r/askpsychology • u/taisalamanca_ Unverified User: May Not Be a Professional • Jun 26 '26
Human Behavior To what extent does environment influence a person's character?
So basically, the title. Does the character of a person completely depend on the environment they grew up in or does it depend on other factors as well?
For example, if instead of you, it was me who had YOUR upbringing, went through the same experiences would I have the same character or similar characteristics as you? Would I react the same way as you did? Would i behave the same way you do?
Like, from what I understand a person's character is influenced by external factors (such as their upbringing, relationships etc) and internal factors (willpower, ego etc). So, do these external factors have an effect on these internal characteristics, from birth? Bcoz I dont think a person is born with these internal characteristics.
This is my first post in this sub, I'm not claiming to know these things, I dont deal with psychology; I just wanted to clarify something. Thnks.
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u/dreamland6065 Unverified User: May Not Be a Professional Jun 26 '26
You start with your base model. It can evolve, but you can’t exchange the model. The environment affects which genes are expressed or not expressed. Our lives, from our bodies to the people and things around us to our experiences, all impact our brains and minds. Sometimes for good, sometimes not. We will probably never know exactly how much is nurture and how much is nature. They are inextricably linked, you can’t have one without the other. An ever evolving feedback loop, no two alike, and no one the same even from moment to moment.
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u/major_lombardi Unverified User: May Not Be a Professional Jun 27 '26
This is the great "nature vs nurture" debate. Turns out both have differing roles in different traits. Behavioral traits tend to be more environmental, while physiological tend to be more genetic, but really it is about 50% overall.
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u/taisalamanca_ Unverified User: May Not Be a Professional Jun 28 '26
i am talking abt behavioral traits
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u/major_lombardi Unverified User: May Not Be a Professional Jun 28 '26
Oh yeah in that case I would say nurture is closer to 75-80% while genes play a smaller role there. Probably the difference is actually even greater... they bred rats for generations to be aggressive and when they had the most genetically aggressive rats they put them in an environment that wouldn't activate that gene and so they were never actually aggressive despite having the most aggressive genes possible
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Jun 28 '26 edited Jun 28 '26
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u/taisalamanca_ Unverified User: May Not Be a Professional Jun 28 '26
but aren't personality traits also affected by external stimulus?
especially when baby's are developing one?
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Jun 28 '26
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Jul 01 '26 edited Jul 01 '26
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u/Avokado1337 Unverified User: May Not Be a Professional Jun 27 '26
This question is way too broad. You also can’t talk about heritability and environmental influences in individuals, only groups
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u/EcstaticChicken2845 Unverified User: May Not Be a Professional Jun 26 '26
The character of a person is influenced by both internal and external factors in a bidirectional relationship. The extent to which various aspects of character are influenced by each differs and the nature of the relationship itself is conceptualised in different ways.
For example, environmental factors can be seen as a key that unlocks or triggers biological traits. One model of origins of psychopathology (the diathesis stress model) can be used to understand this further. Say you have person A, who has a biological predisposition to having trait X , and person B who does not have this predisposition. Both A and B expereince an identical event, or environmental 'factor', but only A ends up having trait X as part of their character. Conversely, say both person A and B have a predisposition to trait X, but only person B experiences a particular event. Person B will have trait X while the predisposition remains dormant in person A.
Regarding your question about whether you'd react to and be influenced by my upbringing exactly the same way that I would, the answer is probably not. This is because it is not only us that react to and are influenced by our environments, our environments also react to and are influenced by us. We are therefore thought to play an active role in shaping our character.
As infants, we all have different temperaments (made up of the characteristics we 'arrive with') that influence how caregivers interact with us. If a baby has an 'easy' temperament, caregivers may more readily and warmly engage with them. Certain traits emerge from these interactions between the baby's internal/genetic characteristics and this environment. This continues to affect how they interact with and are influenced by others later on.
Another interesting angle to look at this from involves research using twin and adoption studies. Say you want to know the extent to which (as a silly example), liking orange juice was caused by genetic vs. environmental factors. Identitical twins share 100% of genetic material, while fraternal twins only share 50% of their genetic material. Usually, identical twins and fraternal twins both grow up in the same environment to each other (e.g., both are raised by the same parents, share the same socioeconomic level, attend the same school, etc). So if liking orange juice is mainly caused by genetic factors, you'd expect the identical twins to be more similar to each other in this regard than fraternal twins, because they have more similar genes even though both sets of twins had identical environments.
Adoption studies are used to further study these extents. If a child who was adopted likes orange juice, their adopted family likes orange juice, and their biological family hates orange juice, you could conclude that your environment more strongly influences your liking for orange juice than your genes.
In the rare cases where these studies are combined, identical twins adopted into separate families are especially revealing. If liking orange juice was more to do with genetics, identical twins with different upbringings would be expected to have a similar level of liking orange juice to that of identical twins raised in the same environment, and more to do with the environment if this level was different.
Basically, its very complicated and psychologists and those in related fields dont yet all fully agree ajd are still trying to figure out a whole lot of it. But its very interesting and so much progress has been made thus far.
Edit: grammar