How does your personality from the past compare to your behaviors today? Do you believe that the basic principles of our personality come directly from our genes, or is your personality shaped through your experiences?
The section about temperament and babies' emotional styles was particularly interesting to me. I had no idea that a baby's social and emotional behavior is so largely genetic in origin. It says in our book that most infants' basic personality styles emerge almost immediately after birth. Environmental factors can play a role, but mostly come into effect later on. This makes sense, because obviously, as newly-borns, infants start with zero environmental influence (apart from intrauterine experiences).
This relates directly to me, because I had a very different personality as a baby than I do now. I have heard many horror stories of myself as a youngster, torturing my parents with screams of my demands that they could not understand. Apparently my attitude was so bad that my uncle became scared of me and never wanted to have a girl after spending the day with me. I stayed this way until I could walk and talk with ease, when I could get what I wanted myself, and tell others what they needed to be doing. Clearly, I was all about control as a child.
I'd like to think that I am very different from the difficult child I used to be, and therefore also support that people grow, learn, and change from their experiences. Of course, young infants have little or no experience, in which case genetic factors play most of the role, but as you gain more experience, so does your personality and your attitude.
Cute picture! And interesting topic! I seem different from you. I am always a happy girl in general from early age (as my mum told me) until now. Probably there are some exceptions. :) And I think my personality really has some small changes as I experience a lot during my way to grow up. All in all, nice job. And thank you for sharing your interesting story of your infancy:)