A few days ago, I found myself standing beside one of the fields on the farm, lost in my thoughts, as so often happens to me! This particular field contained four mares, all of them under the age of five; two of them being typical young horses while the other two were rescues from an adoption auction last spring. It wouldn’t take long before even a non-equestrian could decipher which mares led the field and which ones followed. The two mares that grew up at the farm living a purposeful, structured life had attentive and confident personalities; the two that grew up without structure, without attention, had personalities that mirrored those deficiencies. Anytime a dominance situation arose, like at feeding time or when a visitor came to the gate, the two confident mares won out over the rescues every time. I wondered if the situation I was observing would’ve been any different had the rescue mares never been rescues at all, but instead raised in an environment like the first two mares. Would they still have been followers, or would a positive, caring environment have been enough to make them leaders?
I glanced over at the fields around the mares’ field, each containing groups of horses that had, more-or-less, been raised in the same way. The personality differences between those horses were less obvious, but each field still had all of the components of a typical herd, a dominant leader, a couple horses with less power than the leader but more than the rest of the herd, and then the followers, who didn’t exert much dominance over anyone. It wasn’t a new realization as I had been noticing herd order since my first days around horses, but it wasn’t until that particular day that I started wondering about the components that created the order. Did those horses behave in the way they did because they were innately confident or innately timid, or did their personalities stem from their environment?
Then I thought about the question in its application to human personality. It seemed to me that the basis of the question remained the same, but with added complexities; for the equation of human personality extends past primitive survival instincts, which is really the sole basis of equine dominance. We have varying levels of competitiveness, drive, passion, intelligence, physical ability, and mental acuity, all factors that can be used to differeniate between and exert dominance over another. But probably the biggest factor that makes human personality unique is our mental capacity to study others and mold ourselves to fit a particular environment. So how much of our personality actually comes from within us, and how much do we adopt because of what we observe in people we admire and the environment around us? For example, are we really competitive, or do we just exhibit competitive tendencies because we try to mirror a coach or friend? Are we really passionate about a sport or activity or is it simply a response to wanting to “fit in” or feel a part of something?
In many respects, I think we may never know the answer. I’ve heard it repeated many times that we are simply the result of our experiences. In a lot of ways that statement is probably very true. To make it at the top of this sport, I think that you need a personality that’s innately competitive, passionate, and highly dedicated, but you’ll also need inspiration that can only come from an environment embodying all of those qualities.
Thoughts?
