14 ms·

Is your personality fixed, or can you change who you are?

206 points by BDGC 10y ago

11thEarlOfMar 10y ago
Does it go the other way? Are there people who spend their life as good (a more or less model citizen) becoming bad? Perhaps not, because it seems more natural for humans to want to contribute, so even criminals may have a voice in them urging them to do better. But humans do have thoughts of envy, lust, self-righteousness and unfairness that can whittle away the self control and cause them to cross over and, let's say, murder someone in the first degree. I'd propose that a complete set of research would learn that there are some personality traits that are malleable and there are some that are not. Moreover, those two sets would not be the same for everyone, and there is likely a great deal of diversity.
- sjg007 10y ago
  Sure why not? It's explained in the article that the situation gives rise to the personality. Also see Breaking Bad.
- Retra 10y ago
  I would argue that it's easier from someone 'good' to become 'bad', as many of the things people believe that make them good can be incited by novelty, which naturally wears down over time. Kind of like how something can seem amazing the first time you know of it, but after it's been in your head for 20 years it just seems rote.
- joe_the_user 10y ago
  Well, The main argument of the article, supported by quite a bit of evidence, is that a lot of what we take as "personality" is not fixed at all and instead tends to change with situations.
- buzzybee 10y ago
  Our minds bias towards telling ourselves that we're okay, most of the time, and we rationalize constantly in order to get through the day, imposing our storytelling techniques on capricious events. That means that we behave "good" just to the extent that we're aware that we might feel guilty and not much farther - and in that sense, we can train ourselves into greater moral fortitude with deliberate practice in empathy, exposure to diverse views, and development of a personal ethical philosophy. I don't see "personality" as crucial to that - it can differ - and changes in environment and status have a huge impact on what we perceive as acceptable, as well as medically diagnosed conditions that literally disable our ethical senses. Across a population, what is probably most important is to have a little bit of wisdom distributed among everyone so that we aren't burdening each other constantly. "Crossing the line" into violence happens after a huge, huge number of other failures have already taken place. Systemically, we aren't even to the point where we might discuss this as a problem, though. We don't yet see wisdom as something everyone needs in the same way that we think that everyone should be fed, housed, and clothed: If you have those things and you're unhappy, the systemic recourse is to engage in consumer activities marketed around your perceptions of unhappiness.
- maxxxxx 10y ago
  There are plenty of stories of model citizens going bad. Businessmen trying to prop up their company by all means, including criminal ones, or respected citizens kill their spouses. I think Bernie Madoff was a serious and successful businessman before he started his scam. I think the personality you see in others depends highly on the situation. Shy people may become extroverted under right circumstances, or stingy people generous.
- coldtea 10y ago
  >Are there people who spend their life as good (a more or less model citizen) becoming bad? Of course. You think all of the Nazi officials were rotten from their childhood, teenage years, early career, etc? Some were -- most not. They were "model citizens" as you say. It was the circumstances and belief in Fuhrer etc. that led them to become bad, but after some threshold we can say they were bad.
  - miopa 10y ago
    In this case, I'll argue that they didn't change. They continued being 'model citizens', but the model became bad.
- ScottBurson 10y ago
  "... a misplaced footfall made him stray from the path prepared for him ..."
- tajen 10y ago
  There are some people who simply become bitter, angry at everything and that gives them difficulty making new friends... I can't recover my faith in women since being dumped in my 20ies in bad conditions - it gave me an entirely new perspective on how society treats women (and I say "women" as the category fixed by the laws which gives those women rights because of their gender). And even if I keep trying to do the things of the good guy (thousands of donations, work for gender equality, church, volunteering...), I now rather identify with the bad person in the movies or in the political discourse. I've gotten used to defending a point-of-view that is slightly less inclusive because it relies on slightly more responsibility from citizen, and immediately get conflated with extreme-right opinions, so why bother?
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yngccc 10y ago
Personality is deeply ingrained and hard to change but not impossible. Off the top of my head things that can change personality include going to jail, military service and long term unemployment.
- JamesSwift 10y ago
  I noticed a shift in my personality pre-military vs post-military. Before the military I was excessively patient, but now I find that I'm more irritable and slightly less forgiving of others.
chongli 10y ago
How do you define "personality"? Does the fact that you're capable of changing not get included in that? Is the "new" personality the true you? Or the old one?
- 1stop 10y ago
  This is similar to the alternate reality counter proof: If alternate realities exist, and we can get to them from this reality, then they are no longer an alternate reality. If we cannot get to them, then they cannot "exist" as our reality is a prerequisite for existence. You can say the same for a changed personality :p
  - colordrops 10y ago
    That argument is getting hung up on semantics. It's like saying north and south America are the same continent because they are connected. It is implicitly choosing a very specific definition of reality amongst many possible definitions.
    - chongli 10y ago
      Getting hung up on semantics is all anyone can manage when a concept is so poorly defined as this one.
      - TeMPOraL 10y ago
        So screw that concept and talk about ones that are useful - ones that can allow us to make predictions. Can a person who is now bigoted and prone to violence become a Gandhi? I'd say yes, I've seen similar thing happen. Call it "personality change" or call it something else, but the phenomenon seems to be real.
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    - 0xcde4c3db 10y ago
theparanoid 10y ago
TLDR; Prisoners become less violent over time. This has less to do with personality and more with testosterone.
- RIMR 10y ago
  I agree. This is exactly the interpretation one would have if they didn't read the article...
sixo 10y ago
Supposedly people who speak multiple languages can have dramatically different personalities in each.
- tikhonj 10y ago
  Hah, I've found this in myself. It feels like I'm a bit more of a jerk in Russian than in English—at least I'm more likely to let irritation show. I'm less visibly irritable in English. But it might also be a difference in contexts: I mostly speak Russian with my immediate family and English with other people.
  - therein 10y ago
    I am definitely more outgoing, sociable and assertive in English but not so much so in Turkish.
- david927 10y ago
