How Can Family Function And Personality Traits Impact Your Well-Being?
Are people shaped more by the experiences they have in their families of origin or by individual personality traits like extraversion and openness? This may be one of the oldest questions in psychology, and researchers are still far from a complete answer. However, current evidence suggests that both personal characteristics and family dynamics likely play significant roles in driving an individual’s habits, life choices, and mental health. In this article, we’ll explore how these two major types of influence interact in the process of psychological development.
Researchers have found that both family influences and core personality traits can affect long-term outcomes, including career success, academic achievement, mental well-being, and satisfaction with life. There may also be overlapping effects, like the way negative familial dynamics can promote neurotic personality traits. Despite the strong effects of negative childhood experiences, it may be possible to modify your personality traits in desirable ways, even as an adult. Therapy can often facilitate this process.
Family function and adult well-being
Since psychology’s earliest days as an empirical science, researchers and clinicians have explored the idea that familial factors in childhood can affect a person’s long-term mental health. Our parents and siblings typically offer some of our first social interactions and our earliest examples of behavior, and the habits we form in response may persist throughout our lives.
In contemporary psychological research, this idea is often expressed using the concept of “family function” (sometimes called “family functioning”). Family function generally refers to how well the existing dynamics within a family enable its members to communicate, fulfill responsibilities, address problems, find emotional support, and achieve necessary independence. This concept can be complex and difficult to precisely measure, but many researchers attempt to assess it using a variety of psychometric questionnaires, such as the following:
- Family Assessment Device
- Assessment of Strategies in Families-Effectiveness
- Family Functioning Health and Social Support
- Family Adaptability and Cohesion Evaluation Scales
- Brief Family Assessment Measure-III
- Family Relationship Index
- Iceland Expressive Family Functioning
- Family APGAR
Many studies suggest that the functionality of a person’s family of origin can influence a person’s later success and well-being. These effects may be seen most clearly in cases of extreme dysfunction, such as childhood abuse or neglect, which can contribute to mental health disorders like depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, and psychosis.
Personality traits and life outcomes
While family roles and interactions can have a large impact on how a person approaches life, research suggests that individual personality traits play a significant role as well.
There are many ways of categorizing different features of someone’s personality, but the one most commonly employed in personality psychology is usually the “Big Five” model. This approach identifies five distinct qualities that can vary from person to person and may affect many other aspects of their thinking, emotions, and behavior:
- Openness to experience: The degree to which an individual is motivated to explore new ideas, situations, relationships, and experiences
- Conscientiousness: The degree to which an individual tends to be prepared, organized, diligent, prompt, and detail-oriented
- Extraversion: The degree to which an individual is socially outgoing, assertive, talkative, and energized by interpersonal interactions
- Agreeableness: The degree to which an individual tends to help, trust, get along with, care for, and cooperate with others
- Neuroticism: The degree to which an individual frequently experiences stress, worry, mood shifts, and negative emotions, as well as their level of difficulty in recovering emotionally from difficult experiences
Psychology doesn’t yet fully understand where these traits originate. Studies suggest that they can’t be fully explained by family factors like parenting style, nor are they completely genetically determined.
It’s also possible for the Big Five to change over time — a personality trait like curiosity could become stronger or weaker based on life experiences. Repeated research findings suggest that these traits can influence many of the same important life outcomes as family function.
Some evidence indicates that other personality traits besides the Big Five may also have significant influences on well-being and life course. For instance, a proposed sixth trait called “honesty-humility” may have substantial effects on interpersonal relationships and work performance.
Interactions between family function and personality traits
In real-world settings, personality characteristics and family dynamics don’t usually develop in isolation. Relationships with parents, children, and siblings can affect the way an individual understands and responds to the world. At the same time, a child’s emerging traits may influence family interactions, as can their parents’ personalities. For instance, a 2017 article reported that both neuroticism and conscientiousness in parents could impact family cohesion.
Research into these complex interactions is beginning to untangle the ways that family function and personality traits may modify each other’s effects on life course outcomes.
One study from 2020 examined how Big Five traits (based on a measure called the Revised NEO Personality Inventory) and family relational health influenced a psychological measure known as “general self-efficacy.” Among other things, the researchers found that poor family function usually led to lower scores on the General Self-Efficacy Scale by increasing levels of neuroticism.
Self-efficacy generally refers to a person's belief in their ability to positively affect their circumstances, and it is often considered a powerful predictor of mental health.
In addition to predicting general self-efficacy, interactions between familial and personality factors may influence a person’s long-term happiness. A 2021 paper reported that although children with high conscientiousness typically achieve greater long-term life satisfaction, this effect may be canceled out if they experience parental divorce and its associated stressors. On the other hand, the authors found that individuals with high emotional stability and low neuroticism may be more resilient in the face of harsh or inconsistent parenting.
These findings may need to be replicated before firm conclusions can be drawn. However, they can offer a glimpse of the complicated ways that family and personality influences can intertwine in an individual’s development.
Overcoming the negative effects of family dysfunction on personality
As noted above, experiencing challenging family dynamics during childhood can have adverse effects on personality development. People who didn’t receive enough emotional support, independence, or care from their family members when they were young may have higher levels of traits like neuroticism, which can make it harder to achieve success and happiness.
While there’s generally not much you can do about your childhood experiences, personality factors may be more malleable. Here are a few ways you may be able to shift your attitudes and habits in the desired direction:
“Fake it ‘til you make it”
A 2019 experiment found that people were able to modify their scores on personality inventories by performing weekly “challenges” in which they acted like someone with the trait they desired. For example, people who wanted to be more extroverted did things like talking to strangers or asking people questions about themselves.
Practice meditation
Studies suggest that training in mindfulness — the quality of relaxed, nonjudgmental attention found in experienced meditators — may reduce neuroticism.
Mindfulness may also increase openness to experience. A daily mindfulness meditation practice might help you experience greater acceptance and happiness.
Work with a therapist
In addition to helping directly with challenges like anxiety, stress, and depression, psychotherapy may also address personality concerns. A systematic review from 2017 found that individuals in therapy often experience improvements in emotional stability and extraversion.
Another trial replicated this result and noted increased openness to experience and reduced neuroticism in individuals following treatment for anxiety disorders.
If you’re not sure you can make time for therapy, attending sessions online may be more convenient and can allow for easier scheduling. Since you can attend sessions from the convenience of your home, you may find it easier to incorporate mental health care into your regular routine.
Psychological research increasingly confirms the benefits of online mental health care. For example, a 2017 review paper reported that internet cognitive behavioral therapy (iCBT) for depression usually leads to both immediate and long-term reductions in symptoms. This type of treatment could potentially help you overcome the effects of adverse family experiences early in life.
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