Essay on Personality Development Behavior Relative to Dominican Republic People

Introduction

Personality gets developed from behavior, which comes from habits. In its explanation, it means that our personalities can be affected by our culture, habits, and other external forces. Development of a character occurs from a young age, which reflects our future behavior. Bandura Social Learning Theory informs that we acquire personal traits through imitation, observation, and modeling from one another, (Bandura, 1977). It is the reason why people from the same community, who have lived with each other may portray similar personalities. Bandura goes ahead to state that behavior is picked from the environment observing what happens around us. It explains why children pick habits from the adult surrounding them (Bandura, 1961). In this paper, I am going to illustrate personality development behavior in relations to Dominican Republic People, as per Bandura's Social Learning Theory.

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According to a research carried out recently, in the comparison of the personality traits in the Dominican Republic to the other countries in North America the people are likely to have the following characteristics, they are more slightly extraverted, more intuitive, more feeling, more slightly prospecting and somewhat more turbulent. The research involved about 13, 699 respondents in the representation of an estimated population of 10, 478, 756. The social learning theory is critical to the understanding of the social dimension. The argument indicates that the Dominican people's behavioral traits get derived from their imitation, observation, and modeling.

The Dominican people identify themselves as being Dominican. The people in respect to the social dimension have gotten trained in the belief that the people's skin color dictates their social standing. The social learning theory is critical in the explanation of the way the people adopt the existing belief system from the time they are children getting socialized until they become adults. The belief herein is that the lighter in skin color, the better the social standing that an individual will hold in the Dominican Republic. In the socialization of the people, there is a cultural identity that fails to appreciate the people's African past whereby those with the dark skins get alienated or shunned. In the social dimension in the Dominican Republic, the culture in the individuals gets explained through the social learning theory. The personal behavior in the people comes from their observation, intuition, and imitation of others, for instance, although the Dominican Republic has the dominant population as the Blacks, the people refuse to accept the African past.

Albert Bandura in Bobo Doll Experiment, states that children pick up social behaviors such as aggression through observation in their everyday life. For instance, in the Dominican Republic, you will hear a man call a woman, 'Mi Amor' which translates to 'My Love,' even if they are total strangers. And the amazing factor is that no one takes it as sexual harassment. It is their way of life, which may have come from the way they get raised, observing other people behaving in such a way. In the Bobo Doll Experiment, Ross and Bandura (1961) 72 children, 36 girls and 36 boys, from the Nursery School aged 3-6 years in Stanford University, pretested n their aggressiveness and grouped into three sets of 24 children. The first 24 children get exposed to aggressiveness where a model acted violently towards a Bobo Doll. Another group of 24 children observed a more docile model while the other 24 didn't get to observe any of the models. Bandura succeeded in showing that children learn from their role models and thus the Dominican Republic people will use 'Mi Amor' without the intention of offending anyone. It happens because they have grown up observing the adults do the same, and it is their way of life (Bandura, 1961).

An alarming vice in the Dominican Republic is domestic violence, with so many cases going unreported because, it does not get considered as a crime, despite the strict laws against the vice. All this may come from the machismo of the Dominican Republic men, who believe they are conquerors of women and are highly aggressive. Children who grow up with abusive fathers may more or so adopt the aggressive behaviors. They are more likely to turn out like their father, especially because domestic violence cases go unreported. Bandura's Bobo Doll Experiment proved that girls are less likely to portray aggressive behaviors compared to boys. Even after being exposed to abusive habits, many male children will pick up the aggressive actions of their fathers. Reports indicate that 44% of 3400 women are victims of domestic violence even though it is hard to predict given that most cases go unreported.

Machismo in the Dominican Republic portrays itself even in workplaces, where men hold top positions. Women may go through sexual harassment since not even the laws protect women rights. The personal traits in the people integrate through imitation and observational learning, as per Bandura's theory. In most cases, sexual harassment cases will lead to the woman losing her job, and no action gets taken about the harassment case. Again in the Bobo Doll experiment, Bandura also suggests that the observer's behavior may be affected by how the community responds to aggressive and non-aggressive behaviors (Bandura, 1977). Some of the children in the experiment get to see the aggressive model get rewarded, while another group witnessed the model get punished. The actions herein may trigger personality development in that if the model gets a reward, it portrays that it is right to be aggressive or not. Human beings tend to copy what is 'right.' The fact that the domestic violence cases in the Dominican Republic do not get punished, instead the woman may choose to praise the man. The child observing all this is likely to adopt aggressive behavior since the child's role model accepts it.

