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Part One Personal Development
Together, your heredity and environment
shape your personality. They determine how
you deal with the challenges, successes,
and frustrations you meet in your
daily life. Much of your future will
be determined by the decisions you
make as you balance these factors.
Because of their importance, these
two factors will be discussed in
more depth in later chapters.
Your Growth
Adolescence is a time of growth
and change. It is a time for leaving
childhood behind and becoming
an adult. Although growth is usually
measured in terms of age, height, and
weight, people actually grow in six different
areas. They grow chronologically, physically,
intellectually, emotionally, socially, and philosophically.
Each person grows at a unique pace, 1-3. For
instance, one person’s physical growth may be slow
while intellectual growth is rapid. Another person’s
physical growth may be rapid while intellectual growth
is slow. The possible variations in growth rates are
endless. The term growth pattern is used to describe the
unique way a person grows. People’s growth patterns
and their responses to their growth patterns affect their
personality development.
Chronological Growth
Everyone ages at the same chronological rate. You
grow older every minute and every day. Chronological
age is determined at birth and cannot be altered. You add
another year to your age with each calendar year.
Physical Growth
A person’s physical growth follows the same general
pattern from childhood through adulthood. Changes
in physical growth may happen at different times for
different people, but the sequence or order of the basic
changes will be similar.
Geneticist
Geneticists study the science
of heredity and variation of
organisms. Some geneticists
perform experiments and
analyze data to better under-
stand the inheritance of traits.
1-2
Your peers, or people
in your age group, are part
of your environment. They
infl uence your personality
development.