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Study Says Your Personality Doesn't Change After 1st Grade
A study authored by Christopher Nave, a doctoral candidate at the University of California, says that our personalities stay pretty much the same from early childhood all the way through old age. From the article: "Using data from a 1960s study of approximately 2,400 ethnically diverse schoolchildren (grades 1 - 6) in Hawaii, researchers compared teacher personality ratings of the students with videotaped interviews of 144 of those individuals 40 years later. They examined four personality attributes - talkativeness (called verbal fluency), adaptability (cope well with new situations), impulsiveness and self-minimizing behavior (essentially being humble to the point of minimizing one's importance)." This must explain my overriding need to be first captain when we pick kickball teams at the office.
took acid later in life?
The problem with slashdot is that most of its users were bullied and stuffed into lockers as kids!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I distinctly remember my Second Grade class and how much I preferred to be alone. We had group reading assignments but I didn't enjoy them, nor did I enjoy many other group activities. In Fifth grade I had a psychological assessment (for Gifted/Advanced students, but I was nothing special). The report, which I read many years later, said that I was quiet, quite shy, but had exceptional command of language, and so on. This was before autism was readily diagnosed, and I suspect that had I been tested 15 years later, I would be labeled mildy autistic.
In college, though I was involved in many groups, I still preferred to run off by myself. Fast forward 20 years and it's still the same. I'm involved in a sports team, clubs, etc., but it's almost as if I'm pretending. I do the team activities, give talks, am involved in film making (one of the most extroverted activities I can imagine). People tell me that I am a great speaker and they feel that I relate well, but even to this day I approach conversations in a methodical way: listen, confirm understanding, ask questions, repeat. This pretense is precisely because I enjoy being alone and I found it much easier to pretend to be well-adjusted and sociable than to just tell everyone how I really felt.
It's sad that introverts have to pretend to be extroverts to get by in so many situations. You're not maladjusted or broken just because you don't want to be surrounded by people at all times, despite what people might say. I'm a strong introvert (I don't hate being around people, it just drains me) but I love giving speeches or acting because it lets me bring my thoughts and emotions out in a way that doesn't directly involve interaction with others. At the end of the day, nothing makes me happier than getting the hell out of the office where everyone and everything is clamoring for my attention and reading a book or playing a game of chess with a stranger online.
If you're looking for a good read, I'd like to recommend Introvert Power by Laurie Helgoe. It is a self-help book but it provides some very interesting insights into how you operate, it will make you feel a bit better about it as well as offer ideas on how to deal with the rest of the world. The short version is this: introverts make up approximately half the world's population, setting up a quiet space in your home will go a long way (earplugs work wonders at home and the office, seriously), and it's okay to stay home instead of go out.
They say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but it's not one half so bad as a lot of ignorance. - Terry Pratchett
Yes, but.... as the (by far) oldest of a family of 7 kids (12 years between me and my closest sibling, 29 years between me and the youngest one), I have some experience in this area myself. The thing with your insight about the anxiety of the new parent being useless is that there are also a fair number of studies which show that birth order DOES make a difference in the personality of children. I think there is plenty of room to wonder whether the lessening anxiety you describe (like the old joke... first kid, the pacifier falls on the floor, you sterilize it before giving it back; 2nd kid, you rinse it off then stick it back in his mouth; 3rd kid's lucky if you wipe it off before you give it back) does have a significant impact in how the child develops.