Posted on 08/09/2010 5:27:51 PM PDT by James C. Bennett
The personalities we develop as children stay with us throughout our life, says a new study.
"We remain recognizably the same person," Live Science quoted Christopher Nave, a doctoral candidate at the University of California, Riverside.
"This speaks to the importance of understanding personality because it does follow us wherever we go across time and contexts."
Researchers compared teacher personality ratings of the students with videotaped interviews of 144 of those individuals 40 years later.
They examined four personality attributes — talkativeness (called verbal fluency), adaptability (cope well with new situations), impulsiveness and self-minimizing behavior (essentially being humble to the point of minimizing one's importance).
The findings show that talkative youngsters tended to show interest in intellectual matters, speak fluently, try to control situations, and exhibit a high degree of intelligence as adults.
On the other hand, those who rated low in verbal fluency were observed as adults to seek advice, give up when faced with obstacles, and exhibit an awkward interpersonal style.
Students rated as impulsive were inclined to speak loudly, display a wide range of interests and be talkative as adults. Less impulsive kids tended to be fearful or timid, kept others at a distance and expressed insecurity as adults.
Personality is "a part of us, a part of our biology," Nave said.
Future research will "help us understand how personality is related to behavior as well as examine the extent to which we may be able to change our personality," Nave added.
The study will be published in an upcoming issue of the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science.
It’s the reason why the Liberals want access to our K and first graders, so that they can pound into their heads traits that will last a lifetime.
Does NOT!
Oh God . . . wish I had known . . . I distinctly remember my ex wagging her finger at her little sister and lecturing her after getting on the bus when I was in junior high.
That tid bit of info would have saved me a lot of heartbreak and misery . . . and I’m not kidding brother . . .
Oh great, I skipped 1st grade.
Obama was a muslim in first grade......
I don’t buy it. I know painfully shy people who at some point have gained confidence and “come out of their shell”.
I was expelled.
We got a new house so they transferred me to Pleasant Run ~ nasty kids. No one was interested in learning. Teachers were abusive, and there were outsiders from Chicago.
By the time I got to High School I was back with the crowd who went to Cumberland. Decades later I have them on my list at Facebook ~ which is really, really, really weird. What's more, I don't recall a single individual that I knew at Pleasant Run.
So yeah, my personality was pretty well set in the FIRST HALF OF FIRST GRADE ~
I have often thought so.
A couple of years ago, I had a very realistic dream. The details are almost completely lost to me now, but the setting was school when I was eight years old.
What struck me most in reflecting on it in the morning was that it was completely realistic. It might not have been the direct re-living of a memory, but every element could have happened (unlike flying dreams, or where another person keeps changing identities among people you know, etc.).
The other thing that hit me rather hard is that, at 46, I am exactly the same person I was at eight, and possibly earlier; I just have more knowledge and experience now. Even what passes for “maturity” with me consists of knowing what is expected of me in a given situation, and doing that instead of doing what I’d like. For instance, when I have a sprinkler set up to water my patch of earth, I am expected to stay dressed and avoid the water rather than take off most, if not all, of my clothes and run through it. So I do the “mature” thing, which amounts to doing what’s expected rather than what I’d like.
True!
I had to be physically dragged to school for a good portion of first grade. Hated it more than words can say.
Very occasionally still have bad dreams that I’m sitting stuffed in a school desk. The horror!
:)
As a youth, I was reticent when my parents asked about my schoolday activities, which came to a merciful, reasonably successful end 27 years ago. Why the reticence? As I finally got around to telling my parents maybe 15 years ago,
“I’d just spent seven hours locked in a cinderblock building with a lot of people I didn’t care for, and a few who were openly hostile; I was not very interested in the stuff I’d been forced to listen to all day; and after I finished supper I was going to be going upstairs to write an essay or complete a sheet of mathematical and/or chemical equations or read a book about a guy going insane while riding a motorcycle across country and pretend it’s full of deep philosophy instead of what I really believed it was full of...the very last thing I wanted to do was relive it for the amusement of people who had, enviably, finished their schooling in 1958.”
I married late, and we probably won’t have children; if we do, I hope to God I will think to ask not “what did you do in school today”, but rather “did anything interesting happen in school today,” and be willing to take “no” as a complete, correct answer.
Homeschool ‘em and every day after the basics, let them follow their own interests in depth.
Whatever it is - bats, volcanoes, math, art, etc. They learn very well that way.
Public schools are hell and destroy childrens’ intelligence and individuality and desire to learn. And of course their moral values if they were fortunate enough to be taught some at home or church, etc.
Schools now are so much worse than they were when I was forced to go. I can’t even imagine.
Using data from a 1960s study of approximately 2,400 ethnically diverse elementary schoolchildren in Hawaii, researchers compared teacher personality ratings of the students with videotaped interviews of 144 of those individuals 40 years later.
Any application to Teh One?
lol!
I went to Catholic school in 1st grade. We weren’t allowed to bring our own personalities with us. It was sort of like Parris Island without the guns. ;~))
Heh heh!
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