Comments on: Personality

By: Anne C.

Anne C. — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 00:23:26 +0000

It seems that you are worrying about a symptom of a problem, rather than the problem itself. The problem being: the value placed by society on a personality trait. Because there are other symptoms of this problem besides medication. There is, primarily, the ostracizing and devaluation of people with “unproductive” traits.
I don’t know where we are in finding a solution to the problem. There seems to be the beginnings of an awareness that there is a problem (the Dove advertising campaign about the different expressions of feminine beauty, for example) but it has yet to translate from value placed on physical traits to value placed on emotional or intellectual traits. (They are still depending on standardized test to evaluate students, for goodness’ sake. Ridiculous!)

And I honestly do not see society becoming more homogeneous. I think the capitalistic society has figured out that there is more money to be made in conflict and competition (Mac vs. PC… whichever one you have, the other side is nutso!) than there is in forcing everyone to buy the same thing and act the same way.
Society is increasingly more polarized. Fortunately, that allows a lot of cracks for moderates and independents to be as they wish to be.

By: Michelle

Michelle — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 23:15:06 +0000

So here were my concerns.

If we start treating introversion as something to be “fixed” and medicating solely on that basis, does it then become something parents can medicate their kids for?

What if they discover a drug to cure being an asshole? Is that something that should be prescribed? Is it something that parents can medicate their kids for?

I guess I’m concerned by the idea of medicating people for something that isn’t a problem, with the aim of creating a heterogeneous society. I mean, when my mom was little, her teachers thought that being left-handed was something that needed to be corrected and changed.

There are some things that are problems, and some things that aren’t. How do we determine what really is a problem that needs to be fixed with medication?

By: MWT

MWT — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 22:29:27 +0000

I’d think it’d be entirely up to the patient what they want to do with their personality. If they dislike being introverted and ask the doctor to help with that, sure, why not? The important thing is whether the patient likes the end result. Sounds like you (Michelle) do (if that is indeed what the drug does), so what’s the problem? ;)

By: Anne C.

Anne C. — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 20:08:45 +0000

I’m skeptical about the supposed personality change aspect.
It seems that depression leads to a greater degree of introversion (after all, extroversion takes effort and energy that depression saps from you). So in order to evaluate a reduction in natural introversion, you would have to be able to distinguish natural introversion from depression induced introversion.

Besides, in my experience, personality is not a completely fixed thing. Mine changes based on how I feel, what kind of experiences I’ve had lately, alignment of the constellations (just kidding). Sure, there’s a basic core which generally has an introverted aspect but I’ve learned in the last decade that extroverted periods really help my general mood (even when I’m not with people afterward).

By: Steve Buchheit

Steve Buchheit — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 18:25:31 +0000

It really depends on if the drugs will be prescribed for side effects, such as if someone isn’t depressed, but is introverted and the doctor prescribes paxil to alter that. Then, I think, we’ve crossed a line. That people who are prescribed anti-depressants and (hopefully) are no longer depressed and so don’t suffer from the symptoms (which can include a desire to be by oneself and, at least for me, mood swings) sounds like the drugs are doing their job and relieving the patient of their symptoms. Now, this info can be used correctly, as my doctor prescribed me wellbutrin because it’s one of the few antidepressants that doesn’t stimulate appetite (since I’m seeing him to lose weight/stave off diabetes). So if doctors use this info to say, “Okay, well, you’re not normally extroverted so we shouldn’t prescribe this for you” or “if this starts happening, you need to tell us and we’ll adjust your medication.”

By: Shawn Powers

Shawn Powers — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 03:58:38 +0000

I too don’t think a change in ‘version makes for a personality change. I think it’s rather a person’s comfort level with expressing their personality, if that makes sense. If an introvert is a jerk, few people might know it. If that same person moves toward extroversion — he’s still a jerk, just more people know it. So perhaps Paxil has the side effect of changing the perception of a person’s personality, but the their actual personality.

I’m tired, that may not have made any sense. :)

By: Tom

Tom — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 14:27:01 +0000

I would think just alleviating depression would be a personality change. Just ask that singer, Morrissey (?) if depression is a personality trait. So what is “normal” as a level to return to for someone who is regularly depressed? A bit of extroversion might be where the “normal” line is drawn.

As to treating someone for introversion, I think that would depend on whether both the patient and the doctor consider the introversion “not normal,” their decision, not ours.

I don’t think I’m normally depressed, though I do have bouts, but a bit of introversion alleviation might have helped my in the past. So, I wonder. Which, I think, is the point of your questions. I wonder, but I don’t really know. Thanks for making me think. :)