Mass Media plays a greater role than the people around you in the development of your personality

Rebuttals for hypnosis arguments(1) agreed(2) people are willing to exhibit abnormal behavior while under hypnosis. your argument against this only states that it is true. The causation is irrelevant, when we both agree that the outcome is the same. May it be for entertainment purposes, or for a person to change their daily habits. The underlying theme of hypnosis is that you will believe your self able to do things that are not within your capabilities or your reasoning to do. Whether hypnosis makes you act like a chicken, or helps you to stop smoking, it is irrelevant. There is the underlying critical faculty that causes you to reason your way out of performing in either manner. If you aren't afraid that people will laugh at you, or you are able to refute the idea that you like your current behavior, you can change your behavior. According to the previously mentioned youthradio article, you can actually do this on yourself and change your natural personality into something that is otherwise unnatural, and vice versa. Rebuttals for interpersonal relationship arguments1) The very foundations of your moral standing would actually be set by your parents at ages under 5-6, where you spend much of your time attempting to copy them (In some extreme cases the foundations are completely replaced later on but this debate is on the "normal" childhood experience) in most cases this affects how the effects of your generation will influence your personality. in fact, since most people of a generation will be building off of the same foundations that their parents gave them the effect of a generation gap wouldn't be that different. I agree that the foundations are set for your moral standing around the age of 5-6. (I actually believe it is between ages 2, when a child first has the ability to say 'no', and about 9, or the time when children begin to identify more with their own peer groups than they do with their family.) And I also agree that if children were to suddenly become adults at this age, the generation gap wouldn't be that different. (2) I don't want this argument to get lost in debate. I think it is the critical point of contention.-Peer relationships outweigh parental relationships. However, self concepts outweigh those of peers. Where are the self concept coming from? All around, both from the people you are hanging around with and the media that you subject yourself to. Mass media has the greater power because, as we both agreed with earlier, media is self subjected. A subject decides for themselves what media they will partake in and engage in that media while they are partaking in that media. Let's say that a student takes a college class, having never known the material beforehand. The student focuses his attention on the professor and takes the information as part of his own belief system and knowledge. The extent to which the student engages themselves will predict the outcome of the knowledge retained, the medium that it is presented from will not. The amount of attention needed to receive the information from the professor is the same amount of attention used when watching television, or listening to the radio. A person who is more engaged will be more affected by the subject matter than a person who is not as engaged regardless of the medium. Mass media play a higher role in developing your personality because it requires the higher level of engagement of the individual. Further Argument. Any thing that I have not previously rebutted directly is included in this section. I am not the first person to understand the effects of outside influences on a person's development of their personality. I also do not deny that a person's peer group, parents, or any other people around you have an affect on the development of your personality. I only assert that Mass Media has a greater affect. A considerable amount of knowledge can be gained from the Dutch philosopher Baruch Spinoza. In this article, reading is specifically named. The concepts apply much further than just reading. They apply to every aspect of the knowledge and experiences we have as humans. Spinoza claims that we believe everything we experience and see, until we consciously disbelieve it. http://www.spring.org.uk... It has long been argued that everything you see and hear isn't true. But we must know evidences before we can believe a thing is or isn't true. I cannot remember the first time I saw a McDonald's commercial, and I do not know the first time my children saw a McDonald's commercial. I do know that I used to love it when I was a kid, but I can't stand it now. I don't even know what caused the change. Left to my own devices, I think the food is nasty and unfilling. However, there was a time when I was able to recognize that having never taken my children to McDonald's in their life, they asked for it. It was then I realized that my influences over them were subjective to their own beliefs. And by turn, all influences by outside sources are subjective to a person's own beliefs even at a young age. At best I can concede that for a period of time, parents have the most influence over a person's development of their personality, but as a whole, the influence of mass media retains the greatest influence because it is ongoing throughout life. Our ability to learn, and a belief that mass media are training tools leads us to give more respect and greater periodic attention to the devices than we give our peers. We do this because our peers are generally subject to fallacies and inconsistencies and those peers make up the greater part of the people we hang around with.