How many times have we heard phrases like "People do not 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 the personality has an innate and a learned part, so there are traits that remain and others that can adapt. In this Psychology-Online article we delve into this interesting topic and we will solve the following question: Can people change or not?
Rosenberg and Rovland (1960) attempted to give meaning to the term attitude by formulating a tripartite model very similar to the rational emotive theory of Ellis, because, before an attitudinal stimulus, three different types of answer:
- 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 a evaluative dimension that is based on three kinds 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 carry out (our behaviors) are preceded by cognitive and emotional factors and are therefore part of a single expression, the 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 endowed with instincts, but we can never provoke the abolition or suppression of everything that we were endowed with by millions of years of evolution phylogenetics. We are compelled to a healthy social adaptation.
Carl G. Jung (1960) “To have an attitude is to be willing to do a certain thing, even if it is unconscious; which means: to have a priori a direction towards a determined end, represented or not. The disposition that is for me the attitude always consists in the presence of a certain subjective constellation, a certain combination of factors or psychic contents that determine this or that direction of the activity or this or that interpretation of the stimulus external".
In the following article you will find more information about reasons why people change their attitudes.
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 later lead to behavior for or against the stimulus; emotions and reasoning are built but they are also inherited; We are predisposed to present with greater frequency and intensity some emotions and ideas without any reinforcement. Just as our social learning fuels or turns off certain attitudes, so does our genetic inheritance.
It was previously 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 yes we can learn new adaptation mechanisms.
We believe that we change our way of being, that is, we change attitudes (ways of thinking, feeling and acting); and many times the idea of some change in our attitude scares others more than ourselves, because we are unconscious about these changes for the most part time (for example, suddenly we stop playing what entertained us as children, we abandon our toys, we no longer cry when mom leaves us alone in the school, we stop shortening the same way we did, we stop crying because we are abandoned, we bond differently, generally, as we said at the beginning some things cease to have priority in our life and others that did not before, become so).
We adapt because we need it. We need to adapt because it is our own context that demands it, 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 their conduct and on this they have formed a family with poor ties between their members. And added to all these disadvantages for the adolescent, she has not experienced the approach to a possible model external to their family that facilitates their social relationships (teachers, pedagogues, leaders or characters public). There are many possible consequences in the adolescent's attitude, but in this example we propose an irascible, promiscuous, provocative, uninhibited and carefree attitude that has facilitated the integration, adaptation and acceptance in certain groups that esteem this attitude, but that as it develops them its harmful effects also emerge, the corollary find a more adaptive way to relate despite her unconscious desires being other, despite her instincts. We change for the achievement of our ambitions.
Here you will find more information about how to change the way of being.
Perhaps some of us show distant attitudes, of strangeness, inhibition, complaining, distrust in ourselves and very complacent when we were going through adolescence. But these attitudes little by little were dissipated with the constant practice of others such as collaboration, trust and interest.
That change that people make over time develops thanks to the multiple experiences What have they had. As previously stated, 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 us impossible and therefore we make a change in it.
People change for love? I think that the changes in people when they are in a relationship are directed to what is shared in the article What is jealousy in psychology, but they do not arise for reasons very different from those previously proposed. The changes can be very varied and are not only directed to a scheme, but obviously they go from one pole to the other (from black to white or vice versa). Changes in a relationship can arise from known phases of infatuation, 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.
- Confidence: the changes are given by the trust that arises between the two people.
- External influence: social situations (for example, disapproval of people important to either of you).
- Personality disorders or some other type of psychopathology. In the following article you will find How to live with someone with a personality disorder.
This article is merely informative, in 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.
