Hillary Clinton Personality a Person Cannot Develop

Hillary Clinton

Personality

A person cannot develop apart from what they were initially given and what happens to them on a day by day basis. The subject of this report is no different in that respect, but she is very different from most with regard to her ambition and life course. Hillary Clinton was the First Lady of the United States when her husband Bill Clinton was president from 1993 until early 2001. For eight years she had to play the part of devoted wife and sublimate her true self. This essay traces Secretary Clinton's development from a little girl in suburban Chicago, to the person who holds one of the most powerful positions on Earth.

Sulfaro (2007) notes that Hillary Clinton was a more polarizing figure, in many respects, than the First Lady who directly followed her and many of those who came before. Sulfaro's research did not indicate whether this was "because Americans holding traditional beliefs about gender roles found her activism threatening or because she simply was a more visible and legitimate target for members of the opposing political party." The fact is that she was and is a strong woman who seems to generate strong loyalty from her fans and strong feelings of dislike from detractors. The question is, from a developmental perspective, how did this occur?

Hillary was born in suburban Chicago to a homemaking mother and a textile firm manager (Shepard, 2009). Clinton's family was conservative politically, and that is how she was raised, but during her college years she began to question this allegiance. While working for the Republican national convention in 1964 she became disillusioned with the tactics of Richard Nixon and the underlying racist nature of many of the participants. She found it difficult at that point to continue along the same political path as her family because she believed that she had seen the inner workings of the Republican party and did not like what she found there. Her family remained a strong influence in the fact that they encouraged her no matter what she did, but she was no linger influenced by them politically (Quader), 2011).

Using trait theory to examine Secretary Clinton it is easy to see a common thread running through her development both personally and politically. Her family instilled in her the desire to question those in authority and try to see for herself if what they were saying was true or false. Throughout her life she believed strongly in the truth, and when she found it for herself, she was an adamant advocate. Clinton also exhibits a strong level of conscientiousness. She is very organized and disciplined which is why she was able to compartmentalize the needs of the party vs. The her feelings regarding the very public infidelity of her husband.

It is also helpful to look at Clinton's development from a social/cognitive standpoint. She grew up in a conservative home, and she was a woman at a time when that limited her career choices. However, she sought interactions that strengthened her resolve to break from that mold. She not only questioned the actions of Republican leaders, she decided to become an activist within her sphere at Wellesley College. When given the opportunity, she spoke at her college's commencement and disparaged the speaker who spoke before her, and whom she had previously supported as a candidate for the U.S. Senate. She was a product, at least to a small extent, of the environment she was in during the radical sixties. However, she thought about the experiences she had and developed into the advocate she became because of them.

The two theories differ in that trait theory tries to determine if personality development is fixed in the innate characteristics, while social/cognitive theory is concerned with who the person becomes because of their experiences. It is easy to see the innate traits which were present in a very young Hillary Rodham exhibit themselves in the woman she is now. However, it seems that Hillary Clinton is more a product of her environment than she is any trait she possesses.