Brain complexity: baby brains under study (Introduction)

by dhw, Sunday, January 28, 2018, 13:15 (2491 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: This discussion has turned into a word game. I have no idea how a personality can ever be “fully formed” when it is capable of change all the way through to the moment of death.

DAVID: The basic underlying structure of a personality is fully formed by age 25 when the prefrontal cortex is fully developed. Ego defense mechanisms are in place. Patterns like Type A behavior appear or as in transactional analysis, are you an adult, parent or a child in your behavior? Of course your personality naturally modifies its expressions over a lifetime, and with counselling may cause a major change in underlying structure.

In my view nobody can ever say a personality is fully formed at any age, but at least you’ve now changed that to “the basic underlying structure”. This may well be formed a great deal earlier ("BY" 25 allows for that), depending on just how much of the personality is determined by the genes, nurture and experience, which nobody knows. Of course major changes are not limited to counselling, but can be caused at any time by accidents, diseases or traumatic experiences.

DAVID: Transactional analysis was a background of a method I used in counselling. If you don't know it:
http://www.ericberne.com/transactional-analysis/

Thank you. I started the article, but it’s simply too long for me to read now! I looked up a definition: "a system of popular psychology based on the idea that one's behaviour and social relationships reflect an interchange between parental (critical and nurturing), adult (rational), and childlike (intuitive and dependent) aspects of personality established early in life."

That makes perfect sense to me, and I didn’t know your medical activities included counselling, which is most impressive. So much human misery is caused by mental health issues, and if this approach yields positive results, one can only applaud it and you.

dhw: The genetic inborn characteristics (which you say comprise 40% of the personality) are already present even before the baby actually comes out and says “WAH!” Its personality is therefore not a blank slate, but the baby has no means of expressing its individual self, and we have no means of knowing anything about its personality, until it is born. That is the only zero.

DAVID: Again you are discussing underlying potentials. Genetics and nurture modify each other as life progresses from birth, the zero/ blank point. We agree.

We agree that genetics, nurture and experience modify each other as life progresses from birth, but genes are already present even before birth. That is the reason why the article I quoted expressly dismisses the “blank slate” hypothesis on the grounds that “most people are now thought to have significant ‘preprogramming’ from genes that have some influence on almost every want, trait, feeling, thought, and action.” Since you reckon that genes constitute 40% of a personality, you can hardly disagree. Yes, modification begins at birth. No, the personality is not a blank slate at birth. If it was, there would be nothing to modify.