Hypothetically (and not pleasant to think about), could a person's temperament be affected through violence. Could I take a calm temperament and shift it through harsh conditioning? Why I ask is if it could go one way, could it go another? Could a violent temperament potentially shift toward calm? Now, it could of course be argued that it is only 'behavioural' again but it would be impossible to tell, at least from the outside and potentially from the inside too. I am nt sure if I explained that well but I reckon you will understand enough.
You are viewing a single comment's thread from:
When I am saying temperament I am thinking largely genetic components, things like being fussy/calm. A blow to the head can lead to a permanent change, taking out the part of you that inhibits impulses for example. A harsh upbringing can build wiring differently (People with PTSD often have hair trigger perception, and they also respond differently to their impulses) I am curious about "permanent" changes due to the environment. But harsh conditioning as in mind control is overkill, you could brainwash someone much more easily with just getting them to change the stories they tell themselves.
It depends on what temperament means. But I'm sure you can make a previously calm person a jumpy nervous wreck by exposing them to the right circumstances. It happens to soldiers and civilians in wars all the time.
It it routinely done in psychiatric hospitals nowadays.
But if you define temperament as genetic predisposition active in crucial developmental stages, then a change of temperament is obviously impossible because by that predisposition is a historical fact: the development of temperament may have had an epigenetic component. (Epigenetics is the study of the effects of changes in gene expression rather than the genetic code itself.)