Parents Influenced on Their Children

influenced of parents to their children

Parental Influences on Personality:
A Comparison of Trait and Phenomenological Theories

Stu Dent
SS# 123-45-6789
Psych 210: Theories of Personality
Dr. Cervone -- Fall, 2001
Parental Influences on Personality:
A Comparison of Trait and Phenomenological Theories A seemingly obvious fact about human nature is that our personality is influenced by our parents. Intuitively, it seems as if the way our parents raise us exerts an enduring influence on the nature of our personality. By teaching certain types of behavior and by punishing actions of which they disapprove, parents may significantly influence the behavioral and emotional styles of their children. This intuition, however, contrasts with a second one. Common knowledge tells us that siblings often differ greatly from one another. One brother may be outgoing, the other shy. One sister may be conservative, the other liberal. Since siblings have the same parents, and parents tend to treat their children similarly, such examples seem to suggest that parents’ style of child rearing might make little difference to the personality of their children. The question of parental influences on personality, then, is an interesting puzzle for scientific theory and research in personality psychology. Theories of personality have taken different viewpoints on the question of parental influences on personality. This paper addresses two theories that present contrasting views. These are the trait and phenomenological theories of personality. In the trait theories, the basic variables of the theory are people’s traits, that is, their “broad predispositions . . . to respond in particular ways” (Pervin & John, 2001, p. 226). Most trait theories try to identify a common set of traits that can be used to describe the personality of any individual. These “nomothetic” trait theories rely on the statistical procedure of factor analysis to identify

References: Harrington, D., Block, J. H., & Block. J. (1987). Testing aspects of Carl Rogers’ theory of creative environments: Child-rearing antecedents of creative potential in young adolescents. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 52, 851-856. Pervin, L. A., & John, O. P. (2001). Personality: Theory and research (8th ed.). New York: John Wiley & Sons. Notes (Your paper would not have these notes; these notes merely are intended for members of the class. They correspond to the circled numbers in the margins of the text.) 1. This was a rare instance in which I wanted to quote directly from another source, in order to get the precisely correct definition on the term. To indicate that the material is taken directly from the textbook, I put the passage in quotation marks and included the page number in the book that contains the original material (p. 226). Note that you have to take these two steps even if you take only a few words from the other source. Even though it was only 7 words, Pervin and John wrote those words, not me, so they have to be in quotes. Otherwise, the material would be plagiarized. Any material that comes from another source and that appears in your paper has to be in quotation marks, and you must include the page number on the book or journal that contains the original material. In general, you should have very few passages of directly quoted material. The words in your paper should be yours, not somebody else’s. 2. This paragraph is a useful one for this paper assignment. Perhaps the most difficult part of the assignment is to figure out how specific, concrete research findings relate to the general, abstract ideas of the personality theories. You should make clear to the reader how the study that you review relates to the two theories. 3. When writing the paper, you should provide some information about the type of study your are reviewing, as in this paragraph, and then should review the results.