Describe the Family Influence on Personality Development (Coursework Sample)

Family influence on personality development
Name
Institution
Personality development refers to the relative endurance of feelings, thoughts and behaviors that distinguish individuals from each other. Today, the domineering view on personal development is that it emerges early at childhood and progressively changes in meaningful ways throughout the lifespan of individuals. That said, the most important influences on personality development are family and surroundings. Family influences personality development through gene transfer and is, therefore, constant as it is built from within oneself. How genes affect our personality is a complicated process in which the inherent personality traits were arising, as a result, are manifested at early childhood. On the other hand, the influence on personality by the environment and surroundings where we live is a slow process that takes time and can only be seen at later stages of life. (Smith, 1968)
Family plays the most important part in shaping one’s personality traits. A family refers to the place where we grow up and learn the basic things in life. It represents an institution that influences our life at the highest level. Early childhood is immensely the most vital stage of personality development. This is because youth mainly comprises of family members such as parents and siblings who are the key influential parties of our personalities (Rowe, 1994). It is seen that the elder siblings become more caring than, the younger siblings as a result of taking care of the recent party for a significant period during their childhood. Contrary, the younger siblings tend to be daring and carefree as they are given more freedom than their elders. In essence, parents should always thrive to supervise their children when they are young so as to provide them with an environment that will h...