Just another day.
New member
Can the environment change a person a lot? Can the environment change a person from positive, optimistic, friendly to negative, cold and rough. can you change back?
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Can the environment change a person?
- Thread starter Just another day.
- Start date
Human beings are exceptionally reactive to the environment they're in. In fact, something as seemingly meaningless as the color of the room you're in can (and has been scientifically proven to) change your mood in as little as 90 seconds. Being in a scary, intimidating, invalidating, or otherwise negative environment can make a person react in a negative way, and change the way they interact with their environment as a means to protect themselves.
For example, a person who is raised by caregivers who are physically and/or emotionally abusive will often become distant, cold, or even abusive themselves because they learned that the only way to protect themselves was to either act like it didn't hurt them, or to hurt back. People who are incarcerated for periods of time also often become "hardened" by the system - they become mean, cruel, vicious, and dishonest because those are adaptive traits that help you survive in those conditions.
But if you put that emotionally abused person in a loving, friendly, warm environment where their feelings were validated and they felt cared for, eventually they might be able to drop their guard because they would realize that they don't have to "protect" themselves from their environment anymore. With the right love and attention a person can definitely change from one to the other, it's just a matter of them realizing they are safe and do not have to adapt to such terrible conditions.
So much of our emotions and behaviors are survival based, even if we don't think of them as being that way. That's why it's so hard for people who lived in negative conditions to "bounce back" and adjust to living a good life sometimes, like abused children, foster kids, etc. - they get so used to having to protect themselves, and it takes a lot of time and help for them to unlearn that protective instinct. At our most primal, we want to survive, and we will learn any way of doing that, be it physical or emotional.
For example, a person who is raised by caregivers who are physically and/or emotionally abusive will often become distant, cold, or even abusive themselves because they learned that the only way to protect themselves was to either act like it didn't hurt them, or to hurt back. People who are incarcerated for periods of time also often become "hardened" by the system - they become mean, cruel, vicious, and dishonest because those are adaptive traits that help you survive in those conditions.
But if you put that emotionally abused person in a loving, friendly, warm environment where their feelings were validated and they felt cared for, eventually they might be able to drop their guard because they would realize that they don't have to "protect" themselves from their environment anymore. With the right love and attention a person can definitely change from one to the other, it's just a matter of them realizing they are safe and do not have to adapt to such terrible conditions.
So much of our emotions and behaviors are survival based, even if we don't think of them as being that way. That's why it's so hard for people who lived in negative conditions to "bounce back" and adjust to living a good life sometimes, like abused children, foster kids, etc. - they get so used to having to protect themselves, and it takes a lot of time and help for them to unlearn that protective instinct. At our most primal, we want to survive, and we will learn any way of doing that, be it physical or emotional.
M
Mattynoonan
Guest
yea of course it can
Jimmy Page
New member
Yes - anything about an environment can change a person. For example, your room color can affect your personality whether you think about it or not. Also, a clean, organized room means a clear mind.