  Dramatic is a strong word but definitely different. I'm more to the point in German, softer in Czech, but partly because each of those cultures sort of demands those changes. If I acted my German-speaking way in Czech, they'd think I was up-tight, I wouldn't really fit in, and the opposite in the other direction. Who we are is 20% or more (depending on the person) the country/culture/language we're in at the time, and that's true for everyone.
- pshc 10y ago
  Also calls to mind a study which claimed that "thinking in a foreign language makes decisions more rational" by reducing deep-seated biases (that were formed as I grew up?) http://www.wired.com/2012/04/language-and-bias/ http://www.wired.com/2012/04/language-and-bias/
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Pharylon 10y ago
For most of my life, I was the classic "shy until you get to know him" kind of guy. I thought that's just how I was. But then ten years ago, I started LARPing, and I decided to play an extrovert - someone who could walk up to a stranger and strike up a conversation. So I did. And even though I was nervous as hell, I did it during the game, in the guise of my character. For a couple years, I was really into the game. It was my life every weekend. I probably spent more social time pretending to be someone else than I did being myself. And a funny thing happened... I became that guy for real. It's not just that I'm no longer nervous, I genuinely enjoy talking to new people. I barely recognize my old introverted self. So I believe this. Who we are is just a snapshot in time.
- fizixer 10y ago
  But is there any side to your old self that you miss, or was a good thing that is not there any more? E.g., I feel once you get used to 'increased social stimulation' it becomes harder to spend solid chunks of time by yourself doing deep/creative mental work. Any comments?
  - Frondo 10y ago
    Similar thing happened to me (for promoting my business at networking events, not LARPing), but I never lost the deep creative mental work habit. I just went to networking events constantly, but kept on coding when I wasn't doing that sort of thing. Now I can do either, without even thinking about it. It's like a lightswitch, when I'm in a group I can just start chattering away, but when I get up a code editor I don't even think about getting down to it, itjust happens.
    - moron4hire 10y ago
      I have had a similar experience. There is a weird notion in our culture that introversion vs extroversion is a choice between "creative vs outgoing", with the unstated implication being it's really "creative vs not creative". I spent way too long not taking care of myself because I thought I was an introvert. No, I was depressed and I needed help. But some people seem to wear their introversion like some kind of badge of honor. And then, under some perverse guise of being supportive, we don't call people out on it and tell them they are wrong. It never occurred to me my feelings were depression until my sister revealed her struggle with it as an attempt to get me to go to therapy. Could have saved many years if someone had just told me, "no, this is not a healthy lifestyle, staying in and reading books and playing games, to the exclusion of making any new relationships".
aab0 10y ago
Kind of weaksauce. One review 50 years ago doesn't override all the work done since, particularly on OCEAN, showing high longitudinal stability of personality traits when measurement error is considered. (What's more interesting is the behavioral genetics of that; it seems that this stability is at least in part due to the stability of genetic influences on personality.) It's also kind of silly to point to prisoners as an example: violent crime always declines with age.
- CuriouslyC 10y ago
  Just because personality doesn't frequently change doesn't mean it is impossible, it is just really hard. If it happens with one in a few hundred individuals, most researchers are going to view it as an anomalous outlier and discard or ignore it. I can assure you with complete confidence that your personality is incredibly malleable. I could go on at length about my personal experience (which is quite dramatic) but since I enjoy my privacy I'll just pass along a funny story about massive personality change induced by brain injury: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2130900/Chris-Birch-Rugby-player-woke-gay-stroke-says-hes-happiest-hes-been.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2130900/Chris-Birc...
  - api_or_ipa 10y ago
    > Just because personality doesn't frequently change doesn't mean it is impossible, it is just really hard. If it happens with one in a few hundred individuals, most researchers are going to view it as an anomalous outlier and discard or ignore it. I view this as a failure of modern statistically driven social sciences. Just because it happens to only a few in a hundred people, doesn't mean it's an anomalous behaviour. People are messy. When put in differing circumstances, people show amazing plasticity in their behaviour. And controlling for all those social and biological pressures is very hard to do.
    - threatofrain 10y ago
      I think researchers have a clear distinction that populations are an altogether different phenomena than individuals. This is something that the public often confuses, as demonstrated when somebody rebuts a statement about population attributes with a personal refutation. This is a failure to argue on the same phenomena. Researchers are also aware that personality changes population-wise with age, and also that individuals also experience personality changes -- but generally not in a medically interesting way in the sense of a reliable and precise intervention to effect positive changes. I'm also reminded of studies on the transferability of personality traits with adopted children (no significant correlation! amazing! same correlation with biological parents compared to those children raised by their biological parents), or reared-apart monozygotic twin studies, or reared-apart dizygotic twin studies, and so on. The collective portrait of many data points suggests a set of stable biological factors to personality, as opposed to personal experience.
ldehaan 10y ago
change is inevitable. I like to think of the different stages in my life as other people, because those people were so different. I maintain the same kind of drive I've always had, consuming every piece of data I can get my hands on, but that consumption has changed me. I remember clearly the first major change to another person I ever experienced. it was after reading the giver when I was a child. I can't even recall who I was before I read that book, but I know he was a lesser mortal than I. the next major change was after my parents split and I got a new abusive step mother. before that I would cry at a whim, every time I watched fern gully I cried, but after that woman I rarely showed emotion. I was hard and thought hard thoughts, I was a total gangsta, a white suburban gangsta but after a long time trying I finally got street cred. spent time in the kiddie can and all that. my next major change was actually in military school after gaining too much street cred. something changed in me on the long drive through the desert of Nevada to a large training camp called rite of passage. I kicked ass there, no idea why, but I changed, and became a leader. moved up the ranks and got posted to the cross country cycling team. and that's where we come to the change that stuck for so many years. In ROP I became captain of my cycling team and we got the opportunity to ride across America. that ride changed me in so many ways. I used to think I couldn't attain my dreams, now I was in a dream. the next time I changed fundamentally was when I became a father. not in your usual lets get married and have a family way, no, it was as unplanned and crazy as you can get, but I still changed, stepped up to the plate and reflected on my past lives and Knew I could do it. now I'm an older man, and I am changing at a more observable pace, I can see my views solidifying and it's a little scary, I don't want to be stuck in my ways. but I am comforted by the fact that any day, I can change, at least for now.
