7-3-I-search-Kyra

By Kyra media type="custom" key="795857"
 * WHO AM I?: Personality in Adolescence**

**Introduction**
People tell me that adolescence is a time of change. I know that my body is changing but are other parts of me changing also? Sometimes I wonder if who I am now is who I am going to be as an adult. Will I end up a totally different person than I am now? I also wonder if I can change certain parts of me that I don’t like. If I could change something about me I would make myself feel more comfortable saying "no" to people and I would not be so shy. These are parts of my personality, a set of traits that are unique to me. My personality is what other people see and respond to when they interact with me. It also effects how I respond to other people.

I started going to my Mom’s job when I was 6 years old. She works at the Functional Neuroimaging Lab at Weill Cornell Medical College where they study how the brain processes information. Their subjects have psychiatric disorders like schizophrenia and depression. Their work got me interested in psychology and how the brain works. I was curious to see how these disorders affected people and made them see the world in a different way. In the last few years I created science fair experiments that looked at how kids brains processed certain types of information.

I am interested in personalities because everyone has one and they are all unique. I want to find out more about what makes us who we are. I think personality may be hereditary because I have similar traits to my Mom and Dad. My Mom is always saying that I am stubborn and argumentative just like my Dad. Was I born like that or is this something I picked up living with my stubborn, argumentative father? No one knows for sure exactly //what// we inherit from our parents but I do know there is research being done on this topic. Our personalities have a big impact on every aspect of our lives. It affects the friends we choose, how we handle situations and will probably affect what we choose for a career.

Adolescence is a very important and stressful time for all of us. Our bodies are changing, our moods are changing and sometimes it feels like everything and everyone around us is changing. This can feel scary and overwhelming. On top of all of this we have to find a career and choose a school when we often don’t even remember our names! Sometimes I feel like I change so often I might as well have multiple personality disorder. How can I know what I want to do as an adult if I am not even sure who I am?

I am curious to see what the experts think happens to personality during adolescence. What about the effect of our peers and teachers on our personalities? Does the way people speak about us make us change our personality just to fit in? If so, is it my personality that changes when I act differently to fit in or is my deciding to act differently to fit in a part of my personality? Will understanding more about my personality and what goes on make adolescence easier? Will I find out things about myself that I like?

**Search**
I began my search by looking for a definition of personality that I could understand. To Google but first to the kitchen for a snack. Okay I’m back. This definition came from "Theories of Personality: Interactive Lectures[|( http://wps.prenhall.com/ca_ph_wade_psych_1/9/2362/604771.cw/index.html]) //"Personality refers to an individual’s distinctive and relatively stable pattern of behavior, motives, thoughts and emotions. Personality is made up of many different traits, characteristics that describe a person across situations."// This seems to describe what personality is but doesn’t tell me how it comes into being. To know if personality changes I need to know where it comes from. To the Library! According to __Personality: Theory and Research__ by Lawrence A. Pervin and Oliver P. John there are seven basic theories that explain personality. Right away I am finding more questions than answers! These theorists are all trying to explain //individual// //differences// or how everyone’s personalities are different from each other. Why do I react to situations differently from my best friend? Was this something I learned or is it part of who I am? All the theorists believe that personality is unique for each individual and we are all born with a unique set of traits that make up our personality. They differ in explaining how personality develops and changes over time.

I really liked Erik Erickson’s theory of personality development. He believed that there were eight basic stages of development that everybody passes through. All these stages build on each other and if you don’t successfully complete one, your personality and life is affected. He felt that at each stage there was a task that you needed to complete in order to move on to the next stage. For example at the age of one the basic challenge is learning to trust the people taking care of you. The stage I need to focus on is Identity vs. Role Confusion, a.k.a. adolescence.

He defines adolescence as beginning at the age of 12 and ending between 18 and 20. To successfully complete adolescence you need to find your identity. But how do I do that? How do I find out what makes up me? He uses traditional Native American tribes like the Oglala Lakota as an example. In their culture it was traditional for adolescents to go off by themselves without a weapon or food on a dream quest. The idea was the dream would occur on the fourth day and tell you what your life’s path was. The adolescent boy or girl would return to the tribe and describe his dream. The elders would interpret it according to their own customs. This sounds really, really helpful! Why can't we go off on a dream quest? Unfortunately many Native Americans can no longer practice these ancient traditions. Too bad for them, this sounds much easier than having to figure out our identities without any help. Erikson found that many of the adolescents that he observed had serious difficulties adjusting to adulthood when they lost touch with their Native American roots. Like the rest of us they looked for role models in the culture around them. This isn't always a good thing. The people who are considered role models usually aren't the world's best people. By looking up to them you are just copying who they are and not finding out who YOU are as a person.

