Why do people act the way they do? Are we a product of our up bringing?

I think alot of it has to do with how they were raised but not all of it. I've got three older sisters and none of us are really the same in anyway! So another part has to go to personality and how you percive the world around you.

I think it has a lot to do with upbringing. There is a group of about 8 or 10 people that I have known since 1st grade. Each of us went through the same grade school and high school. Even though we were in the middle of the hills I think we had a better upbringing than a lot of people during that day and age. Not to long ago, I was talking on the phone to one of these lifelong friends and the same subject came up. It seems we both agree that any of these people would do whatever they say they are going to do, although a lot of other people we know are not that way. Now I am not saying they will do whatever you asked them to do, but if they say yes, they will do it, then it will be done.

I think that sometimes they are a product of their up bringing and some times its just them.Its just like some people take care of business,they make a point to do that and make sure its done to ease their mind,thats how i am,i like to get it done so i do not have to have it hanging over me.Some people are just lazy and just wait around until the last minute to get things done.It could be either one their up bringing or their experience of living.I know people that are forever putting things off but their parents are not like that.I have one daughter that takes care of business and one that wakes up in a different world everyday and i raised them both so i don't know but that person is wrong in not contacting you right away.it is stressful to deal with those kind..

Two people will react differently to the same situation, ctry, simply because their priorities are different. I like to believe that most people attend to business affairs in a timely fashion(barring unforeseen circumstances). As to the one person not immediately responding to your email, there could be any number of reasons. I know that I sometimes get caught up on a site for much longer than I intended(usually playing a game), and that leads me to neglect what I should be doing. I hope that you will soon get a response from the person you are waiting to hear from.

You do what you do simply because you are who you are. That's the extremely simple answer. Everyone is different, therefor everyone reacts differently to a situation. I wouldn't say it's a product of our upbringing simply because you don't react the same way as your mother or father or sister or brother or whoever was around when you were being brought up. I'm sure you don't. I know I don't anyway. I just think we're individuals and we all act differently. for the good or the bad.

I think it's a little of both. I would never want to be like my parents (they raised me) who were very abusive but, I think the fact that they abused me so badly has attributed to my personality now. My goal in life is to help others.

After a person becomes an adult I don't think that surrounding or up bring has any thing to do wit how people end up behaveing. You can take two people that are raised exactly the same, Warm loving environment and you will have one turn out nice and the other a total jerk. You are what you decided to be. It really doesn't matter what your background is once you reach adulthood. You make choices about how to treat everyone then. Nice thoughtfull people are nice and thoughtfull because they decide to be this way. A jerk makes the decission to be a jerk and blam it on their upbringing but they can choose to change too.

I happen to think that we are more heavily influenced by our genetics than most people think. Our genetics influence how our body's chemicals and hormones mix and fuel our way of thinking and acting. So, we all act about as differently as we are genetically different from each other. However, upbringing and life experiences can have an affect on our chemical make-up and behavior as well. Certain genetic tendencies can dictate how well you adapt and change to certain situations. That is, for example, why some people seem happy no matter how bad their situation is and why others are depressed by every little setback. It doesn't mean we can't change our behavior. It is actually in our genes to self-actualize and be conscious of how we are thinking and acting.

Well upbringing certainly plays a part in our behaviour but ultimately it’s the individuals capacity to evaluate situations and interpret it according to personal conveniences. Basically parents everywhere in the world teach their children to be well-behaved, polite, courteous and so on, specially to strangers. During our growing years we try and act according to these values yet the many pitfalls of life’s journey teaches us how to get up and move on and more importantly how to avoid such dangers in future. So we become less proactive and more introspective instead. That is not to say that the person who has not replied is having second thoughts…maybe that person’s lesson from life is to go slow in every response, wait till you are sure that you want to respond back. Or maybe that person thinks it as a wastage of time to response to an obvious mail. Another thing which I firmly believe in is the impact of sunsign on our behavioral pattern. People of different sunsigns react differently to identical situations and upbringing does little to change their inborn instincts. Upbringing can polish our behaviour to some extent, but ultimately we will be what we are born as.

I definately think that our upbringing is key to who we are as adults as well as our experiences..I KNOW that all I've been through in life and all the things I've seen, done, the ppl I've hung with, places I've lived and traveled to etc etc all of it has been a huge factor in the person I am today..As a teen my childhood was a huge factor in who I was and how I reacted etc..

It's all nature vs. nuture. To be honest, everyone is a product of both nature, which is genetics, and nuture, which is learned behavior. If you have a whole family of women that are pretty submissive, it's probably genetic and learned behavior because they see their mom doing it all the time. If one child breaks away from that mold, that because they don't want to act that way anymore because they see how that affects those around them. So, really you'll get people on both sides of the fence, claiming that nature works more than nuture, or vice versa, but really, it's a combination of both.

I believe it is a combination of both. If you were brought up to have manners, chances are you use manners. But if you live in a society where manners are not used, chances are when you are out, you won't use any manners even if you were taught manners at home.The problem these days is that manners are not being taught period.Most are so self involved that they don't even know that they are being rude.

I think it also has to do with the way we were raised.Some people think ok i can respond later and some think no i'm gonna reply immediately. That's also why people are different just like when one reacts very different when he's angry than the other.Or when someone does not agree with you is very polite but the other is screaming and very agressive.It's just how they are.Where did it come from?Maybe from the parents maybe from friends maybe it always have been there inside the person since birth.Ofcourse sometimes life can make you the way you are now.If you have been trhough a lot of emotional things you act different then before those things happened.

Kids can only learn what they are taught. After that they take what they are taught and live by it. Later, they figure out what works best for them. If you don't teach consideration, they won't learn it and thereby not use it. Until one day, they figure it out... maybe. Problem is that many don't want to learn and don't know that they can change!

I think this is a very broad thing. I mean, even among siblings, or twins, you cannot find people who react similar in situations. Twins are tend to raise the same way more than other brothers and sisters. But even they act different. I think it has something to do with genes. That's the beauty of humans. No two people are alike in anyway. Our reactions for situations might sometimes depend on the way we were brought up, the company we keep and our neighbourhood also for that matter. But people who are in the same surroundings also act differently and it is impossible to find a reason. So, there is no way to know how a person would react in a given situation beforehand and we have to accept that fact. I personally think this is the best way cos otherwise it would be boring and we would be like robots.

Hmmm. With my bad history, I'm not sure what I want to say here. I think that our experiences shape us, but that we also have a personality that is uniquely ours as well. As far as upbringing, I know there are a lot of things I don't know because of my lack of any proper upbringing. I'm not good at social interactions. I don't understand certain social rules. However, I still do my best to be nice to others and polite, which no one really expects considering my history. :P

It's both, upbringing, and experience of living. I noticed as a youth I chose to react differently to situations than I do now, as when I was younger, I did as I knew, as example and familiar had taught me... then as I got older, and more mature, I recognized that I was choosing different behavior and reaction differently according to what I had learned about myself, others, and the way the world behaves. I also learned what works, and doesn't work, as I have had the opportunity to apply, trial and error. As I find my self, seek my own goals, the way of my family and those that were my example as a youth, I became aware that to aquire my goals, I had to think and behave differently.

The majority of our personality is formed before we are even talking well, so you could say that a lot of it is genetic. The rest is from the world around us. Not just our families but what we see on the tube as little kids and what we hear from everyone that is bigger than us. It is very difficult to change once we are formed. You really have to work at it and I truely think there are some personality traits that can never be changed. That is what you are really talking about here. The way we react to situations is a part of our personality. By the way this is Psych 101.