Addictive behaviors and personality disorders Research Paper

Addictive behaviors and personality disorders - Research Paper Example Similarly, the person’s environment on his or her childhood largely affects the formation of his or her personality. What the child sees in the environment and how this environment treats him or her determine the child’s personality. Childhood experience is considered as the foundation of one’s personality. The gravity of the effect of childhood experience on the child’s personality is not immediately perceptible. It is generally in the adulthood that the totality of the person’s personality manifests. Positive childhood experiences may give a person good behaviour and attitude. On the other hand, negative childhood experiences may create a personality disorder on the person. Between the two, the latter receives more attention from the public because it does not conform to the norm of the society. It is of utmost concern to the experts how a bad childhood experience creates a personality disorder. A very common example of this is the tendency of a person to exhibit an addictive personality and is often associated with childhood experience. Many studies have shown that indeed childhood experiences may create addictive personality. Addiction is defined as the dependency of a person on object, such as drugs and alcohol, or on action like gambling and having sex (Juzwiak 4). Moreover, a person who is prone to be easily addicted is said to have an addictive personality. Understanding addictive personality is a complex task that requires a much deeper analysis on the person’s social behaviour and intellectual well-being. It is believed that one way to understand addictive personality is to study its cause. That is to study the history of the person with addictive personality. Many experts believe that an addictive personality is largely caused by the person’s childhood experience. For instance, the results of the recent study performed by the University of Cambridge shows that people with drug dependence have more troubled childhoods