Ageing: 4. Nurture and nature in behaviour

A person’s individuality or their degree of maturity does not develop in isolation or solely because of genetic inheritances. They also require the appropriate environment (system, community, family, organization or group) with which to identify and set standards of behaviour. The nature versus nurture debate on the determinants of behaviour is of course, as yet unresolved.

People’s behaviours are regulated by certain implicit theories of action created and carried in mind. Individual propensities may in fact be modified or altered in the presence of others in the life space, and because of beliefs and attitudes formed in the process of growing up.

The social reinforcements may be positive, that is, pleasure-giving like the ‘carrot’. Or negative that, like the ‘stick’, is fear instilling. One acquires knowledge by observing or entering the social drama, recognizing the rules, and the roles others play; playing by rules and enacting roles others can recognize.

Although theory and action are related, their interrelationship is by no means direct each time. Two differing theories may contribute to a particular action occurring in a particular situation:

• First, the theory-in-use that comprises tacit structures governing actual behaviour. They contain assumptions about self, others and environment built through experience.
• Second, the espoused theory providing the justification of action through the words we use to convey what we do, or what we would like others to think we do.

In fact, there is generally a split between theory (what people say) and activity (what they do) in response to the pressures of social norms.

In the 1980s, Costa and McCrae created the Big Five model of personality traits, also known simply as the acronym OCEAN, which could explain the dynamic interplay. From effects identified in several behavioural actions, the “big five” are:

1. Openness to experience (or openness to ideas or culture): People who score high on this factor tend to be curious, speculative, imaginative and sometimes unrealistic. People who score low on this factor tend down-to-earth, practical and sometimes resistant to change.

2. Conscientiousness: People who score high on this factor are usually structure orientated: disciplined, single tasking and conventionally productive. People who score low on this factor may be more flexible, inventive, and comfortable with multitasking.

3. Extraversion: People who score high on this factor are gregarious, materialistic, and practical; take initiative in social action and in excitement seeking. People who score low on this factor prefer individual work, may be perceived as distant, unapproachable, even eccentric.

4. Agreeableness: Those who score high on this factor are usually people-orientated, cooperative, submissive, and concerned with the well being of others. People who score low on this factor can be challenging, competitive, and also argumentative.

5. Neuroticism (or inversely emotional stability): People who score high on this factor are alert, but tend to think too much of impending danger, with feelings of insecurity and unresolved conflicts, proneness to anxiety, worry, stress, strain and guilt. People who score low on this factor usually think rationally but appear so calm and relaxed as to be perceived as lazy and unserious.

Studies indicate that these dispositional tendencies may significantly change in different circumstances, and thus influence behaviour. They may motivate improving work through learning, affect performance or dominance in social groups, and even contribute to the degree of accident proneness.

The enduring characteristic of personality is not that people behave in the same way in every situation, but that there is a degree of consistency in their approach to situations and contexts.

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