Perspectives on Personality Changes Essay

Do you think a person’s personality is stable or is marked by change why do you think this.

The reason why most kinds of change, be they personal, global, natural, or unnatural, are more often than not welcomed aggressively, is because most humans are hardwired to perceive our surroundings as static and definite. Change is associated with danger and is met with suspicion; even if the change is positive. Many people see things as “being,” something that “is”, or at least “should be”, static and stable (Schwartz, 2009).

This same opinion is often applied to a human being. Comprehending change in a person’s personality can be difficult, can throw the observer in denial, whether the reported changes are positive or negative.

However, a person’s experiences with the world are strongly affected by his or her perceptions of it, and I find it more likely that how static or stable that person’s personality depends on their views (Macann, 2007). This theory is supported by Carol Dweck (n.d). and her Self-Theories, which proposed two theories of intelligence. The first one is the Entity View. This view treats intelligence itself as fixed and stable.

People with this type of intelligence and ability aim to prove themselves and their intelligence to the world. These are the character types prone to viewing the world as something they cannot affect in a significant way, which means they are more likely to give up when faced with difficulties. They don’t attempt to change their surroundings and don’t try to improve themselves, which further reinforces their outlook.

The second type of intelligence is the Incremental View, and it regards intelligence as changeable and flexible, and as a result, views the world as just as fluid. These personalities focus on the “becoming” and understand that under the influence of outside events or their will they can change, and through effort develop new skills, habits, change ideals and values. This perception shapes their reality, and they are more likely to strive for change, both in themselves and around them.

Do you think people can change? What implications does this have for you in terms of your views on therapy? Experimental psychology?

My core belief is that people’s ability to change is defined by their mindset, and ultimately it concedes that a portion of people with the mindset for growth and development not only are capable of change but can control that change to their benefit. They can achieve this by focusing on what they want to accomplish or what they want to become, and strive for that goal (Hunt, 2007). l. As mentioned before, these mostly are the people of the Incremental View, who, rather than blame themselves for their failings and shortcomings, for example failing at a task due to not being strong enough, would look for ways to either improve themselves, become tougher, or find different approaches. For them a problem is not “unsolvable”, it is rather “not yet solved”.

The Entity View supporters see their lack of success or their weaknesses as a result of inherent parts of themselves or the world around them and will find it much harder to approach an issue if they have failed to resolve it several times. “It is not possible” or “I’m not skilled enough” arguments can deter them from making further attempts or changing strategies (Dweck, 2000).

Naturally, a therapist would find it much easier to work with patients with the Incremental View, as they would potentially be thrilled at the prospect of personal development and improvement. With Entity View representatives, on the other hand, would be much harder to work. To make them overcome an issue (“I am emotional, that’s what I am”) would require the therapist to persuade the patient that he is more capable than he believes himself to be. Ultimately, successful work with such a patient would challenge the therapist to make the former accept the Incremental mindset to some degree, to achieve the flexibility needed to overcome personal issues (Dweck, 2007). Since each person is individual, finding ways to accomplish that fall straight into the sphere of Experimental Psychology ( Experimental Psychology Examines the Underpinnings of Human and Animal Behavior , n.d.).

Dweck, C (2007). Mindset: The new psychology of success . New York: Ballantine Books.

Dweck, C. S. (n.d.). Self-Theories . Web.

Dweck, C. S. (2000). Self-theories: Their role in motivation, personality, and development (1st ed.). Philadelphia, PA: Psychology Press.

Experimental Psychology Examines the Underpinnings of Human and Animal Behavior . (n.d.). Web.

Hunt, M. M. (2007). The story of psychology (2nd ed.). New York: Anchor Books.

Macann, C. (2007). Being and Becoming. Philosophy Now, (64), 20-23.

Schwartz, M. (2009). From Being to Becoming . Web.

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  • Sustained Incremental Innovation
  • Radical or Disruptive and Incremental Innovation
  • The Incremental Cash Flow Evaluation
  • Effective Use of Non-Incremental Innovations
  • "Mindset: The New Psychology of Success" by C. Dweck
  • Reliability of Incremental Shuttle Walk Test
  • Incremental Research on the Budgeting Process
  • Analyzing the Dimension of Innovations
  • Sliding Friction: Static and Kinetic Friction
  • Gender Differences in Social Behavior
  • Personality as a Result of Nurture and Nature
  • Big Five Personality Factors Assessment
  • Psychology: Success Strategies in Education and Life
  • Personal Self-Assessment Tests and Their Features

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I Gave Myself Three Months to Change My Personality

The results were mixed.

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O ne morning last summer , I woke up and announced, to no one in particular: “I choose to be happy today!” Next I journaled about the things I was grateful for and tried to think more positively about my enemies and myself. When someone later criticized me on Twitter, I suppressed my rage and tried to sympathize with my hater. Then, to loosen up and expand my social skills, I headed to an improv class.

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I was midway through an experiment—sample size: 1—to see whether I could change my personality. Because these activities were supposed to make me happier, I approached them with the desperate hope of a supplicant kneeling at a shrine.

Psychologists say that personality is made up of five traits : extroversion, or how sociable you are; conscientiousness, or how self-disciplined and organized you are; agreeableness, or how warm and empathetic you are; openness, or how receptive you are to new ideas and activities; and neuroticism, or how depressed or anxious you are. People tend to be happier and healthier when they score higher on the first four traits and lower on neuroticism. I’m pretty open and conscientious, but I’m low on extroversion, middling on agreeableness, and off the charts on neuroticism.

Researching the science of personality, I learned that it was possible to deliberately mold these five traits, to an extent, by adopting certain behaviors. I began wondering whether the tactics of personality change could work on me.

I’ve never really liked my personality, and other people don’t like it either. In grad school, a partner and I were assigned to write fake obituaries for each other by interviewing our families and friends. The nicest thing my partner could shake out of my loved ones was that I “really enjoy grocery shopping.” Recently, a friend named me maid of honor in her wedding; on the website for the event, she described me as “strongly opinionated and fiercely persistent.” Not wrong, but not what I want on my tombstone. I’ve always been bad at parties because the topics I bring up are too depressing, such as everything that’s wrong with my life, and everything that’s wrong with the world, and the futility of doing anything about either.

Neurotic people, twitchy and suspicious, can often “detect things that less sensitive people simply don’t register,” writes the personality psychologist Brian Little in Who Are You, Really? “This is not conducive to relaxed and easy living.” Rather than being motivated by rewards, neurotic people tend to fear risks and punishments; we ruminate on negative events more than emotionally stable people do. Many, like me, spend a lot of money on therapy and brain medications.

And while there’s nothing wrong with being an introvert, we tend to underestimate how much we’d enjoy behaving like extroverts. People have the most friends they will ever have at age 25 , and I am much older than that and never had very many friends to begin with. Besides, my editors wanted me to see if I could change my personality, and I’ll try anything once. (I’m open to experiences!) Maybe I, too, could become a friendly extrovert who doesn’t carry around emergency Xanax.

I gave myself three months.

The best-known expert on personality change is Brent Roberts, a psychologist at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Our interview in June felt, to me, a bit like visiting an evidence-based spiritual guru—he had a Zoom background of the red rocks of Sedona and the answers to all my big questions. Roberts has published dozens of studies showing that personality can change in many ways over time, challenging the notion that our traits are “set like plaster,” as the psychologist William James put it in 1887. But other psychologists still sometimes tell Roberts that they simply don’t believe it. There is a “deep-seated desire on the part of many people to think of personality as unchanging,” he told me. “It simplifies your world in a way that’s quite nice.” Because then you don’t have to take responsibility for what you’re like.

Don’t get too excited: Personality typically remains fairly stable throughout your life, especially in relation to other people. If you were the most outgoing of your friends in college, you will probably still be the bubbliest among them in your 30s. But our temperaments tend to shift naturally over the years. We change a bit during adolescence and a lot during our early 20s, and continue to evolve into late adulthood. Generally, people grow less neurotic and more agreeable and conscientious with age, a trend sometimes referred to as the “maturity principle.”

Longitudinal research suggests that careless, sullen teenagers can transform into gregarious seniors who are sticklers for the rules. One study of people born in Scotland in the mid-1930s—which admittedly had some methodological issues—found no correlation between participants’ conscientiousness at ages 14 and 77. A later study by Rodica Damian, a psychologist at the University of Houston, and her colleagues assessed the personalities of a group of American high-school students in 1960 and again 50 years later. They found that 98 percent of the participants had changed at least one personality trait.

Even our career interests are more stable than our personalities, though our jobs can also change us: In one study, people with stressful jobs became more introverted and neurotic within five years.

With a little work, you can nudge your personality in a more positive direction. Several studies have found that people can meaningfully change their personalities, sometimes within a few weeks , by behaving like the sort of person they want to be. Students who put more effort into their homework became more conscientious. In a 2017 meta-analysis of 207 studies, Roberts and others found that a month of therapy could reduce neuroticism by about half the amount it would typically decline over a person’s life. Even a change as minor as taking up puzzles can have an effect: One study found that senior citizens who played brain games and completed crossword and sudoku puzzles became more open to experiences. Though most personality-change studies have tracked people for only a few months or a year afterward, the changes seem to stick for at least that long.

When researchers ask, people typically say they want the success-oriented traits: to become more extroverted, more conscientious, and less neurotic. Roberts was surprised that I wanted to become more agreeable. Lots of people think they’re too agreeable, he told me. They feel they’ve become doormats.

Toward the end of our conversation, I asked Roberts whether there’s anything he would change about his own personality. He admitted that he’s not always very detail-oriented (a.k.a. conscientious). He also regretted the anxiety (a.k.a. neuroticism) he experienced early in his career. Grad school was a “disconcerting experience,” he said: The son of a Marine and an artist, he felt that his classmates were all “brilliant and smart” and understood the world of academia better than he did.

I was struck by how similar his story sounded to my own. My parents are from the Soviet Union and barely understand my career in journalism. I went to crappy public schools and a little-known college. I’ve notched every minor career achievement through night sweats and meticulous emails and aching computer shoulders. Neuroticism had kept my inner fire burning, but now it was suffocating me with its smoke.

To begin my transformation, I called Nathan Hudson, a psychology professor at Southern Methodist University who created a tool to help people alter their personality. For a 2019 paper, Hudson and three other psychologists devised a list of “challenges” for students who wanted to change their traits. For, say, increased extroversion, a challenge would be to “introduce yourself to someone new.” Those who completed the challenges experienced changes in their personality over the course of the 15-week study, Hudson found. “Faking it until you make it seems to be a viable strategy for personality change,” he told me.

But before I could tinker with my personality, I needed to find out exactly what that personality consisted of. So I logged on to a website Hudson had created and took a personality test, answering dozens of questions about whether I liked poetry and parties, whether I acted “wild and crazy,” whether I worked hard. “I radiate joy” got a “strongly disagree.” I disagreed that “we should be tough on crime” and that I “try not to think about the needy.” I had to agree, but not strongly, that “I believe that I am better than others.”

I scored in the 23rd percentile on extroversion—“very low,” especially when it came to being friendly or cheerful. Meanwhile, I scored “very high” on conscientiousness and openness and “average” on agreeableness, my high level of sympathy for other people making up for my low level of trust in them. Finally, I came to the source of half my breakups, 90 percent of my therapy appointments, and most of my problems in general: neuroticism. I’m in the 94th percentile—“extremely high.”

I prescribed myself the same challenges that Hudson had given his students. To become more extroverted, I would meet new people. To decrease neuroticism, I would meditate often and make gratitude lists. To increase agreeableness, the challenges included sending supportive texts and cards, thinking more positively about people who frustrate me, and, regrettably, hugging. In addition to completing Hudson’s challenges, I decided to sign up for improv in hopes of increasing my extroversion and reducing my social anxiety. To cut down on how pissed off I am in general, and because I’m an overachiever, I also signed up for an anger-management class.