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superobserver 10y ago
Short answer: no. Long answer: no. The supposition that the personality is completely fixed or completely mutable is simply false. There are fundamental constraints to how the personality can be manifested. Histrionic personalities are perhaps those most inclined to believe that their personality is truly self-determined, but they'd also be mistaken.
- msdos 10y ago
  Do you have a citation? The researcher in the article believes the opposite.
  - superobserver 10y ago
    The author can believe whatever is fashionable. I dare you to consider the body of all psychological literature on the subject of the personality. It is so apparent and obvious that the personality is neither fixed nor completely mutable that I find the article to be essentially nonsensical. Who here supposes anyone is a tabula rasa? Who here supposes anyone emerges in this life fully formed and actualized? This is a spurious dichotomy that is erected time to time based on cultural norms and stipulations - much of it propagandising to suit others desires and ends.
- RIMR 10y ago
  This wasn't really a yes-or-no question...
  - superobserver 10y ago
    Yes, actually, it is, in the context of there being two, spuriously postulated dichotomous outcomes, whereas it is clearly the case that neither is true. What would it mean for a personality to be fixed? Such a thing doesn't even begin to make any sense, given that persons develop over their lifetimes, for instance. What would it mean that you could change who you are? That also doesn't make much sense, since it is like pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps. The personality is a constellation of aspects that we all show to varying degrees, many of which are in fact out of our control, but some of which nevertheless are capable of being adjusted in accordance with various forms of conditioning. It is in that constellation that we find what the personality is. Emphasizing minute aspects and exaggerating them doesn't constitute the whole personality. This is remarkably uninformative as an article.
hcarvalhoalves 10y ago
I wonder where this comes from? A lot of our culture is based on stories about people changing personality. [1] Those stories have so much appeal and longevity exactly because the spectator can see someone like himself changing. The underlying motif is that anyone can go from weakling to hero, under the right circumstances. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monomyth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monomyth
- mercer 10y ago
  I think what complicates this discussion is the meaning of 'personality'. Someone here mentions 'taste', and you talk about weakling/hero. I'd never have considered these part of personality. I'd consider taste to be a cultural thing and rather changeable. And 'heroism' strikes me as something that I'd call 'character' rather than 'personality'.
rdl 10y ago
I used to be really bad about time/punctuality. Since doing a startup where the tides were relevant, and missing a rendezvous by 10 minutes could mean a 12h wait (not just for me, but for a lot of other people), I made a serious effort to be punctual -- the big change being focusing in advance on "we must leave no later than X to be there on time" vs. "we need to be there at X+Y" is 90% of it.
afarrell 10y ago
The question isn't "can you change who you are?", it is "How young do you have to be who you are?" I haven't thrown a temper tantrum in the middle of a grocery store in 22 years.
dilemma 10y ago
Fixed at what point in life? Age 12, 18, 21, 30, 50?
peterkshultz 10y ago
Carol Dweck's work on the growth mindset says that you can change who you are. Her ideas have had a tremendous impact on various aspects of business, to the point where she's covered in the Harvard Business Review: https://hbr.org/2016/01/what-having-a-growth-mindset-actually-means https://hbr.org/2016/01/what-having-a-growth-mindset-actuall...
Animats 10y ago
Some military training is designed to change personalities. The USMC does this deliberately.[1] They use sleep and food deprivation. This is not done to "toughen up" recruits; it's done to change their value system. Gen. Krulak, when Commandant, devised this in the 1990s.[2] Krulak himself says it best: "We cannot anticipate and train Marines for each situation they may face. All Marines must, therefore, possess a moral consistency to serve as their compass. Making the right ethical decisions must be a thing of habit. This is why we created the Transformation process where we recruit bold, capable, and intelligent young men and women of character and recast them in the white hot crucible of recruit training. We immerse them in the highest ideals of American society -- the time honored values of our Corps -- honor, courage, and commitment. We place these values on them in a framework of high institutional standards to which they are held strictly accountable. We further foster the acceptance of these values through the unit cohesion and sustainment phases." "Just as we expect a Marine to employ his weapon under combat duress, we must likewise demand that he employ his mind. Marines need to be comfortable with using their intuition under highly stressful circumstances. In short, we must make intuitive decisionmaking an instinct, and this can only be accomplished through repetition. Training programs and curricula should routinely make our Marines decide a course of action under cold, wet, noisy conditions while they are tired and hungry and as an instructor continually asks them "what are you going to do now, Marine?!!" [1] http://www.leatherneck.com/forums/showthread.php?46546-%91Turning-the-heat-up%92-on-the-Crucible http://www.leatherneck.com/forums/showthread.php?46546-%91Tu... [2] http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/usmc/cultivating_intuitive_d-m.htm http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/usmc/cultivating_intuiti...
- secfirstmd 10y ago
  I can see that. Myself and a number of my friends would probably have been considered to be quite shy and introverted when joining the military. But it really brings out the social aspect in you, you spend so much time just alone talking and joking with your friends (far more than you ever would in civilian life - e.g on guard duty or something, it's often your only source of moral). Often the old sweats called it the art of conversation, we call it the art of "shite talking". It's strange because every military persons friendships with each other that are completely different to civilians and I don't just mean because of the nature of the role. In civilian life, if you don't see a friend for 5 years, the dynamic of meeting them again is often quite distant. In the military it's like they never left and you just pick up from where you left off. I can say that I feel closer to some people who I went through basic training to than people I've known since school - you learn so much more about each other. Similarly extreme extroverts tend to be toned down a bit in military training, til they reach about the same level. Myself and any one of those introverts would now probably be regarded as fairly confident extroverts compared to civilians, and so much of that is thanks to military training.
