Every person, all 7.7 billion human beings, has a unique existence in this world. Each and every one of us has a unique personality that shapes who we are and how we act. According to Dr. Ray Archer’s lecture, personality is defined as a person’s consistent patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving that contribute to their individuality (Archer, 2019). Over the years, there have been many theories and perspectives on what shapes and influences the personalities we have developed over our lifetime. Based on the in-class inventories of myself and others, some personalities I have now are unselfishness, courage, and hard work. On the other hand, when I was younger, my personality could be described as caring, outgoing, doer, and artistic. In this essay, I will conduct a retrospective analysis of my personality to trace my personal development and discover how I became who I am today.
To begin with, when I was younger I felt that most of my personality could be explained by the behavioral/learning perspective. The behavioral/learning perspective explains how the environment that surrounds a person influences their behavior. More detailed, through observational learning. Growing up, I was so close to my mother and siblings. I always watched and followed everything they did. My mother was so caring and nurturing to me, my siblings, family members, and her friends. I watched as she used to comfort us and always make sure we were happy and feeling well. I wanted to follow in her footsteps, so I began comforting my siblings and my friends around my neighborhood and in school. Every time someone was feeling down or sad, I was always the first person there by their side to make sure they were happy in the end. Still to this day, many people describe my personality as caring. I always try to comfort anyone, whether they are my friends, family members, classmates, or anyone I have met. The motivation that allowed me to keep this personality and trait over the years until now is the feeling I get inside when I help people. In addition to that, the response and feedback I get from them after being helped, makes me feel really good inside and brings joy to me.
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When I was younger, one personality trait that everyone praised me on was being obedient. I was very polite, never got in trouble, and followed all the rules in school and at home. I never disrespected my mom, peers, or authority figures. Looking at this personality trait, I realized this is explained perfectly by the person-centered theory. More detailed, conditional positive regard. I always thought that if I behaved and never got in trouble, it would increase the chance of everyone loving and accepting me. I felt that if I acted out, my family, peers, and friends would not accept me or want to be around me. This fear and constant thought of my conditions of worth to be favored by others has always motivated me to be obedient. Obedience was one of my most highly praised traits by adults, and that acceptance and assurance from them made me feel really good inside.
To explain some of the personality traits that I see in myself now, it is best to observe the McCrae and Costa Big 5 personality theory. The Big 5 personality theory gives 5 personality traits that make up your personality, including openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism. Upon taking the Big Five personality test, I scored 73% in openness, 71% in conscientiousness, 87.5% in extraversion, 83% in agreeableness, and 27% in neuroticism. Growing up and now, I have always been very creative and adventurous in the sense that I constantly try to challenge myself and explore new things. This includes the different sports I have participated in such as basketball, volleyball, and soccer. I love trying new things, whether it's food from different countries and cultures or thrill-seeking activities. This could explain why I scored high in openness, meaning I am imaginative, curious, and open-minded. Growing up, I was always detail-oriented and had a plan. I knew that I was going to play sports in college and hopefully professionally. I drew up a step-by-step plan that would allow me to reach my goals, and here I am now, playing basketball for the University of Kentucky. Since I strive so much to be the best I can be and achieve all my goals, I tend to find myself a workaholic. I am always in training, working out, and overall just trying to better myself. This explains why I scored high in the conscientiousness section, meaning I am a compulsive perfectionist, responsible, and reliable. It is also considered a key ingredient in one’s success, and so far I have been doing exceptionally well. Growing up and now I have always been a people’s person. I would rather be hanging out with my friends than sitting alone by myself. I enjoy meeting and getting to know new people and I always have fun and let loose at parties. One thing that motivates me to always participate in sports is to have my team always surrounding me. They are there to always hang out with, talk with, and be supportive. This explains why I scored the highest in the extraversion section. It means that I thrive on excitement, I am an action-oriented person, and like to be the center of attention. When looking at agreeableness, the traits that I can relate to are that I am trustworthy, honest, and optimistic. I find myself always putting other needs and feelings before mine, even when they shouldn’t be. I am very well-liked and can connect and befriend almost everyone I meet without even trying very hard. Lastly, I can empathize with anyone, even if I can’t relate to the situation. This explains why I scored high in the agreeableness section, meaning I am kind, cooperative, and considerate. Last but not least, I scored the lowest in neuroticism. Since I have played sports all my life, and especially at the collegiate level, I have developed a certain amount of discipline. Playing sports, I have always stayed level-headed and not let certain things bother me such as losing or taunting from the other team. I have always been quick on my feet and able to stay calm under stressful situations and get what I need to get done. This goes in hand with my low neuroticism score, meaning I am emotionally stable, optimistic, worry-free, and a natural leader.