Read: Can personality be changed?

Hudson’s findings on the mutability of personality seem to endorse the ancient Buddhist idea of “no-self”—no core “you.” To believe otherwise, the sutras say, is a source of suffering. Similarly, Brian Little writes that people can have “multiple authenticities”—that you can sincerely be a different person in different situations. He proposes that people have the ability to temporarily act out of character by adopting “free traits,” often in the service of an important personal or professional project. If a shy introvert longs to schmooze the bosses at the office holiday party, they can grab a canapé and make the rounds. The more you do this, Little says, the easier it gets.

Staring at my test results, I told myself, This will be fun! After all, I had changed my personality before. In high school, I was shy, studious, and, for a while, deeply religious. In college, I was fun-loving and boy-crazy. Now I’m a basically hermetic “pressure addict,” as one former editor put it. It was time for yet another me to make her debut.

Ideally, in the end I would be happy, relaxed, personable. The screams of angry sources, the failure of my boyfriend to do the tiniest fucking thing—they would be nothing to me. I would finally understand what my therapist means when she says I should “just observe my thoughts and let them pass without judgment.” I made a list of the challenges and attached them to my nightstand, because I’m very conscientious.

Immediately I encountered a problem: I don’t like improv. It’s basically a Quaker meeting in which a bunch of office workers sit quietly in a circle until someone jumps up, points toward a corner of the room, and says, “I think I found my kangaroo!” My vibe is less “yes, and” and more “well, actually.” When I told my boyfriend what I was up to, he said, “You doing improv is like Larry David doing ice hockey.”

I was also scared out of my mind. I hate looking silly, and that’s all improv is. The first night, we met in someone’s townhouse in Washington, D.C., in a room that was, for no discernible reason, decorated with dozens of elephant sculptures. Right after the instructor said, “Let’s get started,” I began hoping that someone would grab one and knock me unconscious.

That didn’t happen, so instead I played a game called Zip Zap Zop, which involved making lots of eye contact while tossing around an imaginary ball of energy, with a software engineer, two lawyers, and a guy who works on Capitol Hill. Then we pretended to be traveling salespeople peddling sulfuric acid. If someone had walked in on us, they would have thought we were insane. And yet I didn’t hate it. I decided I could think of being funny and spontaneous as a kind of intellectual challenge. Still, when I got home, I unwound by drinking one of those single-serving wines meant for petite female alcoholics.

A few days later, I logged in to my first Zoom anger-management class. Christian Jarrett, a neuroscientist and the author of Be Who You Want , writes that spending quality time with people who are dissimilar to you increases agreeableness. And the people in my anger-management class did seem pretty different from me. Among other things, I was the only person who wasn’t court-ordered to be there.

We took turns sharing how anger has affected our lives. I said it makes my relationship worse—less like a romantic partnership and more like a toxic workplace. Other people worried that their anger was hurting their family. One guy shared that he didn’t understand why we were talking about our feelings when kids in China and Russia were learning to make weapons, which I deemed an interesting point, because you’re not allowed to criticize others in anger management.

The sessions—I went to six—mostly involved reading worksheets together, which was tedious, but I did learn a few things. Anger is driven by expectations. If you think you’re going to be in an anger-inducing situation, one instructor said, try drinking a cold can of Coke, which may stimulate your vagus nerve and calm you down. A few weeks in, I had a rough day, my boyfriend gave me some stupid suggestions, and I yelled at him. Then he said I’m just like my dad, which made me yell more. When I shared this in anger management, the instructors said I should be clearer about what I need from him when I’m in a bad mood—which is listening, not advice.

All the while, I had been working on my neuroticism, which involved making a lot of gratitude lists. Sometimes it came naturally. As I drove around my little town one morning, I thought about how grateful I was for my boyfriend, and how lonely I had been before I met him, even in other relationships. Is this gratitude? I wondered. Am I doing it?

What is personality, anyway, and where does it come from?

Contrary to conventional wisdom about bossy firstborns and peacemaking middles, birth order doesn’t influence personality . Nor do our parents shape us like lumps of clay. If they did, siblings would have similar dispositions, when they often have no more in common than strangers chosen off the street. Our friends do influence us, though, so one way to become more extroverted is to befriend some extroverts. Your life circumstances also have an effect: Getting rich can make you less agreeable, but so can growing up poor with high levels of lead exposure.

A common estimate is that about 30 to 50 percent of the differences between two people’s personalities are attributable to their genes. But just because something is genetic doesn’t mean it’s permanent. Those genes interact with one another in ways that can change how they behave, says Kathryn Paige Harden, a behavioral geneticist at the University of Texas. They also interact with your environment in ways that can change how you behave. For example: Happy people smile more, so people react more positively to them, which makes them even more agreeable. Open-minded adventure seekers are more likely to go to college, where they grow even more open-minded.

Harden told me about an experiment in which mice that were genetically similar and reared in the same conditions were moved into a big cage where they could play with one another. Over time, these very similar mice developed dramatically different personalities. Some became fearful, others sociable and dominant. Living in Mouseville, the mice carved out their own ways of being, and people do that too. “We can think of personality as a learning process,” Harden said. “We learn to be people who interact with our social environments in a certain way.”

This more fluid understanding of personality is a departure from earlier theories. A 1914 best seller called The Eugenic Marriage (which is exactly as offensive as it sounds) argued that it is not possible to change a child’s personality “one particle after conception takes place.” In the 1920s, the psychoanalyst Carl Jung posited that the world consists of different “types” of people—thinkers and feelers, introverts and extroverts. (Even Jung cautioned, though, that “there is no such thing as a pure extravert or a pure introvert. Such a man would be in the lunatic asylum.”) Jung’s rubric captured the attention of a mother-daughter duo, Katharine Briggs and Isabel Briggs Myers, neither of whom had any formal scientific training. As Merve Emre describes in The Personality Brokers , the pair seized on Jung’s ideas to develop that staple of Career Day, the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. But the test is virtually meaningless . Most people aren’t ENTJs or ISFPs; they fall between categories.

Over the years, poor parenting has been a popular scapegoat for bad personalities. Alfred Adler, a prominent turn-of-the-20th-century psychologist, blamed mothers, writing that “wherever the mother-child relationship is unsatisfactory, we usually find certain social defects in the children.” A few scholars attributed the rise of Nazism to strict German parenting that produced hateful people who worshipped power and authority. But maybe any nation could have embraced a Hitler: It turns out that the average personalities of different countries are fairly similar. Still, the belief that parents are to blame persists, so much so that Roberts closes the course he teaches at the University of Illinois by asking students to forgive their moms and dads for whatever personality traits they believe were instilled or inherited.

Not until the 1950s did researchers acknowledge people’s versatility—that we can reveal new faces and bury others. “Everyone is always and everywhere, more or less consciously, playing a role,” the sociologist Robert Ezra Park wrote in 1950. “It is in these roles that we know each other; it is in these roles that we know ourselves.”

Around this time, a psychologist named George Kelly began prescribing specific “roles” for his patients to play. Awkward wallflowers might go socialize in nightclubs, for example. Kelly’s was a rhapsodic view of change; at one point he wrote that “all of us would be better off if we set out to be something other than what we are.” Judging by the reams of self-help literature published each year, this is one of the few philosophies all Americans can get behind.

About six weeks in, my adventures in extroversion were going better than I’d anticipated. Intent on talking to strangers at my friend’s wedding, I approached a group of women and told them the story of how my boyfriend and I had met—I moved into his former room in a group house—which they deemed the “story of the night.” On the winds of that success, I tried to talk to more strangers, but soon encountered the common wedding problem of Too Drunk to Talk to People Who Don’t Know Me.

For more advice on becoming an extrovert, I reached out to Jessica Pan, a writer in London and the author of the book Sorry I’m Late, I Didn’t Want to Come . Pan was an extreme introvert, someone who would walk into parties and immediately walk out again. At the start of the book, she resolved to become an extrovert. She ran up to strangers and asked them embarrassing questions. She did improv and stand-up comedy. She went to Budapest and made a friend. Folks, she networked.

4 different black and white portraits of author with different colorful scribbled hats

In the process, Pan “flung open the doors” to her life, she writes. “Having the ability to morph, to change, to try on free traits, to expand or contract at will, offers me an incredible feeling of freedom and a source of hope.” Pan told me that she didn’t quite become a hard-core extrovert, but that she would now describe herself as a “gregarious introvert.” She still craves alone time, but she’s more willing to talk to strangers and give speeches. “I will be anxious, but I can do it,” she said.

I asked her for advice on making new friends, and she told me something a “friendship mentor” once told her: “Make the first move, and make the second move, too.” That means you sometimes have to ask a friend target out twice in a row—a strategy I had thought was gauche.

I practiced by trying to befriend some female journalists I admired but had been too intimidated to get to know. I messaged someone who seemed cool based on her writing, and we arranged a casual beers thing. But on the night we were supposed to get together, her power went out, trapping her car in her garage.

Instead, I caught up with an old friend by phone, and we had one of those conversations you can have only with someone you’ve known for years, about how the people who are the worst remain the worst, and how all of your issues remain intractable, but good on you for sticking with it. By the end of our talk, I was high on agreeable feelings. “Love you, bye!” I said as I hung up.

“LOL,” she texted. “Did you mean to say ‘I love you’?”

Who was this new Olga?

For my gratitude journaling, I purchased a notebook whose cover said, “Gimme those bright sunshiney vibes.” I soon noticed, though, that my gratitude lists were repetitive odes to creature comforts and entertainment: Netflix, yoga, TikTok, leggings, wine. After I cut my finger cooking, I expressed gratitude for the dictation software that let me write without using my hands, but then my finger healed. “Very hard to come up with new things to say,” I wrote one day.

I find expressing gratitude unnatural, because Russians believe doing so will provoke the evil eye; our God doesn’t like too much bragging. The writer Gretchen Rubin hit a similar wall when keeping a gratitude journal for her book The Happiness Project . “It had started to feel forced and affected,” she wrote, making her annoyed rather than grateful.

I was also supposed to be meditating, but I couldn’t. On almost every page, my journal reads, “Meditating sucks!” I tried a guided meditation that involved breathing with a heavy book on my stomach—I chose Nabokov’s Letters to Véra —only to find that it’s really hard to breathe with a heavy book on your stomach.

I tweeted about my meditation failures, and Dan Harris, a former Good Morning America weekend anchor, replied: “The fact that you’re noticing the thoughts/obsessions is proof that you are doing it correctly!” I picked up Harris’s book 10% Happier , which chronicles his journey from a high-strung reporter who had a panic attack on air to a high-strung reporter who meditates a lot. At one point, he was meditating for two hours a day.

When I called Harris, he said that it’s normal for meditation to feel like “training your mind to not be a pack of wild squirrels all the time.” Very few people actually clear their minds when they’re meditating. The point is to focus on your breath for however long you can—even if it’s just a second—before you get distracted. Then do it over and over again. Occasionally, when Harris meditates, he still “rehearses some grand, expletive-filled speech I’m gonna deliver to someone who’s wronged me.” But now he can return to his breath more quickly, or just laugh off the obsessing.

Harris suggested that I try loving-kindness meditation, in which you beam affectionate thoughts toward yourself and others. This, he said, “sets off what I call a gooey upward spiral where, as your inner weather gets balmier, your relationships get better.” In his book, Harris describes meditating on his 2-year-old niece. As he thought about her “little feet” and “sweet face with her mischievous eyes,” he started crying uncontrollably.

What a pussy , I thought.

I downloaded Harris’s meditation app and pulled up a loving-kindness session by the meditation teacher Sharon Salzberg. She had me repeat calming phrases like “May you be safe” and “May you live with ease.” Then she asked me to envision myself surrounded by a circle of people who love me, radiating kindness toward me. I pictured my family, my boyfriend, my friends, my former professors, emitting beneficence from their bellies like Care Bears. “You’re good; you’re okay,” I imagined them saying. Before I knew what was happening, I had broken into sobs.