unabst 10y ago
For the most part we are all unabstractable, and if anything, we should strive to be. What I means is, we can give ourselves names, but who we are is mostly a black box. Any black swan event can change our definition, and the shock doctrine also applies here, in that we are affected by spikes of greatest impressions, not ongoing consistency. For the most part, we are remembered for our best or worst, but are judged by our last. So in the case of this article, if you commit a horrific crime, that will be what people remember and define you by. And we can do everything in our power to be judged with forgiveness based on our latest actions. But for the most part, it's not until we do something more extreme (shocking) than what has defined us so far that most of us will feel naturally inclined to update our definitions. But the key takeaway is that even if this is how we define one another, none of it truly predicts what anyone will do next, good or evil, brilliant or lame. Ultimately, we are all much like computer programs that must run their course to know precisely if any of us will halt or not, which leaves personality a mere impossible analysis, much in the spirit of Gödel's incompleteness theorem. We are incomputable, and our inconsistency is what is consistent. The only option is execution -- to let life run its course.
gadders 10y ago
I have always liked this quote: “Up to a point a man's life is shaped by environment, heredity and movement and changes in the world about him; then there comes a time when it lies within his grasp to shape the clay of his life into the sort of thing he wishes to be. Only the weak blame parents, their race, their times, lack of good fortune, or the quirks of fate. Everyone has it within his power to say this I am today, that I shall be tomorrow. The wish, however, must be implemented by deeds.” - Louis L'Amour
gbuk2013 10y ago
"Who am I?" - Zen koan.
known 10y ago
You are a product of your environment. http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/inmotiv.htm http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/inmotiv.htm
rajanchandi 10y ago
Looks like people here haven't examined MBTI. Your personality may not be fixed but it takes up to 2 years to change it. 16personalities.com is a good way to test your personality as being one of the 16 types. It takes 10 mins.
- scribu 10y ago
  Myers Brigs tests are fun, but they're not much more scientifically valid than your astrological sign. See http://www.vox.com/2014/7/15/5881947/myers-briggs-personality-test-meaningless http://www.vox.com/2014/7/15/5881947/myers-briggs-personalit...
  - xaedes 10y ago
    The way I would use this test: See each dualism as a continuous dimension. Reflect where I probably fall on each dimension at this time. Think and point out where I would like to fall. Personally I'd prefer to fall on the middle of each dualism. This gives me some hints what in my personality needs to change first if I greedyly want to optimize.
  - ymse 10y ago
    The tests are wildly inaccurate, and MBTI itself is not the full story of cognition and personality, but I think there is enough evidence suggesting that the cognitive functions as described by Jung[0] are very real. The article you linked to uses lack of MBTI in psychology journals as an argument against its validity, but its applications in the field are very limited. You're more likely to find MBTI references in neuroscience journals as there are appears to be clear correlations between type preferences and brain activity patterns[1]. Even so, knowledge of a persons cognitive preferences just isn't very useful. So the main application of MBTI is indeed "just for fun". 0: http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Jung/types.htm http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Jung/types.htm 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGfhQTbcqmA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGfhQTbcqmA
    - tkxxx7 10y ago
      it's pretty useful for those who have a difficult time understanding and getting along with people otherwise.
mendelsd 10y ago
Personality is influenced by hormone levels, and hormone levels are an aspect of health. Here's a specific example [1] which may be of particular interest to those of a nervous disposition. [1] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3520819/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3520819/
- cylinder 10y ago
  What should one do if they have long suspected their hormone levels are quite low due to heredity and it adversely limits their energy levels and outlook?
  - mendelsd 10y ago
    I'm no expert but I'd suggest: 1) make a list of all your chronic symptoms over time 2) speak to a doctor about your particular concerns re: hormone levels, and get blood tests taken 3) if your doctor reckons, based on the results, that treatment is justified, I guess you're on your way; if not: 4) study the literature - if you disagree with your doctor about your results, you should be able to find literature that quantitatively supports your position based on your test results and symptoms 5) if you can find supporting literature, ask your doctor for treatment (don't be confrontational when dealing with your doctor, treat them as a resource and a partner, and respect their opinion even if you disagree with them based on what you've learned) 6) find another doctor if your doctor won't agree with a reasoned opinion If you need help with this stuff, there may be practitioners out there more in tune with chronic illness than your bog-standard GP. I'm partial to the ancestral health movement and paleo diet therefore I'd look here: [1]. Finally, I'd recommend the work of Paul Jaminet - I found his book [2] and his Retreat (which includes personalised health coaching based on blood test results) [3] both to be incredibly helpful in dealing with my own long-term health issues. [1] http://primaldocs.com/ http://primaldocs.com/ [2] http://perfecthealthdiet.com/buy-our-book/ http://perfecthealthdiet.com/buy-our-book/ [3] http://perfecthealthdiet.com/perfect-health-retreat/ http://perfecthealthdiet.com/perfect-health-retreat/
    - cylinder 10y ago
jokoon 10y ago
Of course, until you know about the brain plasticity and how it decreases with age. So it becomes more "fixed" with the years. It's true, there is no such thing as personality. But then, why do recruiters want to know about the "profile" of a candidate? What do they talk about when they want someone who is "at harmony with the group"? If we could really change as we liked, we would not talk about personality. People will always carry a baggage of learned behaviors with them. The sum of this is called personality. It can change of course, but in the "brave new world" that we live in, the incentives to do so never appear.
brimstedt 10y ago
Im not native english, but: "It has to do with Mischel's most famous experiment, called the marshmallow test, which he first conducted in 1960. You can still find videos of it on YouTube". Doesn't it sound like they were put on YouTube in the 60s? :)
- Retr0spectrum 10y ago
  No, it does not.
mswen 10y ago
I have a scholar/hermit/coder persona and a leader/teacher/social persona. I feel like I can switch pretty easily from one into the other depending on the situation. If I spend too many months pretty exclusively within one of those personas I will start to feel the need to express the other.
brokenmachine 10y ago
I love the quote from Fight Club, "If you wake up at a different time, in a different place, could you wake up as a different person?"

