Personality forming and influences 1

The Form of Personality and Influences on the Relationship Fan Zheng Michigan State University

Personality forming and influences 2 This is a case about a relationship between three high school students. Carrie and Sheila were female friends at a high school. Carrie was a girl who hadnt dated at all until she met Brandon, who was at the same high school. All Carries friends, including Sheila, were happy for her at the very beginning. Carrie also felt that she was so lucky to have a boy that finally genuinely loved her. However, as time went by, Sheila found out Brandon was jealous of all people whoever was going to be around with Carrie. In addition, he wanted to know and control everything of Carrie, including what she was doing at a particular time and what kind of friends she should have. When Shelia talk about the issue with Carrie, Carrie thought Shelia was jealous about the love that Brandon gave her. The main issue of the case is the unhealthy relationship between Carrie and Brandon. In this essay, I would like to analyze the forms of both Carrie and Brandons personality which result in the unhealthy relationship from different perspectives and give solutions accordingly.

The Psychoanalytic Perspective First, we need to be clear what is controlling personality. Lets look Brendon again. He wanted minute-by-minute update on Carries life, wanted her to spend all her time with him, wanted her to do things he likes together, had bias or judgment on Carries male or female friends. As we can see, Brendon possessed the stereotype of a person who has signs of controlling behaviors. But what makes him so obsessed with control and why. The number one reason is that people who have controlling personality is insecure all the time.

Personality forming and influences 3 Thinking about insecure, we might assume that people are introvert, shy, and fear of things; however, on the other hand, they might be aggressive and controlling. They would hide their inner insecurities under their dominating cover. Where does Brendons insecurity come from? One hypothesis is that his id was unnaturally strong and in control according to Sigmund Freuds theory of psychosexual development. Early experiences play a vital role in forming of ones personality and will influence ones behavior later in his/her life. If certain issues are not resolved at the appropriate stage, fixation can occur. According to him, by the age of five, ones personality is mostly established. Freud theorized three parts of the personality: the id, ego, and superego (Rathus, 2008). Generally speaking, the essence of id is I want, the essence of ego is I can and the essence of superego is I ought. There is a confliction among these three parts. If a child is healthily developed, then he or she should be able to able to satisfy the needs of the Id while operating within the parameters of the Superego(Grace E, 2010). Not everybody succeed in developing a balance, Brendon is an example. His ego and superego was not developed properly, thus he became excessively focusing on his own desire all the time. He didnt know how to satisfy his own needs without sacrificing Carries benefits. Unlike Freud, Ericksons stage theory advocated that personality continues to evolve throughout the entire life span. The first stage is trust versus mistrust stage which is the first year of life. The infant has to depend totally on its caregiver to satisfy its biological needs. If the needs are adequately met and sound attachments are formed, the child would develop an optimistic, trusting attitude toward the word. If not, it may result in a more distrusting and

Personality forming and influences 5 insecure personality (2010, Weiten). Therefore, before Brendon was one year old, his caregiver (perhaps mother or father) may have been emotionally unavailable to him. Thus, the world was unpredictable for him and thats why he felt so insecure and wanted to know everything about his lover. He didnt develop trust because he didnt experience enough trust in his very early stage. According to Langlois et al.(2000), Chen et al.(2001) and Xie et al.(2006), popular children are physically attractive, and socially speaking, friendly, cooperative, and socially skillful. The fact that Carrie had never have a boyfriend before Brendon showed up, indicates that she was unpopular, if not to say rejected, ever since her middle childhood, which gave her less practice in social aspect. As an unpopular child, she preferred to stay home or babysat on most Saturday nights, while popular children tend to be successful in academics or valued extracurricular activities such as sports. She might not have any activities that she could have shared with friends on Saturday night, such as going swimming or practicing piano with another friend.

Learning perspective In the case, from the fact that Carrie preferred to stay home or babysat on most Saturday nights, and she felt like a fifth wheel going out with them when they were all couples, even though they insisted that they wanted her to join them. indicates that she might have social and emotional problems.

