Human development is affected by biology, cultures, and societies. Because human evolve to be cultural and social animals, all three must be taken into account. First, let us examine the influence comes from our nature. Culture and social explanations complement but do not replace genetic/biological explanation (Scarr, 1993). Genes, the biological blueprint is crucially important because it provides the fundamental matters to make a human. I take temperament as example in the following, because temperament is frequently regarded as a constitutional predisposition, observable in preverbal infants (McCrae & others, 2000). Heredity seems to predispose human temperament differences. Physiological tests reveal that anxious, high—strung human infants have high and variable hear rates and a reactive nervous system (Kagan & others, as cited in Myers, 2002). Twins who share identical genes are more likely to have similar temperament than fraternal twins (cited in Myers, 2002). Neuroscientists provided an empirical scaffolding for explanations of consistency in this certain behaviors. Most psychologists regard this term as referring to stable profiles of mood and behavior with a biological foundation that emerge early in development, although not always in the opening weeks or months. When we talk about our biological base, the brain’s development must be taken into account. It is commonly accepted that early childhood education can benefit optimum brain development. Does environmental influences have effect on brain and therefore on personality? Answer is yes. Kolb & Whishaw argue that personality is biologically based, but it is well established that perceptual and learning experiences can reshape the developing brain. Nelson also finds that life experience might affect personality through it effects on the brain (McCrae & others, 2000).

The fact that only gene cannot produce a person’s complex personality is beyond doubt. Francis Galton (1874) said: “Nature is all that a man brings with him into the world; nurture is every influrnce that affects him after his birth.”(As cited in Myers, 2002, p97) We are born with our genetic blueprint, which only makes us a unique biological life, far away from being an individual. In the period of infancy, adolescence and adulthood, except for the physical development the more important thing is our cognitive development and social development. Thus we should consider some methods which can be used to construct an overall understanding of personality.

 Hereafter, I will critically assess the four major perspectives on exploring and evaluating personality, which are distinguished from one another according to their relative emphasis on the dominance of either nature or nurture, and on whether development is lifelong or based on childhood. They are the Psychoanalytic perspective, Trait perspective, Humanistic perspective, and Social-cognitive perspective. A detailed look, insight into these different psychological theories and researches provides evidence to back up my arguments that environment and experience nurture our nature traits and the development of personality is not only based on childhood but also lifelong. By studying the influence factors in the development process, we can construct the optimal environment in which people can develop and enhance those positive virtues such as creativity, courage, compassion, integrity, self-control, leadership, wisdom, and spirituality. No matter which perspective is employed in the personality research, we can examine the roots and fruits of such virtues by studying individuals who exemplify them in extraordinary ways.

The first approach discussed is Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytic theory, which emphasizes on the unconscious and irrational aspects of human exist and proposes that childhood sexuality and unconscious motivations influence personality (Straub, 2002). The efforts to resolve the conflict between our biological impulse and the social restraint result in human personality, according to Freud. Freud believed that children develop personality through psychosexual stages—the oral, anal, phallic, latency, and genital stages. He suggested that our personalities are influenced by how we have resolved conflicts associated with these stages and whether we have remained fixated at any stage (Myers, 2002). Freud also proposes that adult personality has its roots in early developmental processes. He argued that personality structure prior to approximately age 6 to 7 significantly determines personality and psychopathology in adulthood (Shiner, 2002). Nevertheless, today’s developmental psychologists see our development as lifelong, not fixed in childhood. They doubt that infants’ neural networks are mature enough to sustain as much emotional trauma as Freud assumed (Myers, 2002). Kagan (2003) casts doubt on infant determinism and argues that it has proven difficult to demonstrate that experiences of the infant years determine profiles during childhood or adolescence. Because the brain is immature during the first two years, few adults can remember episodes that occurred before their third birthday (Kagan). Flint (1966) also gave an example that one group of frightened, quiet two-to four-year-olds, who had been raised in an overcrowded institution with few caretakers, were subsequently enrolled in regular play sessions with adults and children. The restrained affect apparently caused by the indifference of caretaker lifted after less than two years and the emotional vitality seen in most four-year-olds emerged (Kagan, 2003). Although Freud’s psychoanalytic method overplay the influence of sex on one person’s personality, his ideas keep on inspiring researches into the issue that whether childhood shapes our personalities and ways of becoming attached to others.  In my opinion, learning Freud’s psychoanalytic perspective provides us a method to study psychology, but we need more others perspectives for and overall knowledge of personality development. Next, let us examine the other three perspectives.

