Do people really have personalities or is the whole theory of personality bunk?

Do people really have personalities or is the whole theory of personality bunk?

And if they do, what existing model best describes personality? I'm assuming Big 5?

People definitely have different types of personalities, but it's probably caused by life experience rather than it being something you're born with (excluding autism, down syndrome, ADHD, etc.)

you think being an extrovert or introvert is acquired?

Wrong

Nice answer. Piggot embryo

You literally shat out your made up opinion and you call that a "nice answer"? "It's probably caused by life experience", and yet personality traits are extremely stable throughout adult and even young life. This strongly points toward an underlying biological basis. Of course experience also matters, but to say that personality is entirely shaped by experience is clearly a poor explanation.
>but I called him names, that'll show him!

Sigh

it certainly is to an extent
i used to be very extroverted but
now i dislike people and being around
them makes me anxious.

55555 get

I'm sorry, friend

>developed anxiety
sounds like a genetic predisposition

hows it feel finding out you are wrong and mentally ill at the same time?

>Piggot
WTF deos that mean?

acquired very early in life yes

>the whole theory of personality
wat

>do they exist
as an abstraction, of course they exist, and describe the particular way individuals interact with society.

>the Big 5
I'm a little bit uneasy about the factor analysis done to derive it--can you really say that because two traits reliably covary, that they're just components of one single personality trait?--but it is certainly the most useful, if nothing else because of the volume of research put into it due to its eminent popularity.

>can you really say that because two traits reliably covary, that they're just components of one single personality trait?
Isn't that basically true by the definition of trait? It certainly looks like a reasonable way to define a trait, at least from a pragmatic perspective.

that's retarded, how can you separate the two?

there is "theory if personality" obviously we have different personalities but any broad categorisation will always fall short or get no one near, it's a case by case thing

>there is
there ISN'T
learn what 'theory' means

its nature and nurture that defines personality

Its pretty tough, but HEXACO and the Big Five are the best psychometrics on personality. They stand up to scrutiny, and have correlations with both genetics, and life outcome.

The Big Five and HEXACO are pretty similar. HEXACO is basically the Big five but in 6 categories rather than five. Any the big five I believe are:

Consciousness
Openness
Neuroticism
Agreeableness
Honesty

Not honesty, extroversion.

Nature vs Nurture is a pretty poor way to frame the situation. The literature actually gives up on the nature / nurture dichotomy in like 1920, so you are a bit behind the times user!

The problem with nature vs nurture, is that its hard to discern whether any given thing is nature or nurture. Plenty of things are both, plenty of things are neither.

Thanks user.

I just looked it up, HEXACO has honesty, the big five doesnt. The big five has extraversion

which things are neither?

Any environmental factor that isnt a part of your upbringing isnt nurture, as far as I can tell. So, I live in New York. Maybe New York does something to people, and if it does, that has nothing to do with where I grew up. Maybe going to church does something, even if I didnt grow up going to church. Diet isnt really nurture. Maybe its nature because its biological, but its not genetic. Any non-genetic biological factor is arguably not nature or nurture, so things like head injuries, microbes, etc.