206 points by BDGC 10y ago

Does it go the other way? Are there people who spend their life as good (a more or less model citizen) becoming bad? Perhaps not, because it seems more natural for humans to want to contribute, so even criminals may have a voice in them urging them to do better. But humans do have thoughts of envy, lust, self-righteousness and unfairness that can whittle away the self control and cause them to cross over and, let's say, murder someone in the first degree. I'd propose that a complete set of research would learn that there are some personality traits that are malleable and there are some that are not. Moreover, those two sets would not be the same for everyone, and there is likely a great deal of diversity.

sjg007 10y ago
Sure why not? It's explained in the article that the situation gives rise to the personality. Also see Breaking Bad.
Retra 10y ago
I would argue that it's easier from someone 'good' to become 'bad', as many of the things people believe that make them good can be incited by novelty, which naturally wears down over time. Kind of like how something can seem amazing the first time you know of it, but after it's been in your head for 20 years it just seems rote.
joe_the_user 10y ago
Well, The main argument of the article, supported by quite a bit of evidence, is that a lot of what we take as "personality" is not fixed at all and instead tends to change with situations.
buzzybee 10y ago
Our minds bias towards telling ourselves that we're okay, most of the time, and we rationalize constantly in order to get through the day, imposing our storytelling techniques on capricious events. That means that we behave "good" just to the extent that we're aware that we might feel guilty and not much farther - and in that sense, we can train ourselves into greater moral fortitude with deliberate practice in empathy, exposure to diverse views, and development of a personal ethical philosophy. I don't see "personality" as crucial to that - it can differ - and changes in environment and status have a huge impact on what we perceive as acceptable, as well as medically diagnosed conditions that literally disable our ethical senses. Across a population, what is probably most important is to have a little bit of wisdom distributed among everyone so that we aren't burdening each other constantly. "Crossing the line" into violence happens after a huge, huge number of other failures have already taken place. Systemically, we aren't even to the point where we might discuss this as a problem, though. We don't yet see wisdom as something everyone needs in the same way that we think that everyone should be fed, housed, and clothed: If you have those things and you're unhappy, the systemic recourse is to engage in consumer activities marketed around your perceptions of unhappiness.
maxxxxx 10y ago
There are plenty of stories of model citizens going bad. Businessmen trying to prop up their company by all means, including criminal ones, or respected citizens kill their spouses. I think Bernie Madoff was a serious and successful businessman before he started his scam. I think the personality you see in others depends highly on the situation. Shy people may become extroverted under right circumstances, or stingy people generous.
coldtea 10y ago
>Are there people who spend their life as good (a more or less model citizen) becoming bad? Of course. You think all of the Nazi officials were rotten from their childhood, teenage years, early career, etc? Some were -- most not. They were "model citizens" as you say. It was the circumstances and belief in Fuhrer etc. that led them to become bad, but after some threshold we can say they were bad.
- miopa 10y ago
  In this case, I'll argue that they didn't change. They continued being 'model citizens', but the model became bad.
ScottBurson 10y ago
"... a misplaced footfall made him stray from the path prepared for him ..."
tajen 10y ago
There are some people who simply become bitter, angry at everything and that gives them difficulty making new friends... I can't recover my faith in women since being dumped in my 20ies in bad conditions - it gave me an entirely new perspective on how society treats women (and I say "women" as the category fixed by the laws which gives those women rights because of their gender). And even if I keep trying to do the things of the good guy (thousands of donations, work for gender equality, church, volunteering...), I now rather identify with the bad person in the movies or in the political discourse. I've gotten used to defending a point-of-view that is slightly less inclusive because it relies on slightly more responsibility from citizen, and immediately get conflated with extreme-right opinions, so why bother?