After two brutal years, people may be wondering if surviving a pandemic has at least improved their personality, making them kinder and less likely to sweat the small stuff. “Post-traumatic growth,” or the idea that stressful events can make us better people, is the subject of one particularly cheery branch of psychology. Some big events do seem to transform personality: People grow more conscientious when they start a job they like, and they become less neurotic when they enter a romantic relationship. But in general, it’s not the event that changes your personality; it’s the way you experience it. And the evidence that people grow as a result of difficulty is mixed. Studies of post-traumatic growth are tainted by the fact that people like to say they got something out of their trauma.

It’s a nice thing to believe about yourself—that, pummeled by misfortune, you’ve emerged stronger than ever. But these studies are mostly finding that people prefer to look on the bright side.

Read: The opposite of toxic positivity

In more rigorous studies, evidence of a transformative effect fades. Damian, the University of Houston psychologist, gave hundreds of students at the university a personality test a few months after Hurricane Harvey hit, in November 2017, and repeated the test a year later. The hurricane was devastating: Many students had to leave their homes; others lacked food, water, or medical care for weeks. Damian found that her participants hadn’t grown, and they hadn’t shriveled. Overall they stayed the same. Other research shows that difficult times prompt us to fall back on tried-and-true behaviors and traits, not experiment with new ones.

Growth is also a strange thing to ask of the traumatized. It’s like turning to a wounded person and demanding, “Well, why didn’t you grow, you lazy son of a bitch?” Roberts said. Just surviving should be enough.

It may be impossible to know how the pandemic will change us on average, because there is no “average.” Some people have struggled to keep their jobs while caring for children; some have lost their jobs; some have lost loved ones. Others have sat at home and ordered takeout. The pandemic probably hasn’t changed you if the pandemic itself hasn’t felt like that much of a change.

I blew off anger management one week to go see Kesha in concert. I justified it because the concert was a group activity, plus she makes me happy. The next time the class gathered, we talked about forgiveness, which Child Weapons Guy was not big on. He said that rather than forgive his enemies, he wanted to invite them onto a bridge and light the bridge on fire. I thought he should get credit for being honest—who hasn’t wanted to light all their enemies on fire?—but the anger-management instructors started to look a little angry themselves.

In the next session, Child Weapons Guy seemed contrite, saying he realized that he uses his anger to deal with life, which was a bigger breakthrough than anyone expected. I was also praised, for an unusually tranquil trip home to see my parents, which my instructors said was an example of good “expectation management.”

Meanwhile, my social life was slowly blooming. A Twitter acquaintance invited me and a few other strangers to a whiskey tasting, and I said yes even though I don’t like whiskey or strangers. At the bar, I made some normal-person small talk before having two sips of alcohol and wheeling the conversation around to my personal topic of interest: whether I should have a baby. The woman who organized the tasting, a self-proclaimed extrovert, said people are always grateful to her for getting everyone to socialize. At first, no one wants to come, but people are always happy they did.

I thought perhaps whiskey could be my “thing,” and, to tick off another challenge from Hudson’s list, decided to go to a whiskey bar on my own one night and talk to strangers. I bravely steered my Toyota to a sad little mixed-use development and pulled up a stool at the bar. I asked the bartender how long it had taken him to memorize all the whiskeys on the menu. “Two months,” he said, and turned back to peeling oranges. I asked the woman sitting next to me how she liked her appetizer. “It’s good!” she said. This is awful! I thought. I texted my boyfriend to come meet me.

The larger threat on my horizon was the improv showcase—a free performance for friends and family and whoever happened to jog past Picnic Grove No. 1 in Rock Creek Park. The night before, I kept jolting awake from intense, improv-themed nightmares. I spent the day grimly watching old Upright Citizens Brigade shows on YouTube. “I’m nervous on your behalf,” my boyfriend said when he saw me clutching a throw pillow like a life preserver.

From the January/February 2014 issue: Surviving anxiety

To describe an improv show is to unnecessarily punish the reader, but it went fairly well. Along with crushing anxiety, my brain courses with an immigrant kid’s overwhelming desire to do whatever people want in exchange for their approval. I improvised like they were giving out good SAT scores at the end. On the drive home, my boyfriend said, “Now that I’ve seen you do it, I don’t really know why I thought it’s something you wouldn’t do.”

I didn’t know either. I vaguely remembered past boyfriends telling me that I’m insecure, that I’m not funny. But why had I been trying to prove them right? Surviving improv made me feel like I could survive anything, as bratty as that must sound to all my ancestors who survived the siege of Leningrad.

Finally, the day came to retest my personality and see how much I’d changed. I thought I felt hints of a mild metamorphosis. I was meditating regularly, and had had several enjoyable get-togethers with people I wanted to befriend. And because I was writing them down, I had to admit that positive things did, in fact, happen to me.

But I wanted hard data. This time, the test told me that my extroversion had increased, going from the 23rd percentile to the 33rd. My neuroticism decreased from “extremely high” to merely “very high,” dropping to the 77th percentile. And my agreeableness score … well, it dropped, from “about average” to “low.”

I told Brian Little how I’d done. He said I likely did experience a “modest shift” in extroversion and neuroticism, but also that I might have simply triggered positive feedback loops. I got out more, so I enjoyed more things, so I went to more things, and so forth.

Why didn’t I become more agreeable, though? I had spent months dwelling on the goodness of people, devoted hours to anger management, and even sent an e-card to my mom. Little speculated that maybe by behaving so differently, I had heightened my internal sense that people aren’t to be trusted. Or I might have subconsciously bucked against all the syrupy gratitude time. That I had tried so hard and made negative progress—“I think it’s a bit of a hoot,” he said.

Perhaps it’s a relief that I’m not a completely new person. Little says that engaging in “free trait” behavior—acting outside your nature—for too long can be harmful, because you can start to feel like you are suppressing your true self. You end up feeling burned out or cynical.

The key may not be in swinging permanently to the other side of the personality scale, but in balancing between extremes, or in adjusting your personality depending on the situation. “The thing that makes a personality trait maladaptive is not being high or low on something; it’s more like rigidity across situations,” Harden, the behavioral geneticist, told me.

“So it’s okay to be a little bitchy in your heart, as long as you can turn it off?” I asked her.

“People who say they’re never bitchy in their heart are lying,” she said.

Susan Cain, the author of Quiet and the world’s most famous introvert, seems reluctant to endorse the idea that introverts should try to be more outgoing. Over the phone, she wondered why I wanted to be more extroverted in the first place. Society often urges people to conform to the qualities extolled in performance reviews—punctual, chipper, gregarious. But there are upsides to being introspective, skeptical, and even a little neurotic. She said it’s possible that I didn’t change my underlying introversion, that I just acquired new skills. She thought I could probably maintain this new personality, so long as I kept doing the tasks that got me here.

Hudson cautioned that personality scores can bounce around a bit from moment to moment; to be certain of my results, I ideally would have taken the test a number of times. Still, I felt sure that some change had taken place. A few weeks later, I wrote an article that made people on Twitter really mad. This happens to me once or twice a year, and I usually suffer a minor internal apocalypse. I fight the people on Twitter while crying, call my editor while crying, and Google How to become an actuary while crying. This time, I was stressed and angry, but I just waited it out.

This kind of modest improvement, I realized, is the goal of so much self-help material. Hours a day of meditation made Harris only 10 percent happier. My therapist is always suggesting ways for me to “go from a 10 to a nine on anxiety.” Some antidepressants make people feel only slightly less depressed, yet they take the drugs for years. Perhaps the real weakness of the “change your personality” proposition is that it implies incremental change isn’t real change. But being slightly different is still being different—the same you but with better armor.

The late psychologist Carl Rogers once wrote, “When I accept myself just as I am, then I can change,” and this is roughly where I’ve landed. Maybe I’m just an anxious little introvert who makes an effort to be less so. I can learn to meditate; I can talk to strangers; I can be the mouse who frolics through Mouseville, even if I never become the alpha. I learned to play the role of a calm, extroverted softy, and in doing so I got to know myself.

This article appears in the March 2022 print edition with the headline “My Personality Transplant.” When you buy a book using a link on this page, we receive a commission. Thank you for supporting The Atlantic.

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Can your personality change over your lifetime, a new study finds that some personality traits are fairly stable and others tend to change, helping us to mature over time..

When I was 16 years old, I was a pretty outgoing teen with lots of friends and a busy social calendar. I took my academics seriously and was diligent about doing homework. But I also tended to worry a lot and could cry at the drop of a hat.

Now here I am more than 50 years later, and, in many ways, I seem much the same: extraverted and conscientious, but a bit neurotic. Does that mean that my personality hasn’t changed over the last half-century?

Not necessarily. Many of us tend to think of personality as being fixed and unchangeable—the part of you that is inherently who you are. But according to a recent study , while our early personalities may provide a baseline, they are surprisingly malleable as we age.

essays on personality changes

In this study, researchers had access to unusual survey data. American adolescents had filled out questionnaires about their personalities in the 1960s and then had done so again fifty years later, reporting on personal qualities associated with the “ Big Five ” personality traits:

  • Extraversion: How outgoing, social, cheerful, or full of energy and enthusiasm you are in social settings.
  • Agreeableness: How warm, friendly, helpful, generous, and tactful you are.
  • Emotional stability (or its opposite, neuroticism): How calm, content, and unflappable—versus anxious, angry, jealous, lonely, or insecure—you are.
  • Conscientiousness: How organized, efficient, and committed you are to finishing projects or reaching your goals.
  • Openness to experience: How curious, adventuresome, and receptive you are to new ideas, emotions, and experiences.

Some of the findings were quite provocative. Most notably, people’s personality traits did not always stay the same over the five decades, with many people showing quite dramatic changes.

“Some of the changes we saw in personality traits over the 50 years were very, very large,” says the lead author of the study, Rodica Damian of the University of Houston. “For emotional stability, conscientiousness, and agreeableness, the changes were one[s] which would be clearly visible to others.”

On the other hand, that didn’t mean that people didn’t stay true to their personality traits over time at all . Coauthor Brent Roberts of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign says that much of our personality does seem to stay the same—just not as much as we might expect. For example, an extraverted teenager like me would have a 63 percent chance of still identifying as an extravert in their 60s, he says.

Why does this matter? Thinking of personality as fixed could lead us to feel like we can never grow, or to dismiss people with certain qualities we don’t like, concerned that change isn’t possible when that’s not the case.

Still, we don’t simply change our personalities in random ways, explain the researchers. What seems to be more consistent over time is the relationship among all of our personality traits. This means that if someone tended to be really conscientious but a bit disagreeable or neurotic early on, they might keep that relative personality profile as they aged, even if some of their traits shifted a bit.

Additionally, the researchers found that adolescents as a group tended to move in a positive direction for particular traits—like emotional stability, conscientiousness, and agreeableness—after 50 years, suggesting a growth in social maturity.

“These attributes of social maturity are good things to acquire, if you want to get along with your spouse and coworkers and stay healthy,” Roberts says.

This finding fits well with some of Roberts’s prior research showing that people experience smaller, incremental personality changes over shorter periods of time. And it helps confirms his theory that personality change is cumulative over our lifespan, likely happens in response to our life experiences, and often leans in a positive, helpful direction.

So, apparently, our personalities are a mix of stable and unstable. Roberts advises parents and teachers to keep that in mind when they try to influence their children to be more responsible or mature. Change, when it happens, occurs gradually rather than all at once, he says, which means we need patience with kids who are growing into themselves.

More on Personality

Explore whether different treatments can change your personality .

Discover how different personalities relate to happiness .

Learn how personality affects the happiness we get from our purchases .

Find out how personality might influence the way you respond to forgiveness .