Personality forming and influences 6 Carrie might be depressed in her middle childhood. First reason would be the attributional style that children possess (Ruthus, 2008, p.467). For not being able to find a boyfriend, Carrie may also have feelings of hopelessness and helplessness. Her feeling was not positive but negative toward the fact that she had no boyfriend. Research shows that children who are depressed are more likely to attribute the cause of their failure to internal, stable, and global factors, factors they are relatively helpless to change (Ruthus, 2008, p.467). Just like the the research showed, Carrie didnt want to join her friends, and she didnt want to think it this way, Oh, they all had boyfriend, they are so lucky to find somebody that fits them. My Mr. Right should be waiting somewhere for me as well. I should be patient and enjoy the moment of being single. I will try to perform best every day. Perhaps I will meet him when I wake up tomorrow. Conversely, she considered herself fifth wheel, which meant she thought she is not perfect and not being to be able to find a boyfriend. She was just not deserved anybody. At the same time, she didnt ask anybody to help her and it seemed her friend only asked her to join them. Instead, she preferred to hide the feeling by staying at home. We can see that Carrie may tend to thinks she was not good enough (an internal attribution) (Ruthus, 2008, p.467), instead of thinking its the fact she hasnt met the Mr. Right (an external attribution) (Ruthus, 2008, p.467). Therefore, Carries attributional style contributes to helplessness and hopelessness and hence to depression(Ruthus, 2008, p.467). In addition, her unpopularity among peers also results in her depression, and the reason might be her unattractive appearance or academic incompetence. According to Langlois et al.(2000), Chen et al.(2001) and Xie et al.(2006), popular children are physically attractive, and socially speaking, friendly, cooperative, and socially skillful. The fact that Carrie had never have

Personality forming and influences 7 a boyfriend before Brendon showed up, indicates that she was unpopular, if not to say rejected, ever since her middle childhood, which gave her less practice in social aspect. As an unpopular child, she preferred to stay home or babysat on most Saturday nights, while popular children tend to be successful in academics or valued extracurricular activities such as sports. She might not have any activities that she could have shared with friends on Saturday night, such as going swimming or practicing piano with another friend. At the same time, Carrie didnt learn to develop the social skills she desired by learning from her friends who were all more socially skilled than her. As stated by Wentzel et al.,(2004), although there were pressure to behave in accordance to group norms and standards, the rejected children still tend to remain lonely. Again, Carrie was not a rejected child, but an unpopular one. Still, she was apparently unconfident and always stayed back. She preferred to escape from instead of going out with her friends, even they were coupled ones. Carrie failed to be friends with different group of people, with who she might be more beneficial. In other words, she didnt realize she might need different friends to satisfy different personal and social needs(Selman R, 1980). If she had some friends who also didnt have boyfriends, then she would not have felt like a fifth wheel for all her friends were couples, and thus have a positive influence upon her social development. The most important factor that lead her to the compromise to her unhealthy relationship should be from the peer pressure. She felt most peer pressure at her age, since peer pressure peaks during midadolescence and declines in late adolescence, after about age 17(P560, Reis & Youniss, 2004). In this case, Carrie was lonely romantically for a long time, because she was

Personality forming and influences 8 developmentally late in getting a boyfriend. As research shows, romantic relationships begin to appear during early and middle adolescents Florsheim, 2003.She felt pressure to get a boyfriend which came from her friends, for all her high school friends had been dating for years. ( DeFrates-Densch, 2008). Also, she is searching for acceptance of her friends, since adolescents are much more likely to stress the importance of acceptance, intimate selfdisclosure, and mutual understanding in their friendships (Gonzalez et al., 2004). When she finally had a boyfriend, she valued the relationship not only because of the late love she gained, but also the fact that she didnt want to lose the preciously earned recognition by her friends. Therefore, she still wanted to continue with the unhealthy relationship even when her female friend (Sheila) advised her.

Biological Perspective Apparently, the fact that Brendon wanted to know everything about Carrie, including what friends she was going to make and what she was doing with her friends, shows that Brendon had a very controlling personality. Their conversation concerning James shows that he was extremely jealous person. He remembered the details that Carrie and James had quite a good time during fourth period and he questioned about her relationship with James So thats what you call it, huh? Are man and woman different in the controlling and jealousy aspect? Are there any biological reasons that leads human being to be controlling or jealous?

