Interactionism

Culture influences personality by developing rules and concepts that influence the way the population communicates, thinks about themselves and their environments, and determines appropriate behavior towards one another and toward objects in their environment. I believe that a person’s reaction is a result of social experience, because many experiences over our lifespan teach our personality how to react. From infancy we use our social surroundings to learn and better know our world through observational learning. Out of the four positions on the nature of traits, I have found the act-frequency position to be the most logical in explaining traits. I agree with this position the most due to the fact that I feel it describes traits with the most accuracy. Before reading the act-frequency position my understanding of traits was that they are words that describe various real-life behaviors; this position describes traits as language categories for the organization of behavioral acts, which confirms my original understanding of traits. Another aspect of the act-frequency position that I agree with is that traits are the actual behaviors. I feel this is accurate considering that traits can be identified by the behaviors that make it up; personality tests score a person’s traits by asking various questions relating to behaviors that make up those traits. The fourth position on the nature of traits does not give enough credit to the actual meaning of various traits because outside the mind, this position proclaims that they simply do not exist; just because the meaning of traits is partially determined by its cultural context does not mean that the identification of those traits are false and non-existent.