ME Project

Sociobiology – is the science which studies the biological basis of all social behavior. Sociobiologists identify the 4 main factors which influence the personality and character of a person. They are: heredity, birth order, parental characteristics and cultural environment. They are all special and “respond” for one’s personality particularly and differently. 

Heredity. Heredity includes those characteristics which are given to us with our birth. Among these characteristics are mostly the appearance features, such as skin pigmentation, color of eyes, physical building of the body and so on. Personally, I can, as any person, find a lot of similarities in my and my parents’ appearance. For example, the color of my eyes and hair is just similar to my Father’s ones. At the same time, I am also pretty tall and I took it from my Dad, too. Though, some of the other appearance features I took from my Mother. This way, I feel the influence of heredity on myself. Another point of heredity is an aptitude. An aptitude is some certain skills which we get from our birth. For example, an aptitude can be something like a talent to play some music instrument, or a talent to singing, etc. I can definitely say, for instance, that I got the skill of studying from the family roots from the side of my Mother. The evidence can be that my Mother’s family includes almost all the members who are or were connected with science this or that way. For example, my Mother’s Father, who is my Grandpa, is a professor in the College and teaches Math. So, I feel like I took the good ability to studying as the heredity from my ancestors. 

Birth order. Birth order stands for the dependence of Your character on the place in the order where You were born in the family. In the other words, what child in the family You are: whether the oldest, the middle, or the youngest. I am the oldest child in the family, and also have a younger brother who is 14, so I am not a single kid in the family. According to the theory, the oldest children usually tend to show more the qualities of a leader, be goal-oriented, and setting the getting of the good level of education as a goal. I would say, that some of these characteristics are common with those which are in my personality. Why does the birth order exist? Probably, it is so because this theory is based on the parents’ treatment of their children. How? Scientists claim that the parents tend to be more careful about taking care of their first children, because they are more inexperienced and not too risk-taking in letting their first kids do whatever the lasts want to. And with every next child in a family, the parents usually make their pressure on the life less and less and are getting calmer about the process of the children’s development. 

Parental characteristics. Parental characteristics is the factor which says that the parents’ influence itself depends on the personalities of the parents of a kid themselves. What it means is that the age, occupation, social class of the parents can be influential on the personalities of the kids in the family. For example, a child who is born to the parents in their mid-20s and a child who is born to the parents in their mid-30s can grow up as the different personalities. That is so because of the different attitudes of the parents on the aspects of the up-bringing of the children depending on their own age. This is also connected with the fears and personal priorities of the parents, which usually tend to get changed with the time. All in all, I would say that I did not feel a great influence of this factor on my personal life, as far as even my parents were in their mid-20s when I was born, they still wanted me to grow up in the atmosphere of education and quite a pressure in this question from their side, for what I am really grateful to them because, I feel, all I have today is due to it and due to their care about me and their support whenever I needed.

Cultural environment. The last factor, according to the sociobiologists, which is to influence a person’s character is the cultural environment. To my mind, this is the most major aspect in the question of the influence on a personality. The environment I live in – is something that mostly makes me the way I am today. Yes, to my mind, my social network, my inhabitance, the culture I exist in – this is what “shapes” me in the form I am. Personally, I think that if the family is something that gives us the basics ideas about how we should act within a society. Society, next up, is something that makes us develop our interactional skills and abilities to improve our characters and personalities in the way we want to. The culture we exist in gives us a lot of opportunities to discover ourselves by communicating, comparing, seeking for the right ways. I guess, my cultural environment is the factor which turned out to be the most important in my personal development. Ukraine, Ukrainian people, our values and attitudes – is what I mostly take the knowledge from. Now, American culture is also included, and I can definitely say that I do feel its influence on my personality. 

All things considered, I think that all of the four listed factors are influential on our lives. But personally for me, the aspect of cultural environment I live in is something that mostly in my age makes and develops me the way I am. However, anyway everything starts with the family, and that is why I think it is impossible to separate one from another.