No access

Article

Published Online: August 1957

IS THE HUMAN PERSONALITY MORE PLASTIC IN INFANCY AND CHILDHOOD?

IAN STEVENSONAuthors Info & Affiliations

Publication: American Journal of Psychiatry

Volume 114, Number 2

https://doi.org/10.1176/ajp.114.2.152

Get Access

Abstract

The article reviews data, much of rather recent origin, bearing on the assumption that human personality is more plastic in infancy and childhood than in adulthood. The available data permit the following conclusions:

l. We have no compelling evidence of a predictable relationship between child training practices and later personality.

2. Severe psychological stresses can have as marked effects in adulthood as in infancy and childhood, sometimes having greater effects in adulthood than in childhood.

3. Important personality changes occur after childhood (in the absence of treatment) including the disappearance of marked psychological disorders.

4. Infants reared according to ostensibly ideal methods of infant care show no greater immunity to mental illness than do other children reared differently. Infants reared under apparently inadequate or harmful circumstances do not necessarily develop psychological disorders.

5. Resemblances between patterns of behavior in children and adults can be explained without the hypothesis of a special impressionability or vulnerability of personality in childhood.

6. The initial immobility and the prolonged physical dependency of children upon adults places them at a special disadvantage in that they cannot readily change their environments to obtain new experiences. A lack of new experiences may give to the personality a pattern which appears more fixed than it really is.

The assumption that the human personality is more plastic in infancy and childhood than in adulthood remains unproven. Neither is it disproven. We need much further research in this area and this research may eventually show that the human personality is more plastic during childhood in some respects, but not in others.

Get full access to this article

View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.

Get Access

Information & Authors

Information

Published In

American Journal of Psychiatry

Volume 114 • Number 2 • August 1957

Pages: 152 - 161

PubMed: 13444481

History

Published in print: August 1957

Published online: 1 April 2006

Authors

Details

IAN STEVENSON

Dept. of Psychiatry and Neurology, School of Medicine, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Va.

View all articles by this author

Metrics & Citations

Metrics

Citations

Export Citations

If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.

For more information or tips please see 'Downloading to a citation manager' in the Help menu.

Format	RIS (ProCite, Reference Manager) EndNote BibTex Medlars RefWorks
Direct importt
Citation style
Style

Copy to clipboard
Tips for downloading citations

View Options

Login options

Already a subscriber? Access your subscription through your login credentials or your institution for full access to this article.

Personal login Institutional Login Open Athens login

Purchase Options

Purchase this article to access the full text.

PPV Articles - American Journal of Psychiatry

Not a subscriber?

Subscribe Now / Learn More

PsychiatryOnline subscription options offer access to the DSM-5-TR^® library, books, journals, CME, and patient resources. This all-in-one virtual library provides psychiatrists and mental health professionals with key resources for diagnosis, treatment, research, and professional development.

Need more help? PsychiatryOnline Customer Service may be reached by emailing [email protected] or by calling 800-368-5777 (in the U.S.) or 703-907-7322 (outside the U.S.).

IS THE HUMAN PERSONALITY MORE PLASTIC IN INFANCY AND CHILDHOOD?

Abstract

Get full access to this article