“If you go into the enterprise of shaping your child’s personality, be humble in your approach…and much more forgiving,” he says.

Even the elderly, whom we might expect to be more rigid and set in their ways, can change. Therapists who work with older clients with neurotic tendencies or troubled relationships should not feel discouraged or give up, says Damian, given what research shows is possible.

Damian also argues that this research could inform people in long-term relationships. Rather than expecting someone to be the same person they were decades ago, partners would be better served by learning to value what remains constant in someone’s personality while simultaneously embracing personality shifts as they occur.

“If you married someone because they’re a fine person, they’re probably still going to be a fine person later on; so that’s reassuring,” she says. “But at the same time, it’s important to keep an eye on them to see how they’re changing, so you don’t get blindsided by the changes and grow apart.”

So, am I changing myself? I hope so—at least on some level. I like the idea of letting go of some of my neuroticism, while becoming more agreeable and conscientious as I enter my older years.

Who knows? Maybe I am the teen I used to be…only a bit more mature.

About the Author

Jill suttie.

Jill Suttie, Psy.D. , is Greater Good ’s former book review editor and now serves as a staff writer and contributing editor for the magazine. She received her doctorate of psychology from the University of San Francisco in 1998 and was a psychologist in private practice before coming to Greater Good .

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Personality Can Change Over A Lifetime, And Usually For The Better

Christopher Soto

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Why do people act the way they do? Many of us intuitively gravitate toward explaining human behavior in terms of personality traits: characteristic patterns of thinking, feeling and behaving that tend to be stable over time and consistent across situations.

This intuition has been a topic of fierce scientific debate since the 1960s, with some psychologists arguing that situations — not traits — are the most important causes of behavior. Some have even argued that personality traits are figments of our imagination that don't exist at all.

But in the past two decades, a large and still-growing body of research has established that personality traits are very much real , and that how people describe someone's personality accurately predicts that person's actual behavior .

The effects of personality traits on behavior are easiest to see when people are observed repeatedly across a variety of situations. On any one occasion, a person's behavior is influenced by both their personality and the situation, as well as other factors such as their current thoughts, feelings and goals. But when someone is observed in many different situations, the influence of personality on behavior is hard to miss. For example, you probably know some people who consistently (but not always) show up on time, and others who consistently run late.

We've also gained a clear sense of which personality traits are most generally useful for understanding behavior. The world's languages include many thousands of words for describing personality, but most of these can be organized in terms of the "Big Five" trait dimensions : extraversion (characterized by adjectives like outgoing, assertive and energetic vs. quiet and reserved); agreeableness (compassionate, respectful and trusting vs. uncaring and argumentative); conscientiousness (orderly, hard-working and responsible vs. disorganized and distractible); negative emotionality (prone to worry, sadness and mood swings vs. calm and emotionally resilient); and open-mindedness (intellectually curious, artistic and imaginative vs. disinterested in art, beauty and abstract ideas).

The Personality Myth

We like to think of our own personalities, and those of our family and friends, as predictable, constant over time. But what if they aren't? Explore that question in the latest episode of the NPR podcast and show Invisibilia .

And while personality traits are relatively stable over time , they can and often do gradually change across the life span. What's more, those changes are usually for the better . Many studies , including some of my own, show that most adults become more agreeable, conscientious and emotionally resilient as they age. But these changes tend to unfold across years or decades, rather than days or weeks. Sudden, dramatic changes in personality are rare.

Due to their effects on behavior and continuity over time, personality traits help shape the course of people's lives. When measured using scientifically constructed and validated personality tests, like one that Oliver John and I recently developed, the Big Five traits predict a long list of consequential life outcomes: performance in school and at work, relationships with family, friends, and romantic partners, life satisfaction and emotional well-being, physical health and longevity, and many more. Of course, none of these outcomes are entirely determined by personality; all of them are also influenced by people's life circumstances. But personality traits clearly influence people's lives in important ways and help explain why two people in similar circumstances often end up with different outcomes.

Consider one of life's most important and potentially difficult decisions: who (if anyone!) to choose as your mate. The research evidence indicates that personality should play a role in this decision. Studies following couples over time have consistently found that choosing a spouse who is kind, responsible and emotionally resilient will substantially improve your chances of maintaining a stable and satisfying marriage. In fact, personality traits are some of the most powerful predictors of long-term relationship quality.

This is not to say that we've already figured out everything there is to know about personality traits.

Invisibilia: Is Your Personality Fixed, Or Can You Change Who You Are?

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Invisibilia: is your personality fixed, or can you change who you are.

For example, we know that personality change can happen, that it usually happens gradually, and that it's usually for the better. But we don't fully understand the causes of personality change just yet.

Research by Brent Roberts, Joshua Jackson, Wiebke Bleidorn and others highlights the importance of social roles . When we invest in a role that calls for particular kinds of behavior, such as a job that calls for being hard-working and responsible, then over time those behaviors tend to become integrated into our personality.

A 2015 study by Nathan Hudson and Chris Fraley indicates that some people may even be able to intentionally change their own personality through sustained personal effort and careful goal-setting. A study of mine published last year, and another by Jule Specht, suggest that positive personality changes accelerate when people are leading meaningful and satisfying lives.

So although we now know a lot more about personality than we did even a few years ago, we certainly don't know everything. The nature, development and consequences of personality traits remain hot topics of research, and we're learning new things all the time. Stay tuned.

Christopher Soto is an associate professor of psychology at Colby College and a member of the executive board of the Association for Research in Personality . Follow him on Twitter @cjsotomatic.

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Personality Change

Self-Reinvention

Reviewed by Psychology Today Staff

A personality features a collection of traits that make an individual distinct—traits such as extroversion , openness to new experiences, narcissism , or agreeableness , which some people exhibit more strongly than others. But just because a term like "disagreeable" describes someone well doesn't mean the person necessarily wants to be that way. Procrastinators may wish to become more conscientious ; those inclined to gloominess may hope to be more optimistic ; the shy may long to be the life of the party. Many people want to change some feature of their personality.

Personality trait measures tend to be fairly stable during adulthood, psychologists have found. Yet research does indicate that there is room for personal evolution, especially over long periods of time as an individual matures. And whether one receives a personality makeover or not, with a little sweat and some luck, it is possible to break out of old behavioral patterns and act more like the person one wants to be.

  • The Flexibility of Personality
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As consistent as a personality can remain from day to day, research indicates that the adult personality is more malleable than once believed. In studies, individuals do appear to change with age, on average—showing signs of maturation that are measurable through personality questionnaires. Deliberately trying to change one's personality is a different matter, but research has explored ways of doing that, too.

Probably.  Extroversion , conscientiousness , agreeableness , and emotional stability are all traits that one may be able to deliberately increase, research suggests , though it’s not yet known how permanent such changes are. They also seem to require active engagement in efforts to change —merely wanting to is likely not enough. 

Yes, for many people, it does. Research suggests that people tend to become, for example, calmer and more socially sensitive , and less narcissistic , on average. The idea that agreeableness, conscientiousness, and emotional stability tend to increase with age has been called the “maturity principle.” At the same time, people show marked consistency in terms of how their personalities compare to those of their peers, so someone who is more narcissistic than most may remain so over the years.

While they may not become a “different person,” over the course of a lifetime, a person can show notable increases or decreases in levels of certain personality traits .

Many factors may lead to changes in personality. Genetics influences the development of a person’s traits as they grow up, and personality researchers have argued that important life changes (such as getting married) and new social roles (such as a job) can alter personality traits as well. Research indicates that therapy can produce change, especially on the trait of neuroticism. 

Mental health is linked to multiple aspects of personality. The Big Five trait of neuroticism, in particular, has been associated with a variety of mental health conditions, including mood and anxiety disorders, substance use disorders, and certain personality disorders (including borderline personality disorder). Research also suggests that people with some kinds of mental illness, including depression , tend to be relatively low in conscientiousness and extraversion.

Although research is limited, it suggests that brain injury may influence personality. There is evidence, for example, that people who experience a serious head injury or stroke may show decreases in conscientiousness and extroversion.

Photo by Polina Zimmerman from Pexels

Interventions designed to get people to behave differently—such as by introducing oneself to new people, showing up early to an event, or other challenges—have, at least in experiments, seemed to move the needle on measures of personality traits. But such efforts may need to be consistent and sustained for (at least) a matter of weeks. Psychotherapy also seems to have the power to create positive personality change.

Engaging in regular social "challenges" might help. Students who wanted to become more extroverted and completed  two or more psychologist-devised challenges  a week tended to show increases in their questionnaire scores on extroversion over the course of a semester. The exercises ranged from simple steps like saying hello to a cashier or waving to someone who lived nearby, to more involved ones such as going to a Meet Up event or organizing a social outing.

One of the clearest paths to changing a “negative personality” is treatment by a mental health professional , especially psychotherapy (including types such as cognitive behavioral therapy). The strongest reported effects are on the trait of neuroticism, which is sometimes called negative emotionality . 

Students who took on two or more conscientious-related challenges a week showed some gains in their scores on the trait over the course of a semester. These included tasks such as “Begin preparing for an event 10 minutes earlier than usual," "Set out your clothes the night before," and "Clean up the dishes as soon as you're done with them."

There are a variety of personality tests , and some are available to the general public. Responding to a questionnaire that assesses the Big Five traits (such as the Big Five Inventory) at different points in time—or having someone else respond to questions about you on your behalf—may help you get a clearer sense of the extent to which your personality has changed. Such tests provide scores for each trait on a continuous scale.

Personality is not set in stone. While research finds some long-term consistency in measures of different personality traits, it also suggests that change is possible even in old age.

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Can you change your personality?

Message on paper that says I panic when someone says I need to talk to you

It has long been believed that people can’t change their personalities, which are largely stable and inherited. But a review of recent research in personality science points to the possibility that personality traits can change through persistent intervention and major life events.

Personality traits, identified as neuroticism, extraversion, openness to experience, agreeableness and conscientiousness, can predict a wide range of important outcomes such as health, happiness and income. Because of this, these traits might represent an important target for policy interventions designed to improve human welfare.

The research, published in the December issue of American Psychologist, is the product of the Personality Change Consortium, an international group of researchers committed to advancing understanding of personality change. The consortium was initiated by Wiebke Bleidorn and Christopher Hopwood, University of California, Davis, professors of psychology who are also co-authors of the latest paper, “The Policy Relevance of Personality Traits.” The paper has 13 other co-authors.

Policy change could be more effective

“In this paper, we present the case that traits can serve both as relatively stable predictors of success and actionable targets for policy changes and interventions,” Bleidorn said.

“Parents, teachers, employers and others have been trying to change personality forever because of their implicit awareness that it is good to make people better people,” Hopwood added.

But now, he said, strong evidence suggests that personality traits are broad enough to account for a wide range of socially important behaviors at levels that surpass known predictors, and that they can change, especially if you catch people at the right age and exert sustained effort. However, these traits also remain relatively stable; thus while they can change, they are not easy to change.

Resources are often invested in costly interventions that are unlikely to work because they are not informed by evidence about personality traits. “For that reason, it would be helpful for public policymakers to think more explicitly about what it takes to change personality to improve personal and public welfare, the costs and benefits of such interventions, and the resources needed to achieve the best outcomes by both being informed by evidence about personality traits and investing more sustained resources and attention toward better understanding personality change,” researchers said.

Why focus on personality traits?

Research has found that a relatively small number of personality traits can account for most of the ways in which people differ from one another. Thus, they are related to a wide range of important life outcomes. These traits are also relatively stable, but changeable with effort and good timing. This combination — broad and enduring, yet changeable — makes them particularly promising targets for large-scale interventions. Both neuroticism and conscientiousness, for example, may represent good intervention targets in young adulthood. And certain interventions — especially those that require persistence and long-term commitment — may be more effective among conscientious, emotionally stable people. It is also important to consider motivational factors, as success is more likely if people are motivated and think change is feasible, researchers said.

