A first group, a genetic base, and a parent’s decisive attitude

A person is born already belonging to a group, and the first group is a family, where social contact begins with a parent. Basic ways of behaving are learned from that parent, so attachment, upbringing, and other conditions around the home send children down different paths. The household, and the psychological climate inside it, bear on a child’s growth as a whole; a parent’s attitude belongs to that climate. Personality is treated as something one has to know in order to understand a person — a way of making a human being concrete — and it is formed under many influences, including personal traits and genetic traits, and also by how a person deals with others and forms a social identity.

In this reading, the force of the social environment on personality is greater than that of what is innate. Genetics still matters, but it is treated as an auxiliary factor, a base on which a personality is built rather than a stamp. If a father has a violent tendency, the child may be more likely to have one too, by inheritance; but if a mother’s upbringing is strict and sound, the child may still hold that tendency in check and grow without it taking over. What is inherited is read as a somewhat higher potential than other people would have in the same situation, not as a complete mark that the child was born violent. With a more careful, consistent attitude, a personality can develop with that tendency set aside. Both inheritance and upbringing are in play: a child from a violent home may take on a violent character not only by genetics, but also by watching and learning a parent’s violent manner — that is, by a flawed attitude in the raising. A parent’s attitude is also said to bear heavily on a child’s self and self-concept, on skill with other people, and on a capacity to learn. What is innate is instinctive and present from birth; how it develops is decided, here, by the social environment, and above all by a parent’s attitude, from childhood through adolescence, as the child watches and learns a parent’s values.

Care that answers at once, neglect, and a path that can still turn

A helpful attitude, in this account, is a parent who, from infancy, takes an interest in a baby’s needs, answers at once, and gives love. Freud and Erikson are cited for the claim that a consistent attitude from infancy has an important bearing on personality, because emotional life and sociability are already forming then. If a parent answers promptly when a baby is hungry or uncomfortable, and tries to put the trouble right, the baby forms a belief that a parent will be there when something is wrong. From that belief — that a parent is always nearby — the child can later take other people as trustworthy as well, and grow into a character that can keep close relationships. Trust built through that early exchange is treated as a large contribution to later personality. If a parent also trusts the child and grants autonomy, a more self-directed, responsible character can grow. Support that stays in place even after a failure makes it easier to stand up again; a granted autonomy, even when the child’s first attempts are clumsy, makes it more natural to try things, and then to take responsibility for how they turn out. A consistent interest, together with trust and autonomy, is said to help a self-directed way of learning, and a more positive self that can come through a crisis more quickly.

A harmful attitude is first of all indifference, and a leaving of the child alone. From infancy, a baby may cry from hunger and look for a parent, and be met with irritation or with no interest in what is needed. Under that kind of raising, children shrink around their own existence, and self-esteem falls. They may think a parent does not love them, and still, by instinct, want that parent’s protection and support, and so grow into a more passive character. In adolescence, as a self develops, some remain passive, and some rebel in order to recover a sense of worth. Underneath, a harmful attitude plants a distrust that nobody will love them, and that distrust is said to harm later exchanges with other people: a generalization that others will not love them either, and a more pessimistic character.

A parent’s values, not only a parent’s manner, also bear on what a child becomes. A household with a patriarchal father and an obedient mother is given as a way to see this. A son who grows up watching a patriarchal father may learn that manner and pass it on. Daughters who grow up watching an obedient mother may also learn that attitude, and be pressed to be obedient and demure — and they may not necessarily grow that way. A harmful attitude does not always produce a passive, negative self, because other caregivers and schooling can still change the path. Through school or friends, a child may come to see that a father’s excessive patriarchal violence is not right, or, watching an overly obedient mother, may resolve not to live that way and work to become a person in their own right. For that turn to happen, the surrounding setting has to offer a positive influence and a more awake set of values. Another caregiver or a teacher who plants the sense that the present home is wrong, and that the child is worthy of love, can still shift a personality. Even so, a parent’s attitude is still treated as the largest influence.

In the close, Bowlby, Erikson, and William James are named among those who argued that a parent’s attitude plays an important part in the forming of a personality, and that children should be raised with a positive attitude. A lingering caution is that older work, perhaps because mothers then usually took charge of the raising, leaned too heavily on the mother’s attachment and teaching alone. Both a mother’s and a father’s part are needed. More recent work on a father’s attitude, and on a father’s positive values, is noted as more active, without a calendar year attached to those studies. Among the sources are Jeong Yeong-suk, Personality Psychology, Sigma Press, 2014, pages 96 to 142, and Park Ji-yeong’s 2017 structural analysis, at Daegu Catholic University, of parental support for autonomy, self-determination, an internal style of attribution, and self-directed learning in school-age children, pages 1 to 108. The same Korean report, at fuller length, is on CampusDown.

Sources

1. A Korean discussion of parenting attitudes and a child’s personality, citing Jeong Yeong-suk (2014) and Park Ji-yeong (2017), and naming Bowlby, Erikson, and William James.

Last updated: 14 November 2026