According to Bandura's concept of reciprocal determinism, we behave the way we do as a result of the environment and behaviors. It is what makes our personality, a term Albert Bandura defines as the interaction between an individual, environment and the behavior, contrary to behaviorism approach that states environment causes one's behavior. The individual's characteristics, values, morals, and beliefs will affect the environment they will bring along. For example, Dominican people value machismo, but not everyone agrees with the behavior portrayed. Even though a child may get exposed to domestic violence, it is not a guarantee that the child will adopt those behaviors. The child may find it wrong, depending on the child's beliefs, values and personality. At the same time, the aggressiveness in domestic violence may cause the child to become violent in future and thus reciprocal determinism.

In relations to machismo, homosexuality is considered a social taboo in the Dominican Republic. Instead of sexual orientation, homosexuality is seen as weak and cowardice as men, in the Dominican Republic believe in having as many women as one can. It affects children who are gay but have gotten raised on the Island. Most of these people turn out to be in denial as the environment affects their personality as well as behaviors. They are made fun of and considered less masculine for being gay. In this case, reciprocal determinism gets portrayed in that the environment is causing the individual to repress their personality and instead, adopting a character where one cannot be who they are because of the social discrimination in the society.

Another case that proves reciprocal determinism is the legal system f a particular area. For instance, domestic violence is common in the Dominican Republic because even the legal system fails to address the matter strictly. Like in the Bobo Doll, if the law does not punish the perpetrators of domestic violence, it becomes a personality. People become what they are because of what they get exposed to in their life. Instead, the law in the Dominican Republic tends to bend when it is a female counterpart reporting domestic violence case. The law will see it as the woman provoked the male and thus nothing of difference is done to assist the victims.

Other than machismo in the Dominican Republic, other external forces help shape the personality of the people living on the Island. It could include how people dress in the Caribbean. For instance, given that the Caribbean island is hot, people dress in light clothing, with women wearing bright colored dresses. That's why it is easy to tell a Caribbean person in a new environment. How we dress, talk and behave highly depends on where we come from, as per Bandura's theory. If the environment is consistent, it is likely that our behaviors will be consistent throughout our lives.

The genetic factor of a person can also affect their personal development in that one may be aggressive merely because they have been born like that. For instance, the aggressiveness in the Dominican men has a basis on the biological and genetic factors. Studies suggest that it is not something that comes as a result of the social structure but more of biology. For instance, a Dominican man may get married to an American woman and give birth to a child who grows up to be violent, or irritable without watching anyone portray these behaviors. It can only get explained in biological behaviorism.

Bandura's Social Learning Theory depends on the four necessary conditions for modeling namely attention, retention, reproduction and motivation. Several factors should get considered to pay attention to the modeling, including an individual's characteristics and complexity of the exercise. For instance, in a classroom, different students will portray different capabilities with learning because a human being will pay attention to things that interest them. We, therefore, find that a particular student is excellent at one subject while the other one is not. A good illustration of this could be people in the Dominican Republic can swim or fish better than an American. The fact that the environment is consistent, the Dominican Republic people will find it easy to do some works related to the sea because after paying attention, they have retention capability.

When children are in transition into adulthood, they are likely to learn from the adults, particularly siblings, and guardian. Most parents will mind their language among young ones among other things. Young children develop their personality as they grow and tend to imitate what the adults around do. This proofs that human beings derive characteristics based on the environment, observational learning, and personal traits. As mentioned above, machismo has taken root in the Dominican Republic with males getting exposed to aggressiveness and women to violence. It is hard to change these traits since they have gotten practiced over the years and the children are used to that kind of life. Men are expected to be active and aggressive. Some of the children, however, have been taught to resist violence primarily if they get raised in a non-aggressive environment.

Conclusion

In conclusion, Bandura's theory of social learning, we develop personalities from the things we see through observation and imitation. We are likely to derive our personality traits from what we see and experience in day to day life. To prove this, Albert Bandura conducted the Bobo Doll Experiment that, despite being inconclusive, provided proof that children will adopt aggressiveness from observing aggressive behavior from other people as the children exposed to aggressive behavior tended to pick the habits. In a follow-up experiment, Bandura exposed the children to watch the aggres...