How many times have we heard phrases like “People don’t change over time, time shows you what they really are” or what “people can change for love”. Are any of these statements true? The reality is that personality has an innate part and a learned part, so there are traits that remain and others that can be adapted. In this Psychology-Online article we delve into this interesting topic and resolve the following question: Can people change or not?
Why do people change their attitude?
Rosenberg and Rovland (1960) tried to provide a meaning to the term attitude by formulating a tripartite model very similar to Ellis’s rational emotive theory, because, when faced with an attitudinal stimulus, three different types of response are manifested:
- Cognitive responses: beliefs and thoughts about the object.
- Evaluative responses: emotions associated with the object (repulsion, pleasure, displeasure or attraction).
- Behavioral responses: they are expressed in the intentions to act.
With this approach we can define that attitude is the categorization of a stimulus along an evaluative dimension that is based on three types of information: cognitive, affective or emotional and conative or behavioral.
According to the proposal offered by the previous authors, we can conclude that the actions we perform (our behaviors) are preceded by cognitive and emotional factors and therefore are part of a single expression, attitude. However, organic and social components are attributed to these factors, of which we are often unconscious and which we cannot do without so easily.
This is why we conclude with the following proposal that People don’t change, they just adapt better.. We can resist, regulate and deny that we are equipped with instincts, but we will never be able to cause the abolition or suppression of everything with which we were endowed by millions of years of phylogenetic evolution. We are compelled to healthy social adaptation.
(1960) “To have an attitude is to be disposed towards a certain thing, even if it is unconscious; which means: having a priori a direction towards a certain end, represented or not. The disposition that is for me the attitude always consists of the presence of a certain subjective constellation, a determined combination of factors or psychic contents that determine this or that direction of the activity or this or that interpretation of the external stimulus.
In the following article you will find more information about the .
For what reasons do people change their way of being?
Attitude was defined as a categorization of the stimuli to which we are progressively exposed. The attitude is made up of emotional and cognitive factors that can subsequently lead to behavior in favor of or against the stimulus; Emotions and reasoning are built but also inherited; We are predisposed to present some emotions and ideas with greater frequency and intensity without any reinforcement. Just as our social learning fuels or extinguishes certain attitudes, so does our genetic inheritance.
Previously it was explained that none of us will be able to completely eliminate our instincts unconscious for the mere desire to make a difference, but I think that yes we can learn new adaptation mechanisms.
We believe that we change our way of being, that is, changing our attitudes (ways of thinking, feeling and acting); and many times the idea of some change in our attitude scares others more than ourselves, since we are unconscious about these changes most of the time (for example, we suddenly stop playing what entertained us as children, we abandon the toys, we no longer cry when mom leaves us alone at school, we stop courting in the same way we did, we stop crying because they abandon us, we bond differently, in general, as we said at the beginning some things stop having priority in our lives and others that were not before, become so).
We adapt because we need to. We need to adapt because it is our own context that demands it of us, otherwise we would follow our instincts without any restriction.
An example Something easy to understand this proposal is the following: an adolescent who has grown up in a family that does not have principles, moral values or any type of precept that would contribute to the regulation of his behavior and has therefore lived in a family with poor bonding. among its members. And added to all these disadvantages for the adolescent, she has not experienced approaching a possible model outside her family that facilitates her social relationships (teachers, pedagogues, leaders or public figures). There are many possible consequences in the adolescent’s attitude, but in this example let us propose an irascible, promiscuous, provocative, uninhibited and carefree attitude that has facilitated integration, adaptation and acceptance in certain groups that esteem this attitude, but that as things go developing, its harmful effects also arise, the corollary find a more adaptive way to relate despite the fact that his unconscious desires are different, despite his instincts. We change to achieve our ambitions.
Here you will find more information about .
Do people change over time?
Perhaps some of us showed distant, strange, inhibited, complaining, distrustful, and very complacent attitudes when we were going through adolescence. But these attitudes little by little dissipated with the constant practice of others such as collaboration, trust and interest.
That change that people make over time develops thanks to multiple experiences What have they had. Just as stated above, changes are demands of our context, imperatives of the environment that give rise to the premises “the fittest survives”; “you have to adapt to survive”; Our attitude of inhibition and distrust no longer allows us to survive, it is making it impossible for us and therefore we make a change in it.
Why people change in a relationship
Do people change for love? I believe that the changes in people when they are in a relationship are directed towards what is shared in the article, but they do not arise for very different reasons than those previously proposed. The changes can be very varied and are not only directed at a scheme, but obviously go from one opposite pole to the other (from black to white or the reverse). Changes in a relationship can arise from acquaintances, where in each of them a different attitude is experienced.
Reasons why people change in a relationship
But these changes can also arise for any of the following reasons:
- Unsafety that causes fear of losing the relationship.
- “Comfort”: The conquest has already been achieved, therefore there is no reason to continue striving.
- Trust: changes occur due to the trust that arises between the two people.
- External influence: social situations (for example, disapproval from people important to one of the two).
- Personality disorders or some other type of psychopathology. In the following article you will find.
This article is merely informative, at Psychology-Online we do not have the power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.
If you want to read more articles similar to People don’t change, do they?we recommend that you enter our category.
Bibliography
- Carl G. Jung. (1960). The dynamics of the unconscious. Trotta Publishing House. Madrid.