This theory tells me that adolescence is a time of change and is about finding out who I am but it still doesn’t tell me what makes me who I am. At least I now have a basic idea of what happens in adolescence. Most theorists recognize that personalities are made up of specific traits. Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (11th edition) defines traits as: //a distinguishing quality or an inherited characteristic.// Pervin and John go further and define it as the "likelihood of behaving, feeling or thinking in a particular way" (p. 227). The Five Factor Model suggests that all personalities can be understood as being made up of five basic traits. This model came out of looking lots of research in the field of personality psychology. Researchers analysed data from thousands of personality questionnaires and found that all the personality traits fell into five groups. They called these groups Neuroticism, Extraversion, Openness, Agreeableness and Conscientiousness. People score high or low on each of these factors. If you score high on Neuroticism for example you are very nervous, worried, emotional and insecure. Extraverted people are very social, outgoing, talkative, active and optimistic. Openness refers to openness to new experiences. High scorers are curious, imaginative and original. Agreeable people are soft-hearted, good natured, trusting, helpful and forgiving. Conscientious people are organized, reliable and hardworking. (Pervin, John, p. 259). This helped me think about myself in a different way but it didn’t tell me if my personality changes or not.

When will all this researching stop, I am getting a headache! There is yet another theory that is important, the Jung and Meyers-Briggs 16 Personality Types. Carl Jung spent a lot time studying the unconscious mind. He believed that the way people behaved was often the result of forces outside their conscious control. He also theorized that everyone has a distinct "psychological type". He believed that there were two main ways that govern how we live and interact with the world. They are how we perceive things and how we make decisions. Within these two categories there are two subcategories. They are for how we perceive things (this uses either our senses or intuition), and how we make decisions (this uses either objective logic or subjective feelings). He then said that there was a third and fourth function (not specified). From this information he found eight basic personality types. Then Catherine Briggs and her daughter Isabel found 4 main categories, our Flow of Energy, how we Take In Information, how we Make Decisions and our Basic Day-to-Day Lifestyle. Within these four categories there is two subcategories for each. For the first one there is extraverted vs. introverted, for the second there is sensing vs. initiative, for the third one there is thinking vs. feeling, and for the fourth one there is judging vs. perceiving. From this they came up with 16 personality types!!!! UGH, more information to dig through.

Most of the theories seemed to relate to how personality was created and what makes up personality. They seem to focus on adult personality and I am not sure how much this applies to adolescence. Is who I am now really the person I will be as adult? I wanted to find out how much the theories applied to real life and real adolescent experiences. To find this out I needed to talk to a professional. It is April 6th, my Dad just had a brilliant idea. Why not interview my downstairs neighbor, Michelle Sheets? She has a Ph.D. in clinical psychology from Hofstra University. She currently works performing psychological assessments, including IQ testing, on children from the ages of 3 to 18. On top of that Michelle was my downstairs neighbor until a year ago when I moved. Okay, it is April 8th, I am at Starbucks where I will interview Michelle.

Here are the highlights of our interview. I started with some general questions. //What does personality mean to you?// Ms. Sheets responded "That’s a good question. I see it as a set of traits that are characteristic of someone. I believe they develop from both nature and nurture (you are born with them and they are affected by the environment you grow up in). I believe they affect our perception of the world and they determine how we react to stimuli." I then asked //Do you think personality appears different at different ages?// Ms. Sheets responded "It appears different because kids act differently at different ages. Personality is also affected by any emotional problems you might have. For example if you are depressed your personality will be affected also and you will appear different from your normal self. " I then asked //What do all these theories really say about personality?// She replied "All theorists believe that we are born with a predisposition but the way you develop can alter this to some extent. Most theories contain some common traits like introversion/extraversion. They also believe that personality is made up of a combination of inherent or genetic factors and environmental influence." My next question was //Do you think personality changes over time?// Ms. Sheets said "Personality traits are pretty stable but they express themselves differently when you are young. By the time you reach young adulthood they are more constant. However, if something traumatic happens in your life they can change more dramatically."

