Personality

What is the different between nature and nurture?
There is a major difference between nature personality and nurture personality. There are some people who have a personality which has been inherited by their biological parents or even from their past generation and therefore they will have a nature personality. However there are also some people who don't have their own personality, and tend to create and build on to it as they grow up. They tend to develop their personality in response to the environment or even their surroundings. This type of personality is known as nurture because it changes as they are influenced by people and the environment they are in.
In order to debate whether personalities comes by nature, or if it is created by influence of the environment, there were a few people who came up with two different approaches which are the nomothetic approach and idiographic approach. According to H.Eysneck and R.Cattell, they believe that personality is something that your born with and therefore is part of nature. They came up with the nomothetic approach as they believe that there is a small number of traits involved which means that it is much measurable. They carried out more research to figure out what the small traits were, and eventually came up with 5 different ones which are:

• Extrovert
• Agreeableness
• Conscientiousness
• Emotional stability
• Openness

As they thought that people's personality would fit into any of those traits, they also came up with the idea of carrying out personality tests. Personality tests are used in many organisation during recruitment, so the employer can identify which employee has the most suited personality for the job position. (H.Eysneck, R.cattell) (Nomothetic Idiographic Debate 2010)
On the other hand there are some people who debate that personality builds up and develops as the environment around them changed, and therefore cam up with the idiographic approach. G.Allport who is one of the researchers who came up with the idiogrpahic approach, believes that people cannot identify their personality by doing a test which only has five different results. People can have many different personality due to their childhood life, family life and social life. In a working environment, people's personality could change as they have to be more serious, but at home the environment is different and therefore another personality could come up. C.Rogers came up with a proceedure were he created some cards with a self evalutation statement. He than asked his someone to sort the cards out in piles in which suited them the best, and he proved that there are many different outcomes depending on the person who is sorting out the cards into piles. This approach also advises managers to take in account what the employees are like and figure out things that could motivate them at work and help them build up in their career. (C.Rogers, G.Allport) (J.Mullins 2007)
(Associated content 2010) According to an article written by Carole Billingsley both nomothetic and idiographic approaches are important because even though individuals are born with their own traits and individual uniqueness, they still need to get influenced by the environment and their surroundings in order to develop their traits. Therefore both nature and nurture are very important due to the fact that everyone grows up eventually and have to deal with the real world as they grow up which means they will get into different situations and a different personality could occur which they didn't have when they were younger.

In my point of view I think that every individual have their own personality that they were genetically born with and that personality will stick with the individual until the end. Therefore I think our personalities is half nature and half nurture because as we grow up our traits could build up due to th change in the environment and getting influenced by the different surroundings. But the personality that we have inharited genetically will be within us, but it will show in a different way depending on the situation you are in.

Results of personality tests
According to the results of the Framicon test I tend to do things in order and therefore manage to do a lot of mind solving in order and within the given time limit. I am also a very sensitive person meaning that I consider people's feelings and take my time to hear them out when they are upset or happy etc. (The Framicon 2010)
The BBC personality test results showed me that I am an introvert which means that I'm not very out going and prefer spending time on my own. It also means that I have a more serious personality which is kind of true. The results are also showing that I am hard working and dependable. (BBC personality test 2010)
These results are not 100% accurate, but they are true in some way because my personality is a very serious one and I take work very serious as well. I agree more with the BBC test results as they seem to be more accurate compared to the other one. During this test there were some very personal questions which seemed more like nurture personality questions and it looked like they tried to identify the environment I grew up in with my family and friends. The BBC personality test had five outcomes, which meant that my personality could only come under those five categories. I believe that just by answering a few questions, it doesnt indentify my whole personality and it feels as if my personality can't be anything else but what ever is mentioned in the outcomes.

Should personality tests be used as a selection tool?
I don't think that using a personality test as a selection tool would be a very good idea to select the right person for the job because people could be lying putting down false answers so they can get a better results just to get the job. If people are made to do a personality test before being selected, it doesn't give the applicant a chance to show their real personality or even enough of their personality. As this is a personality test, it doesn't allow the manager to see whether the applicant is capable of doing the job to their fullest ability.

Conclusion
Over all I believe that personality is a genetic trait but it could differ as the individual grows up due to the environment they are brought up in and the influence they will get from the surroundings. A personality test would benefit an individual as they can see what their personality is like and they can also be honest in order to get good results as no one else will be able to get access to the results. However I don't think that it would be a useful tool for job selecting as people can easily lie in the tests.

References

• (Nomothetic Idiographic Debate (2010) Personality [online] available at: http://www.simplypsychology.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/nomothetic-idiographic.html [accessed at: 19/01/10])
• (Associated content (2010) Personality development [online] available at: http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1264043/personality_development_the_debate.html [accessed at 19/01/10])
• (The Framicon (2010) Your personal fremicon [online] available at: http://www.initforlife.com/Free/Framicon.asp?p=4 [accessed at: 19/01/10])
• (BBC personality test (2010) The big personality test [online] available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/labuk/experiments/personality/feedback/ [accessed at: 19/01/10])
• (J.Mullins (2007) Nomothetic and Idiographic approaches. 8th edition. Edinburgh, Gate, Harlow,Essex. Page 125-129)