The second approach is the trait perspectives, which describe the predispositions that underlie our actions. Compared with psychoanalytic theories, they are less concerned with explaining personality and more concerned with its description (Straub, 2002). Trait theorists use personality inventories or longer questionnaires that ask people to respond to items covering a wide range of feelings and behaviors. The subsequent data allows psychologists to access traits to place people into several trait dimensions simultaneously (Myers, 2002). Endler & Speer (1998) found that the Big Five was the most active personality research topic during the 1990s currently one of the best approximation of the basic trait dimension (Myers, 2002). It is composed of five important dimensions: emotional stability, extraversion, openness, agreeableness and conscientiousness. Recent research provides evidences that these traits can be applied to various cultures and are quite stable in adulthood. For example, McCrae & others (1999) found that some traits (instability, extraversion and openness) are waning a bit and others (agreeableness and conscientiousness) rising in the decades after college. Loehlin & others (1998) conclude that the Big Five traits have hereditability values of approximately 50 percent (Myers, 2002). Botwin & others (1997) found that the Big Five traits also can be used to predict other personal attributes (Myers, 2002).

 Moreover, genetic predispositions influence most personality traits. For example, attributes differences in children’s shyness and inhibition to their autonomic nervous system reactivity. Our Genes has much to say about the temperament and the behavioral style that help define our personality. Researchers have discovered that some human traits such as intelligence, happiness, aggressiveness and temperament are influenced by genes (Myers, 2002). Findings also show that temperament is enduring. For example, Wilson & Matheny (1986), Worobey & Blajda (1989) found the most emotionally reactive newborns tend also to be the most reactive 9-monthes-old (Myers, 2002). Some theorist have divided personality traits into two categories: biologically based basic tendencies, which comprise abstract potentials and dispositions; culturally conditioned characteristic adaptations, which include acquired sills, habits, beliefs, roles, and relationships. They develop in two separate tracks: basic tendencies and characteristic adaptions. On one hand, basic tendencies follow a pattern of intrinsic maturation, On the other hand, characteristic adaptations respond to the opportunities and incentives of the social environment (McCrae & others, 2000).  Kagan also defines personality according to specific features of different traits: (a) the individual’s temperament, derivative in part from the genome, (b) current physiological profile, (c) psychological properties created by past experience, and (d) contexts of action (2003). From these researches, we can find that it is undeniable that genetical factors play important role in our nature personality while environmental effects are also crucial to the personality development. In other word, personality is the products of nature and nurture.

 The trait perspectives can help us to describe personality to some degree, they still cannot provide sufficient information about the influences from environment and personal experience. It is time to consider the important role of consciousness in personality development. The humanistic approach focuses on our inner capacities for growth and self-fulfillment. The social-cognitive approach emphasizes how we shape and are shaped by our environment.

 The basic idea of humanistic psychology is to explore the “Self”. Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers are two pioneers in the humanistic perspective. Their consensus of personality is that self-concept, a person’s view of himself or his self-image, develops according to the principle of self-actualization, the process of fulfilling our potential (Myers, 2002). “To self-actualize is to make one’s potentials as a person real or actual.”(Rapporport, 1972, p.123)  From the humanistic point of view as presented by Rogers, when people’s ideal and the actual self are actually alike, the self-concept is positive (Myers, 2002). Self-esteem is a typical expression of self-concept. Research shows the following facts. People who have high-esteem accept themselves to a great extent and thus acting more positively and feeling more happiness. Low self-esteem often comes with unhappiness, social rejection, depressed behavior and disparaging others. Is self-esteem stable or variable? Does environment or culture have influences on self-esteem? I will examine these questions in the next paragraphs.

For one thing, psychologists find that most of us have self-serving bias over ourselves, which means our readiness to perceive ourselves (Myers, 2002). “For the individual, self-affirming thinking is generally adaptive.” (Myers, 2002, p.459) This pervasiveness of self-worth is beneficial to maintain our self-confidence then enjoy a happy life. For example, despite discrimination and lower social status, ethnic minorities, people with disabilities, and women do not suffer lower self-esteem (Straub, 2002). But, this stability does not remain unchanged over time. Leahy & Shirk (1985) found that the numerous physical, cognitive, social, and emotional changes further jeopardize the adolescent's sense of continuity, which may, in turn, threaten self-esteem (Harter & Whitesell, 2003). The findings by Harter (1999) and McCarthy & Hoge (1982) then reveal gradual gains in self-esteem over the high school years (Harter & Whitesell, 2003).