My next set of questions was about adolescence. My next question was //What is your opinion on adolescence?// Ms. Sheets said ‘’I think adolescence is a really hard time. I am glad I am through it! I think most kids have difficulties with insecurity and not really knowing who they are. This can lead to treating others badly and feeling bad about yourself if you don’t think you fit in." I then asked //What do you think are the biggest challenges in adolescence?// Ms. Sheets said "The biggest challenges are finding out who you are, figuring out what is important to you and managing schoolwork." My next question was //Do you think adolescence is a time of experimenting with different personality types?// She replied "Yes it is a time of experimentation and I believe that this is totally normal. You are trying to find out who you are and you want to try out different versions of you to find the one the feels like it fits the best." My next question is //Why do you think adolescents are afraid of being different?// She replied "They want to be accepted. Also it is a time when many people’s friendships change and that is hard. You may start exploring different interests or you might be interested in boys and your best friends isn’t there yet. It is easier to be accepted when you a more like everyone else around you."

My last set of questions were about things that could influence your personality. //Do you think there are personality differences between girls and boys?// Ms. Sheets responded with this answer "There is a slight difference between girls and boys in that even infants will move toward toys and objects more associated with their gender. However, the research shows that the most differences are really individual rather than gender." My follow-up question to that was //Do you think adolescence has a different effect on girls and boys?// Ms. Sheets responded "Girls are pushed to grow up faster and to be more mature than boys. They also have to deal with different issues such as pregnancy." I then asked //Do you// //think having siblings effects personality development in adolescence?// She said "Yes they do. Sometimes the way you develop is a reaction to an older sibling, good or bad. In my case, my younger brother got sick with a rare form of cancer when I was 15. I felt like my whole world changed and I was no longer like anyone I knew. It was very hard for me to relate to other kids because they hadn’t had to see their brother die." We chatted for a little longer, then it was time for us both to go home for dinner. I thought alot about what she said and I felt I understood personality theories better. I thought about the people who might have influenced me to act a certain way. I wonder who might influence me in the future. Who will come into my life in the future? It would be nice to have a crystal ball right now!

**Conclusion**
Finally, a ton of information has been plowed through. The plowing part was tedious and sometimes confusing but the information was interesting. The two textbooks were helpful because it is information that would be given to people training in the field. It gave me a good overview of the theories of personality but not a lot details about what makes up personality. The information I found on the internet was useful but didn’t help me as much. Many of the articles were written for people with more education than I have and I found them way too confusing so I kind of ignored them. Taking personality tests online was lots of fun and provided a good detour when the research process was getting overwhelming. I believe I learned stuff about myself that I wouldn’t have realized, like that I am spontaneous. I think they were pretty accurate but there were details about my personality you would only get by talking with me in person. The interview with Michelle was really, really helpful. I hadn’t seen her in awhile and it was nice to catch up. Reading the textbooks first allowed me to make up good questions to ask her. She helped explain what the textbooks were saying and put terms into a simpler language which was easier to understand. She was also able to answer some questions that were not covered in the textbooks. I felt I could trust her because she works with kids and she is not that far in age from being an adolescent.

In conclusion I actually came to a conclusion! My conclusion is that in adolescence your personality does not change hugely but does change in some slight ways. When you are finding out who you are, you find traits that maybe weren’t as visible before. You might find that you are more outgoing than you thought, or more shy and reserved. In adolescence you are definitely more aware of aspects of yourself because you are trying to figure out who you are. You are trying to find out what you are going to do with your life. Are you going to become the first woman president or the first man on Mars for instance?

Adolescence is a time of change and is often overwhelming. All this change can pressure girls to feel like they need to change themselves to fit in. With boys there is pressure but it acts in a different way on their lives. Boys are often judged by how they behave more than by how they look and can lead them into doing incredibly stupid things! The pressure on girls is often on how they look which can lead to bad fashion advice and unfortunately can lead to eating disorders. Having a sense of yourself, even if it comes from an online quiz can help you feel like you have some control over what is going on. Sometimes a little knowledge can go a long way.

"Big Five Personality Traits." 31 Mar. 2008. 4 Apr. 2008 <[|http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Five_personality_traits>.]
 * Works Cited**

"Information About Personality Types." 6 Apr. 2008 <[|http://personalitypage.com/info.html>.]

"The Four Prefrences." 6 Apr. 2008 http://personalitypage.com/fourprefs.html

"Theories of Personality Interactive Lectures." 4 Mar. 2008 http://wps.prenhall.com/ca_ph_wade_psych_1/9/2362/604771.cw/index.html

Papalia, Diane E., Sally Wendkos Olds, and Ruth Duskin Feldman. __Human Devolopment__. 9th ed. New York City: Stephen D. Rutter, 2004. 456-523.

Pervin, Lawrence A., and Oliver P. John. __Personality Therory and Research__. 7th ed. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1997. 1-26.

Sheets,Michelle Interview Conducted in person on April 8,2008