Bleidorn and Hopwood said examples of important questions that could be more informed by personality science include: What is the long-term impact of social media and video games? How do we get children to be kinder and work harder at school? How do we help people acculturate to new environments? And, what is the best way to help people age with grace and dignity?

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Does your personality change as you get older?

Good news: we get better over time.

This kid's personality might gradually change over time, but whether he comes around on finger puppets is anyone's guess. 

Between adolescence and adulthood, you go through a host of changes — jobs, regrettable haircuts and relationships that come and go. But what about who you are at your core? As you grow older, does your personality change?

Personality is the pattern of thoughts, feelings and behaviors unique to a person. People tend to think of personality as fixed. But according to psychologists, that's not how it works. "Personality is a developmental phenomenon. It's not just a static thing that you're stuck with and can't get over," said Brent Roberts, a psychologist at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

That's not to say that you're a different person each day you wake up. In the short term, change can be nearly imperceptible, Roberts told Live Science. Longitudinal studies, in which researchers survey the personalities of participants regularly over many years, suggest that our personality is actually stable on shorter time scales. 

Related: Why do people have different personalities?

In one study, published in 2000 in the journal Psychological Bulletin , researchers analyzed the results of 152 longitudinal studies on personality, which followed participants ranging in age from childhood to their early 70s. Each of these studies measured trends in the Big Five personality traits. This cluster of traits, which include extroversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, openness to experience, and neuroticism, are a mainstay of personality research. The researchers found that individuals' levels of each personality trait, relative to other participants, tended to stay consistent within each decade of life. 

That pattern of consistency begins around age 3, and perhaps even earlier, said Brent Donnellan, professor and chair of psychology at Michigan State University. When psychologists study children, they don't measure personality traits in the same way they do for adults. Instead, they look at temperament — the intensity of a person's reactions to the world. We come into the world with unique temperaments, and research suggests that our temperaments as children — for example, whether we're easy going or prone to temper tantrums, eager or more reluctant to approach strangers — correspond to adult personality traits. "A shy 3-year-old acts a lot different from a shy 20-something. But there's an underlying core," Donnellan told Live Science. 

Earlier temperament seems to affect later life experience. For example, one 1995 study published in the journal Child Development followed children from the age of 3 until the age of 18. The researchers found, for instance, that children who were shyer and more withdrawn tended to grow into unhappier teenagers. 

But those decades add up. Throughout all those years, our personality is still changing, but slowly, Roberts said. "It's something that's subtle," he added. You don't notice it on that five-to-10-year time scale, but in the long term, it becomes pronounced. In 1960, psychologists surveyed over 440,000 high school students — around 5% of all students in the country at that time. The students answered questions about everything from how they reacted to emotional situations to how efficiently they got work done. Fifty years later, researchers tracked down 1,952 of these former students and gave them the same survey. The results, published in 2018 in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology , found that in their 60s, participants scored much higher than they had as teenagers on questions measuring calmness, self-confidence, leadership and social sensitivity. 

Again and again, longitudinal studies have found similar results. Personality tends to get "better" over time. Psychologists call it "the maturity principle." People become more extraverted, emotionally stable, agreeable and conscientious as they grow older. Over the long haul, these changes are often pronounced. 

Some individuals might change less than others, but in general, the maturity principle applies to everyone. That makes personality change even harder to recognize in ourselves — how your personality compares with that of your peers doesn't change as much as our overall change in personality, because everyone else is changing right along with you. "There's good evidence that the average self-control of a 30-year-old is higher than a 20-year-old," Donnellan said. "At the same time, people who are relatively self-controlled at 18 also tend to be relatively self-controlled at age 30."

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So why do we change so much? Evidence suggests it's not dramatic life events, such as marriage, the birth of a child or loss of a loved one. Some psychologists actually suggest these events reinforce your personality as you bring your characteristics with you to that particular situation, Donnellan said. 

Related: How accurate is the Myers-Briggs personality test?

Instead, changing expectations placed on us — as we adjust to university, the work force, starting a family — slowly wears us in, almost like a pair of shoes, Roberts said. "Over time you are asked in many contexts across life to do things a bit differently," he said. "There's not a user manual for how to act, but there's very clear implicit norms for how we should behave in these situations." So we adapt.

Depending on how you look at it, it's a revelation that's either unsettling or hopeful. Over time, personality does change, progressively and consistently — like tectonic plates shifting rather than an earthquake . "That opens up the question: Over the life course, how much of a different person do we become?" Roberts said.

Originally published on Live Science .

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Isobel Whitcomb

Isobel Whitcomb is a contributing writer for Live Science who covers the environment, animals and health. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, Fatherly, Atlas Obscura, Hakai Magazine and Scholastic's Science World Magazine. Isobel's roots are in science. She studied biology at Scripps College in Claremont, California, while working in two different labs and completing a fellowship at Crater Lake National Park. She completed her master's degree in journalism at NYU's Science, Health, and Environmental Reporting Program. She currently lives in Portland, Oregon.

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  • Essay on Character

Can People Change Their Personality Essay Examples

Type of paper: Essay

Topic: Character , Emotions , Development , Life , Adulthood , Education , Study , Psychology

Words: 2500

Published: 12/15/2019

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According to Mayer (2007), “personality is a system of parts that is organised, develops, and is expressed in people’s actions”. The ‘system of parts’ would mean components of self that include emotions and motivations. Personality is, thus, a complex whole formed by intersection of various external and internal factors. It is a gradual process of development. While some researches have considered personality as stable and consistent, recent researches suggest that personality develops during a person’s lifetime. The following section discusses some of these recent researches.

Personality Development Studies

Personality development is a complex process. Different researchers have explained this process in different ways. This section discusses some important researches in the field of personality development.

Life Span of Personality Development

Funder (2010) explains that the personality of a person is shaped by genetic factors and early life experiences. Steven mentions the twin study research on heritability of personality traits, which states that genetic factors contribute to about 40% of an individual’s personality trait development. Funder (2010) further claims that personality is a long term process of development. It develops as a personal matures, physically and psychologically. The different lifetime experiences also play an important role in moulding an individual’s personality. However, there is a degree to which a person’s personality is consistent over his or her lifetime.

There are three key learning from this work of Funder (2010). The first learning is that, in spite of developing gradually over the life, people have tendencies to maintain their individual distinguishable traits. This means that personality traits are stable over the life span. The second learning is that, people’s score of personality trait does change with age and maturity. For instance, two children may have different levels of emotional balance. With age and maturity, their score of emotional balance will increase. However, their difference in levels of emotional balance will still be the same.

The third learning from Funder’s work is that change in personality may also be dependent on the different social roles adopted by different people. A child’s upbringing is different in different cultures and societies. In some societies, a person resumes his family and job responsibilities earlier in life and improves his conscientiousness score sooner. Hence, changes are also demanded by the changing circumstances in a person’s life.

Continuity and Change in Personality over the Life Course

McAdams and Olson (2010) observe personality development in a human lifetime from three different reference points: the person as actor (behaving), agent (striving) and author (narrating). The first perspective, where a person is an actor, states that differences in patterns of social action in infancy shape an individual’s temperament. An individual’s temperament helps evolution of his or her long term dispositional and behavioural traits as adults. The second perspective defines a striving side of an individual. An agent or a striving individual witnesses a consolidation of his or self and goals. This consolidation becomes a part of his or psychology and is reflected in his or her personality. The third perspective describes an individual as an author. The internalisation of an individual’s life experiences during adolescent and early adulthood gives a definite identity to him or her. Thus, there are three layers of personality development; traits, goals and life stories. As McAdams and Olson (2010) describe it, stories are layered over goals and goals are layered over traits. The intermixing or combination of these traits, goals and values develop an individual’s personality.

McAdams and Olson (2010) examine the interplay of personality layers at five development milestones in life: Age 2, the transition to adolescence, emerging adulthood, midlife and old age. At a very early age, the temperamental precursors like mood, inhibitions and attentions develop in infants. In adolescence, children develop clear goals and motivations for themselves. The varied experiences in life shape their personality over time. Children learn to prioritise, focus on their identified goals and withdraw from activities that they deem ill-suited. It is the stage of development of neurological changes.

The late adolescence and early adulthood involves a lot of reconstructions and provides a definite purpose to life. As a person matures from adolescence to middle adulthood, commitments increase which is manifested in their goals and life experiences. Late adulthood is when increased personality level differences are observed. In midlife stage, a change in developmental direction and perspectives takes place. The late midlife and old age show increasing focus on self-maintenance and decline in life experiences.

Personality Development in Early and Middle Adulthood

Srivastava, John, Potter and Gosling (2003) examined the Big Five personality trait dimensions to understand the changes in personality traits in early and middle adulthood. The research was involved understanding changes in the big five personality traits. Srivastava, John, Potter and Gosling (2003) define the big five personality traits as extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism and openness. Extraversion is characterised by assertiveness, firmness and ease of emotional expressiveness. Agreeableness includes behavioural traits like kindness, trust and selflessness. Individuals high in conscientiousness are thoughtful, determined and have a knack for detailing. Neuroticism is featured by lack of emotional stability. Openness is being imaginative and open to new ideas.

The study encompassed surveying people in the age group of 21-60. The survey showed pattern difference across different personality traits and gender during different stages of life. The study did not support absolute change in any of the big five personality traits. The research concluded that conscientiousness in men and women increased after age 30, but it grew mostly during the 20s. Agreeableness increased the most during 30s. Neuroticism and extraversion declined with age for women, but not significantly for men. Openness declined with age for both men and women.

Stability and Predictability of Personality Traits

Gustavsson et al (1996) conducted a study to determine the stability and predictive ability of personality over a period of nine years. He asserts that even stability in personality traits will not be of interest if it does not predict real future outcomes. The comparison was done over their personality rating outcomes of the study done in 1986-1987. The study was done in three key areas of activities in life; family life, emotional and physical health, and work. The neuroticism scale predicted that level of family and job satisfaction in people. Individuals with higher levels of emotional imbalance were predicted with lesser family and job satisfaction. In spite of not witnessing major health problems, the study predicted lesser satisfaction of health in such individuals.

The study conducted by Gustavsson et al (1996) also found out that, in the long run, there is a difference in the way a person responds to a stress creating circumstance like psychological and physical trauma and major surgeries. Stable people or people high on coherence, tend to show reducing anxiety levels in follow up sessions after the surgery. Thus, the same external trigger has different impact on individuals’ mental condition, depending upon their personality type.

Fixed and Variable Personality Traits

Livingstone (2009) expresses his views of change in personality on Life Matters (ABC 18 May 2009: http://www.abc.net.au/rn/lifematters/stories/2009/2569070.htm). He claims that love at first sight is a misnomer and one needs to evaluate behavioural traits in a partner for a successful relationship. While evaluating, some key personality traits should be looked at. He asserts that kindness is the most important and indispensible virtue, followed by tolerance level, honesty and resilience. Choosing a partner requires careful examination of these traits, both logically and emotionally. Livingstone (2009) also expresses that these personality traits vary across people and are distinguishable quite early in their lives. These traits are relatively fixed and do not change much over life. According to Livingstone (2009), people can be typically divided into two categories. The first category is characterised by people who are self-absorbed like narcissists. They are so much into themselves that it is difficult to expect any emotional support from them. The emotional balance in this category of people is quite low. The other category of people comprises of those who love others and aspire to be loved. These are the fundamental differences in people and cannot be changed. Livingstone asserts that though people do change, the change in fundamental behaviour does not happen frequently between the ages of 16-50. However, the fundamental parts of the behaviour may undergo change over time. Depression and anxiety can be reduced by medicine and counselling, but change from being self-observed to being empathic may not be seen often.

