Childhood personality development is influenced by genetics, family background, and social environment. Environmental factors such as culture, quality of care, and feedback from parents and siblings can shape a child’s personality. Social and gender conditioning can also play a role. Parental personality traits may be important in a child’s development. Basic personality is believed to be fully formed by age six.
Factors influencing personality development in childhood typically include genetics, family background, and social environment. Psychologists who study childhood personality development believe that some intrinsic aspects of someone’s personality may not be related to environmental or genetic factors. People from the same family, raised in the same environment and culture, can often develop very different personalities. Experts don’t fully understand why this should be the case. While environmental and genetic factors may not be the only ones related to personality development in childhood, they are, nevertheless, generally recognized as important.
The culture in which a child is raised may be one of the environmental factors contributing to personality development. Other factors in childhood personality development may include the quality of care a child receives from parents. While some aspects of a child’s personality may be inherent from birth, the feedback a child receives from parents, caregivers, and siblings can help shape her or her personality. Birth order can also contribute to personality development in childhood. Older siblings can be more studious and responsible, while younger siblings can be more light-hearted and boisterous.
Many theories of childhood personality development posit that social and gender conditioning can influence a child’s personality. Girls and boys are generally treated differently by their parents and others, depending on the wider society’s notions of appropriate gender roles. Children will generally draw conclusions about the world and their place in it based on the things they observe and the experiences they have, and these conclusions can ultimately influence the child’s character. Parents can typically influence personality development in childhood by the way they treat the child. The quality and nature of parental discipline and personal interaction are thought to have a strong effect on personality development in childhood.
Very young children will often try to imitate their parents or other caregivers. They usually take their caregivers’ beliefs and moral values as their own. Parental personality traits may therefore be an important factor in the development of a child’s personality.
Personality is typically defined as a set of character traits that, when combined, serve to make an individual unique. Personality development in childhood typically begins around the age of two, as the child begins to develop self-awareness. Most experts believe that a child’s basic personality is fully formed by age six.
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