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Our behavior is a visible expression of our "personality" (which really isn't a singular term).

However, we all respond to noxious stimulation in a predictable, physiologically conceptualized ways, and in that sense we really do not have specific personalities when we are born. Babies cry when they are hungry; they all 'naturally' know how to find that nipple and drink!

So, if behavior is an expression of 'how we are' as humans, then we are pretty much born with very similar and predictable 'personalities.'

As we sin, our behavior changes and so does our personality to a point

But children do not sin until they are old enough to know right from wrong! Yet they exhibit distinct 'personalities.' I do agree that our personalities change — better, yet, evolve but I think it is not an established fact that some are born with 'criminal traits.'

In fact, just about everything we know is learned and not something we are born with.

I don't know if we'll have the same earthly personality but we'll certainly be recognizable by our friends and family who are there.

Do you have a biblical reference to that claim?

Our behavior is a visible expression of our "personality" (which really isn't a singular term).

LOL!
ROTFLOL!
GTTM!

I know a number of English teachers and fellow psychologists at my college who'd shake their heads in disbelief at that thoroughly inaccurate assertion!

Of course, I suppose, in the case of a Multiple Personality Disorder, there COULD be a case made for using persopnaliTIES. LOL.

But you weren't writing about MPD's.

However, we all respond to noxious stimulation in a predictable, physiologically conceptualized ways, and in that sense we really do not have specific personalities when we are born.

That perspective SEEMS clearly to have arisen out of experience totally devoid of children and totally devoid of the scientific research and virtually totally devoid of knowledge on the topic. Shocking. I'd thought better of our school systems even as poor as they are.

1. Major features of an individual's personality are set at conception.
2. Some things can be moderated and shaped--to a degree even somewhat behaviorally reversed with GREAT PERSISTENT EFFORT--but the genetics sets the major traits of the personality. 3. A) Extroversion vs introversion is overwhelmingly genetic
B) Emotional stability vs instability is overwhelmingly genetic
C) Temperament--inborn emotional excitability--whether reactive intense and fidgity or easygoing, quiet and placid is very OVERWHELMINGLY genetic.

Overall, genetic influences predict roughtly 40 to 50% of our individual variations in many personality traits. [p. 82, EXPLORING PSYCHOLOGY by David G Myers]

Clearly, close to half the personality is decided at conception. Of course, there are many other factors which environment shape and mold--including the spiritual environement and the choices of the individual as well as a variety of experiences in the major intelligence domains.

But, in my experience, I can almost always tell, after 15 minutes with a baby less than 24 HOURS old--I can usually tell major features of the baby's personality at that age.

So, the assertion is simiply thoroughly false, wrong, inaccurate per science and per many psychologists' experiences and certainly many mothers' experiences.

Of course, facts won't stop brash statements but they can at least help correct them.

So, if behavior is an expression of 'how we are' as humans, then we are pretty much born with very similar and predictable 'personalities.'

I guess that's what I deserve for assuming a given post only had one absurdly inaccurate statement.

The 16PF scale measures personality on 16 dimensions, scales. And the dissimilarities between the various points on the scales are enormously significant and not similar at all. I think psychology 101 would have cleared up this nonsense--unless such a course was missed, somehow.

Hans Eysenck measures personality on 2 SUPERORDINATE DIMENSIONS--UNSTABLE VS STABLE on the North/South axis and INTROVERTED VS EXTROVERTED on the East/West axis. But those two dimensions include a vast number of potential QUITE VARIED COMBINATIONS OF:

UPPER LEFT QUADRANT: moody, anxiouis, rigid, sober, pessimistic, reserved, unsociable, quite

LOWER LEFT QUADRANT: passive, careful, thoughtful, peaceful, controlled, reliable, even-tempered, calm

LOWER RIGHT QUADRANT: sociable, outgoing, talkative, responsive, easygoing, lively, carefree, leadership

UPPER RIGHT QUADRANT: touchy, restless, aggressive, excitable, changeable, impulsive, optimistic, active.

And the MMPI certainly can describe a huge number of personality differences.

So, yet again, the assertion is totally devoid of fact and simply blatantly false.

I REALLY DO NOT UNDERSTAND where so many so thoroughly false beliefs, perspectives are coming from. And if this sort of "missing facts" by so many light years is remotely true of the theologies involved as it is basic scientific facts about humans . . . goodness! That's scary. But it could help explain why so many perspectives about the Canon and other Scriptural truths are so farrrrrrrr off base. This is beginning to scare me toward more earnest prayer.

GOODNESS! I have a hard time recalling a post with so many inaccurate assertions in a long time.

Spiritually, I would agree that children do not technically sin until they reach some age of accountability. HOWEVER, I've observed rebellion and defiance in infants. I think most parents with any fair-mindedness about it at all would agree. Certainly by 2 years such things are VERY EVIDENT.

And, we also have the sins of the fathers visited upon children to the 3rd and 4th generation as Scripture makes clear. So I find the point greatly moot, AT BEST.

Do personalities evolve? Not greatly. There's some refinement, mellowing . . . but the basic personality structure does not change much birth to death--especially for most people.

Are some children born with criminal traits? Some experts would say yes; some no. I think the most Biblical perspective is yes, some are. And, there's some science to back it up. It gets very complicated and I don't care to dig it all out.

In fact, just about everything we know is learned and not something we are born with.

I suppose it depends on what is meant by "know." But at face value, the above perspective is again wholesale wrong. As I've outlined above, WE KNOW/HAVE OUR BASIC PERSONALITY STRUCTURE GENETICALLY AT CONCEPTION.

But I think it's a moot point. WHAT OUR PERSONALITY IS WHEN WE GRADUATE FROM THIS LIFE WILL BE REFLECTED IN HEAVEN WHOLESALE--minus the evil. This boot camp is not for naught! LOL.

I don't know if we'll have the same earthly personality but we'll certainly be recognizable by our friends and family who are there.

Do you have a biblical reference to that claim?

1 Corinthians 13:12 KJV
For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.

MESSAGE VERSION:
12We don't yet see things clearly. We're squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won't be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We'll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us!

AMPLIFIED VERSION:
Now I know in part (imperfectly), but then I shall know and understand [b]fully and clearly, even in the same manner as I have been [c]fully and clearly known and understood [[d]by God].