How Character Develops Any character traits conspicuous in pe | Human Nature

How Character Develops

Any character traits conspicuous in personalities must be appropriate to the direction in which the psyche of individuals has developed since early childhood. This direction may be a straight line (realization of their goal along a direct line, and develop an aggressive, courageous character) or may be marked by meanders and detours.

The business of living in our civilization (the inescapable influence of that wider environment, the world, is of great importance), as expressed in the demands, doubts and emotions of children’s family and teachers, ultimately affects their character. All education takes on the method and the attitude best calculated to develop pupils in the direction of the prevailing social life and culture.

Obstacles of every sort are fatal to a straight-line development of character. Where they are present, the paths children will take to accomplish their goal of power will deviate to a greater or lesser extent from the straight line. Where there are no obstacles, the efforts of children will be undeterred, and they will approach their difficulties directly. Let us call them Type A children. In the second case – Type B – we have the picture of an entirely different type of child. They lack Type A’s courage. Moreover, they have discovered that fire burns and that not everyone is kindly disposed towards them. Type B will not take the direct route to their goal of recognition and power, but will use a series of detours. How they develop psychologically depends on how far they go out of their way. These detours will determine how cautious they are, whether they are in tune with the necessities of life or merely attempt to avoid them. Type B will not approach their tasks and problems directly. If they become cowardly and timid, refusing to look other people straight in the eye or to speak the truth, it does not mean their aims are any different from Type A’s. Two people can act differently, but have the same goals.

Both types may co-exist to a certain degree in the same individual. This occurs especially when children’s characters are not fully formed, when their principles are still elastic, when they do not always assume the same path, but retain sufficient flexibility to look for another approach if the first attempt proves inadequate.

#HumanNature
━━━━━━ ━━━━━━━
@Laws_of_Human_Nature