Resilience in Personality Traits

Resilience is an important factor in an individual’s personality development. It increases once capability to maintain self and bounce back from setbacks in life. A recent study conducted by Meeus et al (2011), explains that change in personality is observed in the direction of resiliency. The study showed that resilience and stability is higher in old age group people. This means that the change from resilient personality traits is observed lesser in old age group people than in early adolescents. Resilience or resilient type serves as the end point of personality development. This is the key reason that personality is more stable in old age than adolescent.

Factors Affecting Personality Change

Different researchers have different view on the subject of personality development in humans. However, on review of the various researches on this subject, some factors can be identified that broadly affect personality change in humans. These factors can be divided into four broad categories: genetic factors, individual differences, external factors and other factors.

Genetic Factors

As mentioned by Steven, genetic factors account for about 40% of an individual’s personality traits development. Even in close blood relationships like siblings and parent-children relationships, difference in personality traits is seen. People do differ in their disposition traits. This is because the genetic makeup of people is different. Even in siblings, parental genes can come together in numerous different ways leading to appearance of distinct characteristics.

Individual Differences

The key individual differences that affect personality development are the agent self, existence of different big five personality traits, and existence of fixed and variable personality traits. The ‘self’ factor of an individual along with its striving nature form an integral part of personality development. The striving agent forms goals and motivation in people which become a prominent psychological trait in humans. It is then manifested in individuals as a part of their personality traits. The big five personality traits are an integral part of an individual’s personality. However, it is present in people with varying proportions. The combination of these factors and their interplay with external factors define a person’s dispositional traits. Each individual is possessed with some fundamental traits. Some people are more empathetic and some are more self-absorbed. These personality traits are relatively stable and do not change. The variable factors like depression can be reduced with medical treatment.

Lifespan Time

Personality traits improve gradually as people age. Most of the changes in personality take place by age 30. Resilience increases with age and the personality traits become more stable and ‘set like plaster’ as people mature. Physical and psychological maturation is also attained with age, which leads to improvement in personality traits.

External Factors

Some of the key external factors affecting personality development are socio-cultural factors, physical and psychological triggers, life experiences and substance abuse. Socio-cultural factors affect the upbringing of a child. In some societies, individuals take up their family and job responsibilities early in life. This improves their conscientiousness and stability scores. Also, each culture prefers one personality trait to other. Hence, manifestation of the socially preferred personality trait is seen more often. Physical injuries, illness and psychological trauma increases stress in individuals. However, stress and anxiety increases temporarily and the resilient personality traits become prominent with time. Substance abuse affects one neurological systems and leads to changes in personality. Life experiences also help in shaping a person’s personality.

Personality is a complex whole formed by interplay of various external and internal factors. It is a gradual process of development. Different researchers have explained this process in different ways. Personality comprises of fundamental and variable traits. Fundamental traits are relatively fixed and do not change over life time. They are formed from a complex of genetic factors, individual differences and other external stimuli. Variable factors are changeable with time and focus. Personality development begins at a very early age of infancy and is high till age 30. Individuals have a tendency to develop their personality in the direction of resilient traits. With age and maturation, stability in personality takes place.

Funder, David C. (2010). The Personality Puzzle (Fifth Edition). United States of America: W. W. Norton & Company. Gustavsson, J. P., Weinryb, R. M., Giiransson, S., Pedersen, N., L. & Asberg, M. (1997). Stability and predictive ability of personality traits across 9 years. Personality and Individual Differences, 22(6), 783–791. Srivastava, S., John, O. P., Gosling, S. D., & Potter, J (2003). Development of personality in early and middle adulthood: Set like plaster or persistent change? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 84(5), 1041–1053. Steven Lee (n.d.). Module 20: Social Cognitive & Trait Theories. Retrieved from https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:4IAHp6lM3DEJ:www.alvord.k12.ca.us/LaSierra/departments/SocialScience/psychology/Steven%2520Lee%2520Module%252020.ppt+steven+lee+module+20+social+trait+theories&hl=en&gl=in&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESiJhKObtyJe-ase6VD8uiJ5MIkPxi67TQEQeTROPTsEQxqTI0GQvhBjpP9HP8VxMehMz6SXZ_euJzh4DPrNNXaThFX9RfZlN-3ZytaWxJaDtJdSeWu-6XD9N9rvbDYvUwSCz2Pn&sig=AHIEtbR2beOcbFII0i-iYnK_pYaagQAHzw Mayer, J.D. (2007). Asserting the Definition of Personality. The Online Newsletter for Personality Science, 1, 1-4. McAdams, D. P., & Olson, B. D. (2010). Personality development: continuity and change over the life course. Annual Review of Psychology, 61(5).1–5.26. doi: 10.1146/annurev.psych.093008.100507 Meeus, Wim, de Schoot, R.V., Klimstra, T. and Branje, S. (2011). Personality Types in Adolescence: Change and stability and links with adjustments and relationships: A five-wave longitudinal study. Developmental Psychology, 47(4), 1181-1195

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Student Essays

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5 Best Essays on Personality Development & its Importance

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Personality development is the process whereby a man enriches his mental, physical exterior appearance by means of adding value to it. As the Personality is sum total of one’s inner and exterior characteristics, so the personality development refers to adding value to it. The following Essay On Personality Development talks about its core meaning, purpose and importance of Personality development and how personality development is important in today’s life.

List of Topics

Essay on Personality Development & Its Importance in Life

Personality development is one of the most important aspects of human life. It helps in determining the way we think, feel and behave. It is the result of our interactions with others and our environment. Personality development starts from the time we are born and continues throughout our life. Personality development refers to the process of improving one’s personality. It is a lifelong process that involves learning new things, adapting to new situations and making changes in oneself.

There are various factors that contribute to personality development. These include nature (heredity), nurture (environment), experiences, culture and socialization. Heredity refers to the traits that are passed on to us from our parents. Nurture refers to the environment in which we grow up and the experiences we have. Our culture and socialization play a major role in shaping our personality.

Personality development is important because it helps us to become better individuals. It enables us to cope with the challenges of life and to lead successful and fulfilling lives. It also helps us to develop our unique talents and abilities.

Personality Development for Students

Personality development is very important for students. It helps them to become better individuals and to cope with the challenges of life. It also helps them to develop their unique talents and abilities. In addition to that a strongly personality developed person is always successful and also have a better social life. He will never be afraid to take challenge because he know his capabilities and can perform in every situation.’

>>> Related Post:   “ Essay on My Strengths & Weaknesses  ”

Therefore, Personality development is highly instrumental in our lives. We need to work on it throughout our lives in order to become better individuals. It is a lifelong process that involves learning new things, adapting to new situations and making changes in ourselves.

Essay on Personality Development:

Personality development is the process of shaping and enhancing one’s personality. It refers to a combination of behavioral, emotional, and cognitive patterns that make up an individual’s unique traits and characteristics. These patterns are influenced by various factors such as genetics, environment, experiences, and upbringing.

The concept of personality development has been studied extensively in psychology and is considered crucial for personal growth and success in life. It is a continuous process that starts from childhood and continues throughout one’s lifetime.

Personality development can be classified into two main categories: innate and acquired traits. Innate traits are those that are inherited genetically, such as physical features, while acquired traits are shaped by external factors like education, culture, and personal experiences. Both these types of traits determine an individual’s behavior and responses to different situations.

The development of one’s personality is a complex process that involves various stages. It starts with the formation of an identity during early childhood, followed by self-awareness and socialization in the adolescent years. As individuals grow older, their personalities continue to evolve, influenced by various experiences, relationships, and life events.

In today’s fast-paced and competitive world, having a well-developed personality is essential for personal and professional success. It helps in building confidence, assertiveness, effective communication skills, and the ability to adapt to changing situations. Therefore, it is crucial to invest time and effort in developing one’s personality continuously.

To conclude, personality development is an ongoing process that determines an individual’s behavior and overall well-being. It is a combination of innate and acquired traits that are shaped by various experiences throughout one’s life. Nurturing and enhancing one’s personality can lead to personal growth, success, and fulfillment in all aspects of life.

Essay on Personality Development through Sports:

Personality development refers to the process of improving one’s characteristics, behaviors, and attitudes. It is a continuous journey that involves growth, learning, and self-discovery. Personality development can be influenced by various factors such as upbringing, education, and experiences.

One major aspect that plays a significant role in shaping an individual’s personality is sports. Participating in sports activities has been proven to have a positive impact on one’s physical, mental, and emotional well-being. However, the benefits of sports go beyond just physical health. It also contributes to an individual’s overall personality development.

Sports can teach individuals important life skills such as teamwork, discipline, and perseverance. These skills are crucial in one’s personal and professional life. Through sports, individuals learn to work together towards a common goal, which can help them develop better social skills and build stronger relationships.

Moreover, sports also teach individuals how to handle success and failure. In competitive sports, there will always be winners and losers. Through these experiences, individuals learn the importance of resilience and how to bounce back from setbacks. They also learn to take responsibility for their actions and make necessary improvements to achieve their goals.

Furthermore, sports can also help individuals develop confidence and self-esteem. As they improve their physical abilities and skills, they gain a sense of accomplishment and belief in themselves. This confidence can translate into other areas of life, allowing them to take on challenges with a positive attitude.

In conclusion, sports have a significant impact on an individual’s personality development. It not only promotes physical health but also instills important life skills and values. Therefore, it is essential to encourage individuals to participate in sports activities as a means of fostering their personal growth and development.

Essay on Role of Teacher in Personality Development:

The role of teachers in shaping the personalities of their students is crucial. Teachers are not just responsible for imparting knowledge and academic skills, but they also play a significant role in the overall development of a child.

One of the key roles of teachers is to act as role models for their students. Students often look up to their teachers and emulate their behavior, attitude and values. This makes it imperative for teachers to possess desirable qualities such as empathy, patience, and integrity so that they can positively influence their students.

Moreover, teachers also play an essential role in nurturing the emotional intelligence of their students. They not only teach academic subjects but also help students develop important life skills like communication, problem-solving, decision-making and critical thinking. These skills are vital for a child’s personality development and growth.

Teachers also have the responsibility of identifying and nurturing the strengths of their students. Every child is unique, and it is the teacher’s job to recognize their potential and encourage them to excel in their areas of interest. This not only boosts the self-confidence of students but also helps them discover their true passions.

Additionally, teachers act as mentors and guides for their students, providing them with emotional support and guidance when needed. They help shape the character of their students by instilling values like honesty, respect, and responsibility.

In conclusion, the role of teachers in personality development is multifaceted and crucial. They not only educate but also inspire, motivate and guide their students towards becoming well-rounded individuals who contribute positively to society. Thus, it is essential for teachers to continuously strive towards being the best role models and mentors for their students.

Benefits Of Personality Development:

Personality development refers to the process of enhancing and improving one’s characteristics, traits, and behaviors. It involves understanding oneself, making positive changes, and developing a strong sense of self-confidence and self-awareness. This process can have several benefits for individuals in both their personal and professional lives.

Here are some key benefits of personality development:

Improves Communication Skills

Effective communication is a critical skill that can bring success in all aspects of life. By developing one’s personality, an individual learns how to communicate effectively and confidently with others. This includes verbal as well as written communication skills. Good communicators are often able to express their thoughts and ideas clearly, build strong relationships, and lead a successful personal and professional life.

Helps In Self-Awareness

Personality development involves understanding one’s strengths, weaknesses, and other personal traits. It helps individuals become more self-aware and introspective. With a better knowledge of oneself, an individual can identify areas that need improvement and work towards personal growth. This leads to increased self-confidence and a better sense of direction in life.

Boosts Self-Confidence

By developing one’s personality, individuals gain confidence in themselves and their abilities. They learn to overcome self-doubt, take on new challenges, and achieve their goals. This confidence not only helps in personal life but also makes a significant difference in professional settings where it enables an individual to take on leadership roles and excel at tasks.

