It is true that in a difficult situation people react better in their self-interest. Even the most peaceful of us, in a hard situation, react as maybe no one would have expected. Being forced into action is, in my opinion, a limit situation. In these cases, people cand learn only their limits, but not who they really are.
The youth years are a period in someone’s life in which the true limits are discovered. This is the only period in one’s life when a lot of crazy decisions are taken and a lot of strange situations are faced. During this lapse the majority do not think about the future and just want to have fun by smoking, drinking or other damaging activities. This does not mean that those who do that are like that. They are just testing their limits.
In films, for example, the people we call heroes do not usually start out as unusual, but then after a tough situation reveal themselves. Well, this is a dramatisation of real life. In many cases, people need an impulse to get out of their “shells”. As it was noticed, children that grew up without having parents are more responsible that the others. Childhood is a very important period of formation for one’s character. Then are the bases put up. Learning who they are and what’s their real purpose in life is later, in the adolescence years when a lot of questions appear and many test themselves.
On conclusion, usually when somebody is forced into action, that person already knows who he/she is, because hard decisions nned to be taken after the teen years when most of the questions have an answer. The hard situations are invented to discover the real he/she, they are not the real ones, that life hits us with.