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Maybe Munchkin means that a person's essential character doesn't change...
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In fact, I had a respected psychologist and researcher tell me the same thing - that by your mid 20s, your character was pretty much set. The changes that took place from there, according to him, were more in the line of refining and expanding upon certain character traits.
I was interviewing him for some story I was working on at the time (I used to be a medical news producer at CNN - and we got onto this discussion of changing one's nature. I asked him how someone could, for example, overcome shyness.
He said that seriously hard work at learning social skills could do it, but that it would only change outward behaviors. An introvert would not turn into an extrovert. Instead, he would be an introvert who forces himself to interect frequently with others.
However, as an aside, he did say that in fact somewhat more profound changes could be made with the use of medications, such as ADD drugs or antidepressants. He said that the best treatment, in his opinion, for shyness (social anxiety disorder) is prozac, or other SSRIs.
I think, however, that even if one's basic nature does not change with a little medical assistance - the various ways in which your core personality can be expressed is vast.
Having had many conversations with homeless folk - I know that some of them used to be successful, but dropped out and gave up when times got hard.
Thus, a bum is not necessarily born to be a bum. Rather, one might have the potential for bumness, but that may or may not manifest depending upon various circumstances.
Rather than nature vs. nurture, think of it as nature and nurture interacting.
I have also talked to former homeless folk who were holding steady jobs. If their nature did not change, surely the day-to-day expression of their character had changed, as evidenced by their change in life circumstance.