Enhances Decision Making Skills

Personality development also improves an individual’s decision-making skills. By being self-aware, individuals can make better decisions by taking into account their strengths, weaknesses, and goals. This ability to analyze situations and think critically leads to better choices and outcomes in both personal and professional life.

Improves Overall Well-Being

When individuals work on developing their personality, they also learn to manage stress, control emotions, and maintain a positive outlook on life. This results in improved mental, emotional, and physical well-being. By staying calm and composed during challenging situations, individuals can lead healthier and more fulfilling lives.

Helps In Building Stronger Relationships

Effective communication skills, self-awareness, confidence, and improved decision-making abilities positively impact an individual’s relationships with others. By developing their personality, individuals learn to listen actively and empathize with others. They also become better at resolving conflicts, building trust, and maintaining healthy relationships.

In conclusion, personality development can bring significant positive changes in individuals’ lives by improving their communication skills, self-awareness, confidence, decision-making abilities, overall well-being, and relationships. By investing time and effort towards this process, individuals can lead happier, more successful, and fulfilling lives.

>>>> Read Also : ” Essay on Talent, Concept & Importance “

Paragraph on Personality:

Personality is a complex and multifaceted concept that refers to the unique combination of characteristics and traits that make up an individual’s pattern of thinking, feeling, and behaving. It is shaped by both genetic predispositions and environmental factors, such as culture, family dynamics, and life experiences. Some key aspects of personality include temperament, or one’s innate tendencies towards certain emotions and behaviors, as well as character, which encompasses an individual’s values, morals, and ethical principles. Personality plays a significant role in shaping our thoughts and actions, influencing how we interact with others and navigate the world around us.

In addition to these core aspects, personality also includes traits like introversion vs extroversion, openness to new experiences, conscientiousness, and emotional stability. These traits are often measured on a spectrum, with individuals falling somewhere between the two extremes. For example, someone may be highly introverted or extroverted, or they may fall somewhere in the middle. Similarly, a person can have varying levels of openness to new experiences or be highly conscientious or emotionally stable.

One’s personality is not fixed and can change and evolve over time, influenced by various life events and experiences. However, certain aspects of our personality tend to remain relatively stable throughout our lives. Understanding one’s own personality can help individuals navigate relationships, work environments, and personal growth more effectively.

Essay about Personal Growth and Development

Personal growth and development are concepts that refer to the continuous process of improving oneself by gaining new knowledge, skills, and experiences. It is a lifelong journey that involves self-reflection, learning from mistakes, setting goals, and making positive changes in one’s behavior and attitudes.

In this essay, we will explore the importance of personal growth and development, the different ways to achieve it, and how it can positively impact an individual’s life.

Why is Personal Growth & Development Important?

Personal growth and development are essential for individuals to reach their full potential. It allows us to gain a deeper understanding of ourselves, our values, and our beliefs. By continuously learning and developing, we become more self-aware and can make better decisions that align with our goals and aspirations.

Moreover, personal growth and development help us adapt to changes in our lives. It equips us with the necessary skills and mindset to face challenges, overcome obstacles, and move forward in life.

It is also worth noting that personal growth and development not only benefit individuals but also have a positive impact on those around them. By improving ourselves, we can inspire and motivate others to do the same.

Ways to Achieve Personal Growth & Development

There is no one-size-fits-all approach to personal growth and development. Each individual may have different goals and preferences, so it is essential to find what works best for you. However, here are some common ways that people can achieve personal growth and development:

  • Continuous learning: This can involve formal education, reading books, attending workshops or seminars, or even just learning from everyday experiences.
  • Self-reflection: Taking time to reflect on your thoughts, feelings, and actions can help you gain a better understanding of yourself and identify areas for improvement.
  • Setting goals: Having clear and achievable goals can provide direction and motivation for personal growth and development.
  • Stepping out of your comfort zone: Trying new things, taking risks, and facing fears can lead to personal growth by challenging you to grow and adapt.
  • Seeking feedback: Asking for feedback from others can provide valuable insights and help identify blind spots that you may not be aware of.

The Impact of Personal Growth & Development

Personal growth and development can have a profound impact on an individual’s life. It can lead to increased self-confidence, improved relationships, and better overall well-being.

As individuals continue to grow and develop, they may also find that their goals and priorities shift. This allows them to adapt and make changes in their personal or professional lives that align with their values and aspirations.

Moreover, personal growth and development can also have a positive impact on society as a whole. As individuals become more self-aware and make positive changes in their behaviors, they can contribute to creating a more compassionate, empathetic, and understanding community.

In conclusion, personal growth and development are crucial components of living a fulfilling life. By continuously learning, reflecting, setting goals, and stepping out of our comfort zones, we can achieve personal growth and make positive changes in our lives. It is a journey that never truly ends, as there is always room for growth and improvement.

My Best Personality Essay:

My best personality is a combination of many different qualities that make me unique. I am a kind, caring, and empathetic person who always puts others before myself. I have a positive attitude towards life and try to find the good in every situation.

One of my best traits is my ability to listen and communicate effectively with others. I always strive to understand people’s perspectives and offer support when needed. I am also a determined and hardworking individual, always willing to go the extra mile to achieve my goals.

I believe that my curiosity and open-mindedness have helped me grow as a person. I enjoy learning new things, exploring different cultures, and challenging myself to step out of my comfort zone.

Moreover, I value honesty and integrity above all else. I believe that being true to oneself and others is crucial in building strong and meaningful relationships.

In conclusion, my best personality is a culmination of various qualities that make me who I am. While I may not be perfect, I am constantly learning and striving to become a better version of myself each day. So, instead of focusing on an ‘end’ to this essay, I will continue to grow and evolve as a person, embracing my uniqueness and striving to make a positive impact in the world. The journey of self-discovery is never-ending, but I am excited for what the future holds.

Q: What is personality development in your own words essay?

A: Personality development is the lifelong process of shaping one’s distinctive qualities, behavior, and mindset. It involves self-awareness, growth, and the acquisition of social skills to become a better, more refined version of oneself.

Q: What is personality development in 100 words?

A: Personality development refers to the ongoing process of individual growth and transformation in aspects like character, behavior, and attitude. It encompasses self-awareness, emotional intelligence, and acquiring social skills. Through life experiences, self-reflection, and learning, a person hones their personality to adapt to changing circumstances, enhance their relationships, and pursue personal goals.

Q: What are the 5 personality development?

A: The five key factors in personality development, often referred to as the “Big Five” personality traits, are openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism. These traits influence how an individual thinks, behaves, and relates to others.

Q: What is the importance of personality development in one’s life essay?

A: Personality development is crucial for personal and professional success. It enhances self-confidence, communication skills, adaptability, and emotional intelligence. A well-developed personality not only improves relationships but also helps individuals navigate life’s challenges and achieve their goals. This essay would elaborate on these points and stress the significance of continuous self-improvement.

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Essay on Personality

Students are often asked to write an essay on Personality in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on Personality

What is personality.

Personality is what makes you unique. It’s like a special mix of feelings, thoughts, and behaviors that show who you are. Imagine it as your own personal flavor!

Personality Traits

Traits are parts of your personality. Are you kind, funny, or brave? These are all traits. They shape how you act and how people see you.

Personality Development

Your personality grows as you get older. Your family, friends, and experiences all help shape it. It’s like adding new colors to your personal painting.

Why Personality Matters

Your personality affects your life. It can make you a good friend, help you solve problems, and reach your goals. It’s important because it’s all about you!

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250 Words Essay on Personality

Personality is the special way each person acts, thinks, and feels. It’s what makes you, you! Imagine if everyone liked the same food, music, or clothes. That would be boring, right? Well, personality is the thing that gives everyone their own flavor, like different ice cream tastes.

Parts of Personality

Your personality has many parts. It includes your habits, how you talk to people, and what you like or dislike. It’s like a puzzle, with each piece being one part of what you do or how you behave. Some people are shy, while others love talking a lot. Some like to help others, and some are really good at making jokes.

Where Does It Come From?

Have you ever wondered why you are the way you are? Part of it comes from your parents, like the color of your hair. But it’s not just that. Your friends, the things you learn, and the experiences you have also shape your personality. It’s like mixing different colors to paint a picture of you.

Why It’s Important

Your personality is important because it helps you make friends and learn new things. It shows what you’re good at and what makes you happy. It’s like your own personal guidebook that helps you decide what you want to do and be.

Remember, everyone’s personality is different and that’s what makes the world an interesting place. So, celebrate who you are because your personality is what makes you special!

500 Words Essay on Personality

Personality is what makes you unique from others. It is a mix of qualities and traits that shape how you act, think, and feel. These traits are not just how we are on the outside, like our looks, but also how we are on the inside. They include our thoughts, feelings, and the way we behave with others. Everyone has their own special personality that makes them who they are.

Where Does Personality Come From?

Your personality comes from two main places: your genes and your life experiences. Genes are like tiny instructions inside your body that you get from your parents. They can influence parts of your personality, such as whether you are shy or outgoing. Life experiences include the things you go through as you grow up. The friends you make, the games you play, and the lessons you learn all help shape your personality.

Types of Personalities

People often talk about different types of personalities. Some people are very outgoing and love to talk and be with others. They are called extroverts. Others might enjoy time alone and think a lot before they speak. These people are known as introverts. There are also people who are a mix of both. It’s like having a bit of every color in a big box of crayons. Each color adds something special to the picture of who you are.

Personality and Behavior

Your personality affects how you act. For example, if you are a very careful person, you might check your work many times to make sure it is right. If you are a brave person, you might try new things without being scared. It is important to know that your behavior can also change your personality over time. If you keep trying to be friendly, you might become a friendlier person.

Personality and Relationships

The way you get along with others is a big part of your personality. If you are kind and caring, you might have many friends. If you like to share and help, others might come to you when they need support. Your personality helps you make connections with people, and these connections can make your life happier and more fun.

Changing Personality

Some people think that your personality cannot change, but this is not completely true. As you grow and learn, your personality can grow and change too. If you want to become more patient or more brave, you can work on it. It’s like learning to ride a bike or swim. With practice, you can get better at it.

Personality is a beautiful part of every person. It is like a special mark that shows who you are. Understanding your personality can help you know what you are good at and what you might want to work on. Just like a garden, your personality needs care and attention to grow. Remember, everyone is different, and that is what makes each person special.

That’s it! I hope the essay helped you.

If you’re looking for more, here are essays on other interesting topics:

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Do Organ Transplants Cause Personality Changes?

— anecdotal evidence suggests a real possibility, but more research is needed.

by Mitch Liester, MD February 22, 2024

A photo of surgeons preparing a donor kidney for transplantation

I have received some unusual phone calls in my nearly 40-year career as a psychiatrist, but Mary's* call was unique.

"Dr. Liester," she began, "I don't need to see you as a patient. I just want you to tell me if I'm crazy. You see, I'm having memories of things that have never happened to me."

That piqued my interest, so we agreed to meet for an appointment.

Mary was a pleasant, intelligent woman in her mid-40s who exhibited no signs of psychosis. In fact, she seemed quite rational and easy to engage in conversation. She began explaining why she had called: for the last year, Mary had been experiencing recurrent, intrusive memories of being hit by a car. In these "memories," she was a pedestrian and she not only saw herself being struck by the car, but she felt the impact as the car struck her torso, sending her airborne. The problem was, Mary had never been hit by a car. When asked about any trauma, Mary recounted she had undergone heart transplant surgery just prior to the onset of these new memories. Her transplant surgery had gone well, but she was left wondering, "Could my new heart have anything to do with these new memories?"

Mary then divulged that she had recently learned the identity of her donor's family. They lived in Seattle, and she was planning to visit them in the next week. We ended the appointment with me reassuring Mary that she was not crazy and asking her if she would meet once more after she returned from her trip. She agreed.