As I have matured into a college athlete, I believe the personality I have developed can be described by the evolutionary perspective. More detailed by evolution and adaptation. Meaning that the personality I have developed came from social instincts that evolved by natural selection and adaptations. The main contribution to this is playing basketball at the collegiate level. When I was younger, everything was about me, and I felt that everything had to be centered around me. I wanted all the attention and praise. I was selfish. However, in college and athletics, I quickly understood the importance of being a team and working together. I had to adapt to an environment where I wasn’t the only star on the team, and everyone here brings something different to the table that makes the team function as one. Now one of my best personality traits is selfishness. On and off the court, I will put someone else's needs or interests before mine. On the court, I will sacrifice my three-point shot for my teammate to get a guaranteed layup. Now I share the spotlight and would like to just be on an equal playing field as others. While it is good to get praised for the hard work I put in and my accomplishments, I am okay with it not always being publicized and known.
Last but not least, the last personality trait that I am most proud that I have developed is high self-esteem. I am very confident in myself and know that I have high self-esteem, but I don't know how high it was. I eventually learned about my self-esteem when I took the self-determination/self-esteem evaluation during class. On that evaluation, I scored 34 out of 40. This score is really high and means I have high self-esteem. From this score, it means that I know how to access and acknowledge my strengths and weaknesses. Overall, it means that I have a high sense of self-worth and personal value. In the past, my score would have been much lower than this. I wasn’t so confident or had high self-esteem if I wasn’t playing a sport because I knew that I could excel in that sport. Playing sports was my comfort zone. However, now I am more confident on and off the court and wherever I am. It has taken me a long time to get to this point, and all it took was self-reflection. This is best explained through the humanistic perspective. The humanistic perspective has 4 major focuses: personal responsibility, the here and now, people know themselves best, and personal growth. The main two that relate to me and my development into high self-esteem are people who know themselves best and personal growth. Even if the things they said were not true, like I would never play ball in college or professionally or never make it in academics alone, I would always let it get to me. Once I started to ignore people and what they said about me, I noticed my self-esteem started to increase. Then, once I stopped listening to them and letting them get me down, I started seeing my personal growth and change. This only motivated me to push harder and just believe in myself. I love who I am today and what I have become. I will always have high self-esteem because I have worked so hard to get here and will not let myself or anyone else bring it down.
Looking over my personality and my personality traits, I can see a trend in where my personality came from and what has shaped it today. When I was younger, my personality was most shaped by my environment. Mainly my mother and siblings. As I grew up and now, my personality was mainly shaped by my passion and life, basketball. I would not like to be different and change anything about my personality. If I did, I truly would not be myself. My personality is unique to me and I possess certain characteristics that no one else possesses. Whether they are good or bad, they still make me who I am today, and I wouldn’t change it for anything in the world. I do not believe at the moment I will change, and it would be very difficult to do so. However, I do believe that as I get older, my personality and personality traits will change, and it will be fairly easy. I will not always have my mother or basketball to influence me. I will be faced with new obstacles such as a new career or hobby, marriage, and kids that I will have to adapt to and be influenced by. Only then will a change in my personality be easy and acceptable for me.
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