“Personality is the product of heredity and environment” Explain

Nevertheless, the role of heredity on personality development cannot be minimized totally.  Physical attributes for instance may be largely attributed to heredity.  Thus heredity plays a very important part in shaping the personality.

Environment:

Personality development owes as much to environment as it does to heredity.  Environment is a board term and includes such factors as culture.  The methods by which an infant is fed and is toilet trained and makes transition from adolescence to adulthood are all culturally determined.

While growing the child learns to behave in ways expected by the culture of the family to which the baby was born.  One of those expectations has to do with sex roles.  Most cultures expect different behaviour from males than from females.  The cultural sub-groups exerts its influence on personality.  Although culture has significant influence on personality development, linear relationship cannot be established between personality and given culture for 2 reasons.

1. The cultural impacts upon an individual is not uniform, because they are transmitted by certain people, parents and others – who are not at all alike in their values and practices and
2. The individual has some experience that is unique.  Each individual reacts in his own way to social pressures, differences in behaviour being caused by biological factors.