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yngccc 10y ago

Personality is deeply ingrained and hard to change but not impossible. Off the top of my head things that can change personality include going to jail, military service and long term unemployment.

JamesSwift 10y ago
I noticed a shift in my personality pre-military vs post-military. Before the military I was excessively patient, but now I find that I'm more irritable and slightly less forgiving of others.

chongli 10y ago

How do you define "personality"? Does the fact that you're capable of changing not get included in that? Is the "new" personality the true you? Or the old one?

1stop 10y ago
This is similar to the alternate reality counter proof: If alternate realities exist, and we can get to them from this reality, then they are no longer an alternate reality. If we cannot get to them, then they cannot "exist" as our reality is a prerequisite for existence. You can say the same for a changed personality :p
- colordrops 10y ago
  That argument is getting hung up on semantics. It's like saying north and south America are the same continent because they are connected. It is implicitly choosing a very specific definition of reality amongst many possible definitions.
  - chongli 10y ago
    Getting hung up on semantics is all anyone can manage when a concept is so poorly defined as this one.
    - TeMPOraL 10y ago
      So screw that concept and talk about ones that are useful - ones that can allow us to make predictions. Can a person who is now bigoted and prone to violence become a Gandhi? I'd say yes, I've seen similar thing happen. Call it "personality change" or call it something else, but the phenomenon seems to be real.
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  - 0xcde4c3db 10y ago

theparanoid 10y ago

TLDR; Prisoners become less violent over time. This has less to do with personality and more with testosterone.

RIMR 10y ago
I agree. This is exactly the interpretation one would have if they didn't read the article...

sixo 10y ago

Supposedly people who speak multiple languages can have dramatically different personalities in each.

tikhonj 10y ago
Hah, I've found this in myself. It feels like I'm a bit more of a jerk in Russian than in English—at least I'm more likely to let irritation show. I'm less visibly irritable in English. But it might also be a difference in contexts: I mostly speak Russian with my immediate family and English with other people.
- therein 10y ago
  I am definitely more outgoing, sociable and assertive in English but not so much so in Turkish.
david927 10y ago
Dramatic is a strong word but definitely different. I'm more to the point in German, softer in Czech, but partly because each of those cultures sort of demands those changes. If I acted my German-speaking way in Czech, they'd think I was up-tight, I wouldn't really fit in, and the opposite in the other direction. Who we are is 20% or more (depending on the person) the country/culture/language we're in at the time, and that's true for everyone.
pshc 10y ago
Also calls to mind a study which claimed that "thinking in a foreign language makes decisions more rational" by reducing deep-seated biases (that were formed as I grew up?) http://www.wired.com/2012/04/language-and-bias/ http://www.wired.com/2012/04/language-and-bias/

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Pharylon 10y ago

For most of my life, I was the classic "shy until you get to know him" kind of guy. I thought that's just how I was. But then ten years ago, I started LARPing, and I decided to play an extrovert - someone who could walk up to a stranger and strike up a conversation. So I did. And even though I was nervous as hell, I did it during the game, in the guise of my character. For a couple years, I was really into the game. It was my life every weekend. I probably spent more social time pretending to be someone else than I did being myself. And a funny thing happened... I became that guy for real. It's not just that I'm no longer nervous, I genuinely enjoy talking to new people. I barely recognize my old introverted self. So I believe this. Who we are is just a snapshot in time.

fizixer 10y ago
But is there any side to your old self that you miss, or was a good thing that is not there any more? E.g., I feel once you get used to 'increased social stimulation' it becomes harder to spend solid chunks of time by yourself doing deep/creative mental work. Any comments?
- Frondo 10y ago
  Similar thing happened to me (for promoting my business at networking events, not LARPing), but I never lost the deep creative mental work habit. I just went to networking events constantly, but kept on coding when I wasn't doing that sort of thing. Now I can do either, without even thinking about it. It's like a lightswitch, when I'm in a group I can just start chattering away, but when I get up a code editor I don't even think about getting down to it, itjust happens.
  - moron4hire 10y ago
    I have had a similar experience. There is a weird notion in our culture that introversion vs extroversion is a choice between "creative vs outgoing", with the unstated implication being it's really "creative vs not creative". I spent way too long not taking care of myself because I thought I was an introvert. No, I was depressed and I needed help. But some people seem to wear their introversion like some kind of badge of honor. And then, under some perverse guise of being supportive, we don't call people out on it and tell them they are wrong. It never occurred to me my feelings were depression until my sister revealed her struggle with it as an attempt to get me to go to therapy. Could have saved many years if someone had just told me, "no, this is not a healthy lifestyle, staying in and reading books and playing games, to the exclusion of making any new relationships".

aab0 10y ago

Kind of weaksauce. One review 50 years ago doesn't override all the work done since, particularly on OCEAN, showing high longitudinal stability of personality traits when measurement error is considered. (What's more interesting is the behavioral genetics of that; it seems that this stability is at least in part due to the stability of genetic influences on personality.) It's also kind of silly to point to prisoners as an example: violent crime always declines with age.