When Mary returned, she described what she had learned on her trip. Her donor was a pre-adolescent boy who was playing tag with friends when he ran between two houses, then into an alley where he did not see an approaching car. He was struck by the car in the torso in the same location where Mary had been experiencing the sensation of having been hit. The boy was declared brain dead, but his heart was not damaged, so his parents donated his heart. Mary's reaction to learning this information was a sense of relief and closure. She now knew she was not "crazy." But, I was left wondering, do organ transplants cause personality changes?

Relevant Research

One of the earliest patient accounts describing personality changes following organ transplantation is found in Claire Sylvia's book, A Change of Heart , published in 1997, and it wasn't until the 1990s that researchers began investigating this phenomenon.

In one early study in this area, neuropsychologist Paul Pearsall, PhD, investigated changes in the personality of 10 heart transplant recipients to see if they paralleled the personality of their donors. In each case he interviewed the heart transplant recipient, a member of their donor's family, and a member of the recipient's family. He found two to five similarities in each case between changes in the recipient's personality post-transplant and the donor's personality. These included changes in preference for food, music, art, sex, recreation, and career.

He also found specific instances in which the recipients were able to identify the names of their donors or had sensory experiences related to their donors. In another study , detailed in his 1998 book, The Heart's Code , Pearsall reported that recipients of kidney, liver, and other organs also described changes post-transplant including their sense of smell, food preferences, and emotions, but these changes were usually transitory and not as robust as the changes found in heart transplant recipients.

More recently, we conducted a study on this topic at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, and found 89% of organ recipients (of any organ) reported changes in their personality following their transplant surgery.

These findings raise the question, what causes these personality changes? Numerous hypotheses have been proposed, including the effects of immunosuppressive drugs, the trauma of undergoing transplant surgery, and surreptitious acquisition of information about the donor from outside sources. Pearsall suggested another possibility: he hypothesized cellular memory might be responsible.

Where Are Memories Stored?

In 1894, Spanish neuroscientist Santiago Ramón y Cajal suggested memories are stored in the brain. He believed this storage occurs by restructuring synapses, the connections between neurons. More than half a century later, research by neurosurgeon Wilder Penfield, MD, found evidence to back this up . The theory that memories are stored in the synapses of the brain persists to this day.

But memories stored in the brain would not likely account for the personality changes observed following organ transplants. Could a different type of memory explain these changes?

Several types of non-neurologic cellular memory exist. For example, the immune system remembers exposure to infectious pathogens and responds quicker if re-exposure occurs. This is known as immunological memory .

Another form of cellular memory involves DNA. The DNA in our cells is capable of storing enormous amounts of information . Almost all cells of the body are known to secrete DNA-containing packages known as exosomes that circulate throughout the body and deliver their contents to other cells where they are then incorporated into the recipient cell's DNA. Is it possible that donor organs secrete exosomes that deliver DNA to the organ recipient's cells, thus transferring DNA-encoded memory about the donor?

Epigenetic memory is another type of cellular memory. Epigenetics is the study of factors that turn genes on or off without altering the DNA sequence. Numerous types of epigenetic changes occur in human cells, and these changes create an epigenetic code that is stored and retrieved over time.

The totality of an individual's epigenetic changes at any point in time is referred to as the epigenome . The epigenome, which can be viewed as a record of the interactions between an individual and the environment, persists as a form of cellular memory known as epigenetic memory . Just as DNA memory can be transferred between cells via exosomes, epigenetic changes associated with DNA can also be exchanged between cells, suggesting a possible means of transferring information between organ donor and recipient cells.

RNA memory could also be at play. Researchers at UCLA used the sea slug Aplysia to demonstrate the transfer of memory between individuals. These animals were exposed to repeated electrical shocks to their tails, which established a memory of the shock. RNA was then removed from the trained animals and injected into naïve animals, who responded as if they had been trained to respond to the electrical shock. This demonstrated that memory can be transferred via RNA, raising the possibility that organ donors' memories might be transferred to recipients via RNA-containing exosomes.

Another potential method for transferring memory involves proteins. Over two decades ago, Sandra Peña de Ortiz and Yuri Arshavsky hypothesized that novel proteins could encode long-term memories. Exosomes are known to transfer proteins between cells, suggesting memories stored in such proteins could be exchanged between a donated organ and a recipient.

Ramifications

For now, the jury is out on these theories, and much more research is needed. But if memories and personality traits can be exchanged via organ transplantation, this suggests multiple potential consequences of organ transplant surgery. Not only could the transfer of an organ affect the recipient's identity and personality, but relationships and surgical outcomes might be influenced as well. For example, my patient Mary wanted to stop taking her immunosuppressive medications because she believed she had "integrated" her new heart and therefore would not reject it if she stopped taking her medicines. Such a decision could have dire consequences, including rejection of the donated organ and death.

Future Directions

Further studies exploring personality changes following organ transplants may teach us not only about the types of personality changes that can occur, but also increase our understand of different aspects of personality and various processes involved in the storage and retrieval of memories. Although anecdotes do not prove personality changes occur as a result of organ transplantation, they do suggest the possibility of such changes, and provide a starting point for further explorations into this fascinating area of medical science.

*Patient name has been changed

Mitch Liester, MD, is an assistant clinical professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Colorado School of Medicine.

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Guest Essay

Let’s Build a Climate Wall of Shame

An illustration of a memorial inscription with the words “They Blew It.”

By Nate Loewentheil

Mr. Loewentheil is the founder and managing partner of Commonweal Ventures, a venture capital firm that invests in clean energy, health and financial technologies.

Here is a proposal for the environmental movement: Pool philanthropic funds for a day, buy a small plot of land in Washington, D.C., and put up a tall marble wall to serve as a climate memorial. Carve on this memorial the names of public figures actively denying the existence of climate change. Carve the names so deep and large, our grandchildren and great-grandchildren need not search the archives.

This is not a metaphor. The problem with climate change is the disconnect between action and impact. If politicians vote against construction standards and a school collapses, the next election will be their last. But with climate change, cause and effect are at a vast distance.

We are already seeing the consequences of our past and present greenhouse gas emissions. In coming decades, those emissions will wreak their full havoc on the climate, and it will take hundreds, possibly thousands, of years for those pollutants to fully dissipate. But in the short term, the most immediate burdens are borne mostly by the poor in America and distant people in distant lands. Misaligned incentives are at the heart of why some political and business leaders deny and delay.

For them, there can be immediate political and economic benefits to avowed ignorance, and by the time the waters rise, their deeds and words will be forgotten. A memorial would help adjust for this temporal gap. It would serve as a permanent testament of climate deniers whose actions might otherwise be lost to history and a reminder to those weighing their words today of what the future may bring.

The climate memorial would need to be in a highly visible place. Perhaps a commission could be established to select one climate antihero from academia or politics or business to be added to the memorial each quarter. Better yet, the names could be crowdsourced.

I would first nominate those who have sown confusion over climate science, like Myron Ebell, who recently retired as director of the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s Center for Energy and Environment, where he sought to block climate change efforts in Congress, and served as the head of Donald Trump’s transition team for the Environmental Protection Agency. Mr. Ebell has argued that the idea that climate change is “an existential threat or even crisis is preposterous.”

Then there are lawmakers who have consistently stood in the way of federal action, like the recently retired senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma, the author of the book “The Greatest Hoax: How the Global Warming Conspiracy Threatens Your Future.”

True, some might celebrate their inclusion on the memorial as a badge of honor. Let them. The memorial is designed to set the record straight for posterity. In an age of effervescent social media content, a climate memorial would etch permanently into the public imagination the names of those who hewed to ignorance at a moment of urgent crisis, one that requires “climate action on all fronts — everything, everywhere, all at once,” as António Guterres, the United Nations secretary general, put it last year.

By the same token, the memorial might induce some business and political leaders to reflect on the longer arc of history. The nature of a legacy is defined by future historians. To paraphrase Thomas Reed, a speaker of the House in the late 19th century, only after death can a politician hope to become a statesman. The memorial might move a politician or business leader toward sanity. The antihero nominees could be given a chance to reconsider their positions before hammer hits marble.

Memorials bring the present into the future and the future into the present and, in this case, would put the focus on what is at stake: Earth and humanity’s place on it.

Our nation’s capital would be a good place to build the first climate memorial, but we need not stop there. States like Florida and Louisiana will be among the first to suffer the worst effects of rising oceans and more severe weather. We should build state-specific walls in Tallahassee and Baton Rouge to bring the message home. Just make sure the memorials are situated well above sea level.

Nate Loewentheil is the founder and managing partner of Commonweal Ventures, a venture capital firm that invests in clean energy, health and financial technologies.

The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips . And here’s our email: [email protected] .

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California State University, Northridge

88.5 fm, the socal sound, on-air personality change.

Andy Chanley

Andy Chanley

Change continues to be the constant, especially in the always morphing media landscape, even at 88 .5-Fm, The S0Cal Sound . Long-time Southern California DJ, and SoCal Sound afternoon drive host Andy Chanley will be leaving the station later this month to take on similar duties at Triple-A format (Adult Album Alternative) legacy commercial station WXRT in Chicago.

Chanley made the announcement Wednesday morning, during a special guest appearance on “Mornings with Nic Harcourt & Jet.”

“However much you think this station has meant to me, it’s meant more,” Chanley said. “Listeners often tell us that The SoCal Sound has seen them through tough times like the pandemic. But, actually, this station and these listeners saw me through the pandemic. They saw me through stage-three cancer. They saw me through the last six years of my life and for that, I am forever grateful.”

Chanley had been a major contributor to the renaissance of the SoCal Sound, including the station earning national recognition and winning national “Non-Comm Music Station of the Year” honors among outlets in the Triple-A format in unprecedented back-to-back years, in 2022 and 2023.

“I am so proud of what this team has accomplished in the last six years,” Chanley said. “I’ll miss them terribly, and the only thing that makes leaving easier is knowing that this station is in the best shape it’s ever been.”  Mike Henry, radio industry expert agreed, “In the past 5 years, The SoCal Sound” has definitely raised the bar in the national Triple-A format”!

88.5 General Manager Patrick Osburn said the station was sorry to see Chanley leave, but that he had every confidence that the DJ would leave his mark at WXRT, just as he had at the SoCal Sound.

“We are all family in the rock n’ roll audio world,” Osburn said, adding that Chanley left behind some large shoes to fill.

 “While we are very disappointed to see Andy go,” Osburn said, “all the national recognition that Andy helped us receive the past few years has created an environment where we have a deep bench of talent, and great prospects from across the country that would love to join our team and seize the opportunity to have a platform in one of the biggest music and entertainment markets in the world. Until we are ready to make our next announcement, we are pleased that our audience will be hearing some familiar voices during the afternoon slot, including “Mookie”, Julie Slater, Jet and other guests.”

Chanley, who has nearly 35 years of experience in the radio business, joined 88.5-FM in 2018 at a time when the signals in Los Angeles and Orange County were synchronized and Entercom’s 100.3 “The Sound” signed off as a result of its merger with CBS.

88.5-FM, The SoCal Sound, is a combined effort of California State University, Northridge (CSUN) and Saddleback College, which began simulcasting as 88.5-FM in October 2017, linking the Los Angeles County- and Orange County-based signals. The station’s Triple-A programming is available on the KCSN and KSBR 88.5 HD1 channels, via the 88.5 app and online at  www.TheSoCalSound.org .

88.5 FM , Andy Chanley , Radio , The SoCal Sound

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    Students are often asked to write an essay on Personality in their schools and colleges. And if you're also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic. ... It is important to know that your behavior can also change your personality over time. If you keep trying to be friendly, you might become a ...

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    Change continues to be the constant, especially in the always morphing media landscape, even at 88 .5-Fm, The S0Cal Sound.Long-time Southern California DJ, and SoCal Sound afternoon drive host Andy Chanley will be leaving the station later this month to take on similar duties at Triple-A format (Adult Album Alternative) legacy commercial station WXRT in Chicago.