportunities had been about the same, Mildred had an I.Q. score on two different tests that was 15 points higher than Ruth’s.
In the case of identical twins, Mildred and Ruth, the hereditary potential is assumed to have been the same. The hereditary factor is presumably held constant. The differences in I.Q. scores and other aspects of personalities of the two girls are clearly attributable to the cultural and unique factors in their respective social environments.
Most of the studies have revealed that environment and heredity both play an important role in determining human personality. If mental factors are much influenced by environment physical and physiological characteristics are more affected by heredity. Environment alone cannot determine an individual’s personality. But it gives opportunities to the individuals to express themselves and to develop their personality. Environment brings out the hidden potentialities into a definite form. All the inherited qualities become actualities only within and under the conditions of environment. Different aspects of an individual’s personality like interests, intelligence, skill, dexterity, attitudes, beliefs, faith, inspirations, etc., are very much influenced by the environment.
Rao, S. C. N. (2019). Sociology: Principles of Sociology with an Introduction to Social Thought. S. Chand Limited. (pp. 136-138)
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