CuriouslyC 10y ago
Just because personality doesn't frequently change doesn't mean it is impossible, it is just really hard. If it happens with one in a few hundred individuals, most researchers are going to view it as an anomalous outlier and discard or ignore it. I can assure you with complete confidence that your personality is incredibly malleable. I could go on at length about my personal experience (which is quite dramatic) but since I enjoy my privacy I'll just pass along a funny story about massive personality change induced by brain injury: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2130900/Chris-Birch-Rugby-player-woke-gay-stroke-says-hes-happiest-hes-been.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2130900/Chris-Birc...
- api_or_ipa 10y ago
  > Just because personality doesn't frequently change doesn't mean it is impossible, it is just really hard. If it happens with one in a few hundred individuals, most researchers are going to view it as an anomalous outlier and discard or ignore it. I view this as a failure of modern statistically driven social sciences. Just because it happens to only a few in a hundred people, doesn't mean it's an anomalous behaviour. People are messy. When put in differing circumstances, people show amazing plasticity in their behaviour. And controlling for all those social and biological pressures is very hard to do.
  - threatofrain 10y ago
    I think researchers have a clear distinction that populations are an altogether different phenomena than individuals. This is something that the public often confuses, as demonstrated when somebody rebuts a statement about population attributes with a personal refutation. This is a failure to argue on the same phenomena. Researchers are also aware that personality changes population-wise with age, and also that individuals also experience personality changes -- but generally not in a medically interesting way in the sense of a reliable and precise intervention to effect positive changes. I'm also reminded of studies on the transferability of personality traits with adopted children (no significant correlation! amazing! same correlation with biological parents compared to those children raised by their biological parents), or reared-apart monozygotic twin studies, or reared-apart dizygotic twin studies, and so on. The collective portrait of many data points suggests a set of stable biological factors to personality, as opposed to personal experience.

ldehaan 10y ago

change is inevitable. I like to think of the different stages in my life as other people, because those people were so different. I maintain the same kind of drive I've always had, consuming every piece of data I can get my hands on, but that consumption has changed me. I remember clearly the first major change to another person I ever experienced. it was after reading the giver when I was a child. I can't even recall who I was before I read that book, but I know he was a lesser mortal than I. the next major change was after my parents split and I got a new abusive step mother. before that I would cry at a whim, every time I watched fern gully I cried, but after that woman I rarely showed emotion. I was hard and thought hard thoughts, I was a total gangsta, a white suburban gangsta but after a long time trying I finally got street cred. spent time in the kiddie can and all that. my next major change was actually in military school after gaining too much street cred. something changed in me on the long drive through the desert of Nevada to a large training camp called rite of passage. I kicked ass there, no idea why, but I changed, and became a leader. moved up the ranks and got posted to the cross country cycling team. and that's where we come to the change that stuck for so many years. In ROP I became captain of my cycling team and we got the opportunity to ride across America. that ride changed me in so many ways. I used to think I couldn't attain my dreams, now I was in a dream. the next time I changed fundamentally was when I became a father. not in your usual lets get married and have a family way, no, it was as unplanned and crazy as you can get, but I still changed, stepped up to the plate and reflected on my past lives and Knew I could do it. now I'm an older man, and I am changing at a more observable pace, I can see my views solidifying and it's a little scary, I don't want to be stuck in my ways. but I am comforted by the fact that any day, I can change, at least for now.

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superobserver 10y ago

Short answer: no. Long answer: no. The supposition that the personality is completely fixed or completely mutable is simply false. There are fundamental constraints to how the personality can be manifested. Histrionic personalities are perhaps those most inclined to believe that their personality is truly self-determined, but they'd also be mistaken.

msdos 10y ago
Do you have a citation? The researcher in the article believes the opposite.
- superobserver 10y ago
  The author can believe whatever is fashionable. I dare you to consider the body of all psychological literature on the subject of the personality. It is so apparent and obvious that the personality is neither fixed nor completely mutable that I find the article to be essentially nonsensical. Who here supposes anyone is a tabula rasa? Who here supposes anyone emerges in this life fully formed and actualized? This is a spurious dichotomy that is erected time to time based on cultural norms and stipulations - much of it propagandising to suit others desires and ends.
RIMR 10y ago
This wasn't really a yes-or-no question...
- superobserver 10y ago
  Yes, actually, it is, in the context of there being two, spuriously postulated dichotomous outcomes, whereas it is clearly the case that neither is true. What would it mean for a personality to be fixed? Such a thing doesn't even begin to make any sense, given that persons develop over their lifetimes, for instance. What would it mean that you could change who you are? That also doesn't make much sense, since it is like pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps. The personality is a constellation of aspects that we all show to varying degrees, many of which are in fact out of our control, but some of which nevertheless are capable of being adjusted in accordance with various forms of conditioning. It is in that constellation that we find what the personality is. Emphasizing minute aspects and exaggerating them doesn't constitute the whole personality. This is remarkably uninformative as an article.