Personality forming and influences 9 Jealousy is defined as an emotional state that is aroused by a perceived threat to a relationship or position. It motivates behaviors that counter the threat (Buss, Larsen, Westen, & Semmelroth, 1992). Evolutionary psychologists believe that the jealousy towards their partners is different between men and women. Men will become jealous if they suspect their wives of sexual infidelity, because he wants to make sure he is spreading his own genes not other mans. In contrast, women are more concerned about the emotional infidelity for they need mens emotional support in order to feed them and their children. Therefore, its normal for Brendon to be jealous about Carrie for evolutionary reason he was a homosexual man. There are different types of jealousy and romantic jealousy which Brendon experienced is one of them. Jealousy arose when Carrie paid more attention or spent time with someone else. Someone else does not necessary to be of the same sex and be in a romantic way. For example, in my case, Brandon is jealous of both Carries female friends and her male classmate, James.

Solutions In order to help kids like Carrie and Brendon developed a healthier personality when they are still young, there are many things people can do. Parents and teachers could help her to be confident physically, academically and socially, helping them building the self-esteem. Physically, if possible, parents can be more supportive financially. For instance, darker color skin is considered more popular nowadays among most of American high school students. Actually, one third of my high school students got tanned several

Personality forming and influences 10 times in my past year teaching, which in their opinion, would increase their popularity among their friends. As a teacher, we can also educate children with what people consider beauty is. As a Mandarin teacher, I always believe in an old Chinese proverb: Elegance comes out of knowledge inside. Thus, students could be acknowledged that attractiveness does not necessarily mean only the physical part given by the parents. Having children in join in a club or extra-curricular class will lead children into popularity as well. If Carrie knew how to play any musical instrument, she might have shared the same interests with her musical friends. It might also be easier for her to make friends who shared the common interests and hang out together during spare time. If Carrie was taking Mandarin, I might help develop hobbies like paper cutting, paper folding or making Chinese knots. Socially speaking, from a young age, parents and teachers should teacher children basic social skills, such as to be helpful, sharing, respectful and caring. For teachers, we can corporate the traits shaping into our current curriculum. Every month, at the elementary school I was teaching, there is a trait of the month every month, and each class will be a student to earn the certificate focusing on that particular trait. For parents, they can increase childrens social interaction outside of school. For example, they can invite other kids to their houses, providing them with certain toys or arranged some activities. The reason is that social interaction outside of school helps to strengthen friendships by giving children shared positive experiences together. Moreover, if problems occur, intervention from teacher and providing health classes would really help children in their school life. Most importantly, we should prepare the students

Personality forming and influences 11 for the future instead of just trying to solve the issues as emerge. It seems the health classes are not carried out every school in US. Hope the healthy course will be more widely applied in the future. Health classes must be a basic reachable class for all our kids. We need to reinforce some basic concepts for our kids other than health classes as well, because students might forget what they have learned. Then how to help them when their personality already been formed? Are there any ways to save the relationship and turn it into a positive one? The answer is yes. For lack of care in Brendons childhood, Carrie might be able to resume the relationship with the following solution. First, Carrie needs to talk to Brendon and try to find out the cause of the problem. If Brendon realized the root cause of his personality, and he was willing to face it, then he might be able to change from their insecure ways with the care and confidence injection (Kulkarni, 2011) from Carrie. Thus, he might display less controlling behavior in the future. However, if he was too frightening to look at it, and Carrie continued to obey his will by thinking just because he loved her, then there might be no treatment to their relationship. Also, the controlling behavior would very possibly develop into abusing behavior as well. Carrie need to be aware of if Brandon shows any further aggressive behavior as well. The health class will never be too late for children as well as for adults. In addition, to build a healthier relationship, Brendon needs to learn how to control himself. Controlling ones jealousy does not mean controlling ones partner, it means to be able to handle ones own emotions. In order to learn to control the jealousy emotion, first, Brendon or other people can help him find out the reason for his jealousy, such as the family reason.

Personality forming and influences 12 Second, Brendon needs to examine his own confidence. If one is not confident enough that he/she wants to get control of other peoples every move, it will eventually drive other people crazy. For Carrie, she needs to stop enabling. As soon as she realized the extreme behavior of Brendon, she should have not allowed him to control her behavior by finding excuse. Also, it she dont necessary need to break up with him right away. Instead, she should calmly tell Brendon she loves him, but he has a problem with jealousy. Then they should try to solve the problem by negotiating peacefully. In addition, setting goals and making plans are also beneficial to the future development of their healthy relationship. Conclusion: From the analysis of this case, we can see that the form of ones personality is formed by different influences. Not everybody can develop into a perfect person. Thus, finding the reason and solving the problem should be the no. 1 priority in our life, instead of withdraw and escape, in this case, typically, for Carrie to break up with Brendon.

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