by kierkegaard7 on 12/18/17, 2:26 AM with 115 comments
by volgo on 12/18/17, 5:34 AM
- Most people want to change their personality
- People with personalities that are considered "negative" by society (ex: introversion) wanted to become more extroverted
- People that wanted to change their personality, did change their personality slightly, and self reported daily behaviors that worked toward the goal (ex: “I smiled and laughed with others,” “I mixed well at a social function”)
- Personality at the start and the end were self reported, giving way to bias.
by themodelplumber on 12/18/17, 6:10 AM
One of the often-unspoken realities here is that this growth and change will cause anxiety directly. It's observable in any living organism. (Now think about New Year's resolutions...they can be real anxiety spikers) If any really pleasing dopamine reward is to come of this process in humans, its full manifestation is often very time-delayed as the change process itself takes its course. So depending on the traits and their role in the trait-changer's own systems, models, and beliefs, it is helpful to identify pathways that can involve the trait-changer's strengths and yield some increased leverage. For example, "being open to _what_ is less stressful than being open to _that thing I can't typically stand being open to_?" There's this blended approach.
Beyond traits, I find that typologies and archetypes are very helpful in establishing a quick and dirty template for change. If you identify as a "type" that finds benefit from developing cleverness, even if you yourself aren't very clever _right now_, we may see some surprising success if we try some exercises to identify and harness a latent cleverness in service of your goals. If you are a natural idealist, an idealistic princess who befriends all the little forest creatures, that's actually a very helpful model to examine as well. The story has been shared across cultures for many centuries, and it's a matter of running down the list of type attributes and noting the deltas with regard to your current life. I call my own method Type / Trait Interleave and so far I've been happy with the outcomes for my clients.
With traits we quickly understand the contextual you and your contextually-variant patterns. With type we get at questions of your core self and begin to understand how your contextually-variant patterns could be sabotaging or benefiting some other system functioning in your life. Thanks op for the thought-provoking post, I didn't expect to see it here. :-)
by Houshalter on 12/18/17, 12:14 PM
This is taken from correlations with facebook likes. There's a lot of interesting observations here. For instance, introversion correlates very strongly with "nerd culture" stuff. Openness seems to strongly correlate with left or right politics. Emotionally stable people seem to like sports and outdoor activities (adding to a weird theory that lack of sunlight and exercise causes depression.)
by cJ0th on 12/18/17, 6:44 PM
I think this is quite on the money. The problem is that many of us don't manage to think "you can". For one thing, many hold kind of fatalistic beliefs and feel powerless. Others suffer from over-confidence. That's not really thinking "you can" but delusion. I could imagine that this is a nature & nurture thing and that nurture would be enough for most people if only they could find them-selves in an environment that's right for them. The problem is, however, that we still kinda suck at bringing the right people together.
by ivanhoe on 12/18/17, 9:07 AM
by cik2e on 12/18/17, 11:20 PM
by aj7 on 12/18/17, 7:23 AM
by maram on 12/18/17, 6:03 AM
by dandare on 12/18/17, 10:21 AM
> A longitudinal study (or longitudinal survey, or panel study) is a research design that involves repeated observations of the same variables (e.g., people) over long periods of time, often many decades (i.e., uses longitudinal data).
by AElsinore77 on 12/18/17, 5:52 PM
This raises the follow up question: what is changing? Is there a fundamentally different reaction to the same situation, or is there instead a different interpretation of the situation which is what is leading to a different reaction?
Cognitive behavioral therapy, the "most widely used evidence-based practice for improving mental health," provides evidence that the latter is absolutely a possible answer. "CBT is a psychotherapy that is based on the cognitive model: the way that individuals perceive a situation is more closely connected to their reaction than the situation itself."
Based on this, it seems very possible at least one way people can "choose" to change their personality (as defined by their reactions (feelings, thoughts, and actions) to situations) is to seek to find ways to change the way they percieve the world.
Sources: https://www.livescience.com/16287-mushrooms-alter-personalit... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_behavioral_therapy https://beckinstitute.org/get-informed/what-is-cognitive-the...
by dschuetz on 12/18/17, 5:55 AM
by BurningFrog on 12/18/17, 7:02 AM
by stevenwoo on 12/18/17, 7:36 AM
Found this publication from them from five years ago. http://science.sciencemag.org/content/338/6103/79
by hasbot on 12/18/17, 6:19 AM
From that, it's obvious that some personality traits can be changed (e.g. being punctual and neat) but others will be very hard (e.g. curious, imaginative, self-disciplined, feeling inadequate).
by YCode on 12/18/17, 3:21 PM
I like that movie, but it doesn't really add anything to the paper and even if it does I feel like this is the equivalent of saying "In Harry Potter a boy finds out he's special and goes on a magical adventure. Can we all find out we are special?"
It's more rhetoric than academic.
by LearnerHerzog on 12/18/17, 9:45 AM
I believe that anybody who has put in any effort into bettering themselves knows for a fact one can completely change his/her own self-perception, and in-turn, their personality.
by rbanffy on 12/18/17, 11:57 AM
I'm not really sure I'd want to try to literally hack my brain this way. I have a lot of traits I don't like (hey, I'm posting this here while I should be working... Look! Shiny!) I understand they are what makes me the person my family loves (although some may say it's an acquired taste)
by aetherspawn on 12/18/17, 6:08 AM
by kristofferR on 12/18/17, 11:26 AM
People can clearly change their personality, it's just so difficult that most people don't try or give up when they fail.
by justanotherjoe on 12/18/17, 11:14 AM
by goshx on 12/18/17, 3:01 PM
Sometimes just by being conscious and watching yourself as an external spectator of your own thought can do wonders.
by qwerty456127 on 12/18/17, 7:36 AM
Obviously these traits can change. Although for extraversion it is questionable (extraversion is not a merit, it's more like a gender kind of a "trait"), development of agreeableness, conscientiousness, stability and openness is what defines a character maturity of adult/adolescent person.
by erric on 12/18/17, 8:41 AM
by chenster on 12/18/17, 12:13 PM
However, your characters can be trained.
