Reader’s Question

I have a co-worker who I like and I’m on good terms with that has some traits that don’t make sense to me. One part of his personality is a devout Christian, a loyal father and good husband. He has a good work ethic and is honest and punctual. The other part of his personality is not so appealing.

He is preachy, an over the top know it all on any subject, and boastful like nobody I have ever met. He will turn anything into a competiion and can be very mouthy and disrespectul toward supervisors, and at times is very immature. At 44 years old, he still likes to think of himself as being the toughest guy at work and will commonly talk about the fights he was in in high school. All this and a devout Christian? What do you make of his personality?

Our Clinical Psychologist’s Reply

We would like to think that our personal faith has a positive impact on all aspects of our life. For your co-worker, while his faith may have improved his family life and work ethic, it has not increased his social and emotional maturity. He’s still behaving socially as though he were 17 years old on the street basketball court. As a parent, we all know that teenagers think they know everything — but he still feels that way! That male aggressiveness and immaturity hasn’t gone away with time or with the help of his religious faith.

Importantly, this is not an issue related to his faith. Rather, it’s his life-long personality and immaturity that rapidly surfaces in social situations. You’ll find his behavior even more exaggerated when “old times” are discussed. He clearly has a lot of “emotional memories” (see article on this website) from his younger years that will get him agitated and excited. While he has changed his ways and behavior for the most part, there is still a part of him that enjoys the bragging, boasting, and implication that he is still a rough/tough character.

While this is part of his personality, it’s probably not a Personality Disorder or psychiatric concern. We often encounter individuals like this in employment situations — those who at middle-age still engage in good-ol-boy horseplay, practical jokes, and rough-housing. While we all physically mature over time, sometimes the personality doesn’t mature at the same rate.