Life Span Development and Personality Paper

Life Span Development and Personality Paper

Introduction

Heredity and environment both play a vital role in influencing a person and molding his personality. Heredity plays a prominent role in solidifying the character and personality. Genetics accompanied with environmental influence sometimes plays havoc in imparting to the nature of a person. But when looked upon on different levels of psychological influence, heredity has its own role in isolation of environment.

This essay describes the personality development through the phases of a man's physical and psychological growth.

Discussion

Influences of Heredity and Environment on the Person's Psychological Development

Psychological development is the behavioral transformations and skill enhancements that may occur any time in between the conception phase of the child to the death. Heredity and environment are the two main factors that influence the psychological development throughout the life.

Heredity or nature is defined as the physical and psychological properties transmitted from parents to the children through genes. For example the most common emotional issue that can be caused by the heredity is the anger. The anger and other emotions are transmitted by the genes during the fertilization stage. Children having an angry nature usually have one of their parents with same aggressive nature. As the maturation phase goes on the genes (heredity) influences the physics of body, intelligence, personality and different other details (Coon & Mitterer 2011).

Environment is defined as the surrounding that can affect us directly or indirectly. Environment has about the same influence on the psychological development of the person. According to the Nelson (1999) during the first three years a child brain goes through different connections. These new connections are widely affected by the environment, that's why any moral lesson learnt in that phase remains permanent to the rest of the life. For example if a person is trained to talk in polite manner in his early childhood, he will remain a polite talker in his life.

The main difference between the influence of the heredity on the psychological development and the influence of the environment on psychological development is that the environmental influences takes long time to affect the moral or emotional change in the persons and only occurs if the person remain in contact with that particular environment for long time, while influences of heredity can grow up at any moment in the life.

Influence of Family Issues or Social Support on the Person's Developmental Growth and Adjustment

Family is defined as the first unit that has a continuous contact with the child (Elkin & Handel 1978). Family is the first place from where a child gets his identity as a person. The care and love a child get from his family helps him in handling the problems and issues throughout his life. According to Goldsmith (2000) children having positive attitude in their life certainly have a positive family live in background while poor social and emotional skills of the child indicates an abusive family background.

Besides the family society is the one that can alter the psychological nature of ...