Do we inherit personality - Understanding yourself and others

Do we inherit personality

Do we inherit our personalities?
People always ask that question and before i can tell you the answer you first need to know more about personality development.

First of all you must have noticed that in most cases identical twins who inherited almost the same genes have different personalities.

If we inherit our personalities then those twins would have had the same behavior and personality traits, right?

The truth about inheriting our personality

As a newly born child experiences different life events he starts to develop certain desires and drives that guides his behavior later on. For example its very common that the youngest child becomes a showy adult because that defense mechanism would help him maintain the extra attention his parents gave him. 

So we don't inherit our personality traits but we develop them in order to fulfill our needs and the drives that we developed when we were young.

A little child who had very controlling parents might become a very stubborn adult, in this case his stubbornness is the defense mechanism he uses to escape from the controlling parent's will.

In the Solid Self confidence program i said that we don't inherit self confidence too but we learn to become confident if we were encouraged to take risks when we were children.

A girl who felt insecure because her father cheated on her mother might grow up full of distrust towards men and this distrust might take another unconscious form such as fear of darkness or fear of the unknown.

So its pretty clear that we don't inherit our personalities but we learn certain traits in order to help ourselves maintain our psychological stability in the face of life challenges.

If you don't inherit your personality then you are in control!!

The good news about this fact is that it makes you in control of your destiny. After all if you don't inherit your personality then this means that even if you have some bad traits that you dislike you can still do something about them and change them.

In short, you are not bound by your genes and there is always a chance to become what you have always wanted to be.