hcarvalhoalves 10y ago

I wonder where this comes from? A lot of our culture is based on stories about people changing personality. [1] Those stories have so much appeal and longevity exactly because the spectator can see someone like himself changing. The underlying motif is that anyone can go from weakling to hero, under the right circumstances. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monomyth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monomyth

mercer 10y ago
I think what complicates this discussion is the meaning of 'personality'. Someone here mentions 'taste', and you talk about weakling/hero. I'd never have considered these part of personality. I'd consider taste to be a cultural thing and rather changeable. And 'heroism' strikes me as something that I'd call 'character' rather than 'personality'.

rdl 10y ago

I used to be really bad about time/punctuality. Since doing a startup where the tides were relevant, and missing a rendezvous by 10 minutes could mean a 12h wait (not just for me, but for a lot of other people), I made a serious effort to be punctual -- the big change being focusing in advance on "we must leave no later than X to be there on time" vs. "we need to be there at X+Y" is 90% of it.

afarrell 10y ago

The question isn't "can you change who you are?", it is "How young do you have to be who you are?" I haven't thrown a temper tantrum in the middle of a grocery store in 22 years.

dilemma 10y ago

Fixed at what point in life? Age 12, 18, 21, 30, 50?

peterkshultz 10y ago

Carol Dweck's work on the growth mindset says that you can change who you are. Her ideas have had a tremendous impact on various aspects of business, to the point where she's covered in the Harvard Business Review: https://hbr.org/2016/01/what-having-a-growth-mindset-actually-means https://hbr.org/2016/01/what-having-a-growth-mindset-actuall...

Animats 10y ago

Some military training is designed to change personalities. The USMC does this deliberately.[1] They use sleep and food deprivation. This is not done to "toughen up" recruits; it's done to change their value system. Gen. Krulak, when Commandant, devised this in the 1990s.[2] Krulak himself says it best: "We cannot anticipate and train Marines for each situation they may face. All Marines must, therefore, possess a moral consistency to serve as their compass. Making the right ethical decisions must be a thing of habit. This is why we created the Transformation process where we recruit bold, capable, and intelligent young men and women of character and recast them in the white hot crucible of recruit training. We immerse them in the highest ideals of American society -- the time honored values of our Corps -- honor, courage, and commitment. We place these values on them in a framework of high institutional standards to which they are held strictly accountable. We further foster the acceptance of these values through the unit cohesion and sustainment phases." "Just as we expect a Marine to employ his weapon under combat duress, we must likewise demand that he employ his mind. Marines need to be comfortable with using their intuition under highly stressful circumstances. In short, we must make intuitive decisionmaking an instinct, and this can only be accomplished through repetition. Training programs and curricula should routinely make our Marines decide a course of action under cold, wet, noisy conditions while they are tired and hungry and as an instructor continually asks them "what are you going to do now, Marine?!!" [1] http://www.leatherneck.com/forums/showthread.php?46546-%91Turning-the-heat-up%92-on-the-Crucible http://www.leatherneck.com/forums/showthread.php?46546-%91Tu... [2] http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/usmc/cultivating_intuitive_d-m.htm http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/usmc/cultivating_intuiti...

secfirstmd 10y ago
I can see that. Myself and a number of my friends would probably have been considered to be quite shy and introverted when joining the military. But it really brings out the social aspect in you, you spend so much time just alone talking and joking with your friends (far more than you ever would in civilian life - e.g on guard duty or something, it's often your only source of moral). Often the old sweats called it the art of conversation, we call it the art of "shite talking". It's strange because every military persons friendships with each other that are completely different to civilians and I don't just mean because of the nature of the role. In civilian life, if you don't see a friend for 5 years, the dynamic of meeting them again is often quite distant. In the military it's like they never left and you just pick up from where you left off. I can say that I feel closer to some people who I went through basic training to than people I've known since school - you learn so much more about each other. Similarly extreme extroverts tend to be toned down a bit in military training, til they reach about the same level. Myself and any one of those introverts would now probably be regarded as fairly confident extroverts compared to civilians, and so much of that is thanks to military training.

unabst 10y ago

For the most part we are all unabstractable, and if anything, we should strive to be. What I means is, we can give ourselves names, but who we are is mostly a black box. Any black swan event can change our definition, and the shock doctrine also applies here, in that we are affected by spikes of greatest impressions, not ongoing consistency. For the most part, we are remembered for our best or worst, but are judged by our last. So in the case of this article, if you commit a horrific crime, that will be what people remember and define you by. And we can do everything in our power to be judged with forgiveness based on our latest actions. But for the most part, it's not until we do something more extreme (shocking) than what has defined us so far that most of us will feel naturally inclined to update our definitions. But the key takeaway is that even if this is how we define one another, none of it truly predicts what anyone will do next, good or evil, brilliant or lame. Ultimately, we are all much like computer programs that must run their course to know precisely if any of us will halt or not, which leaves personality a mere impossible analysis, much in the spirit of Gödel's incompleteness theorem. We are incomputable, and our inconsistency is what is consistent. The only option is execution -- to let life run its course.

gadders 10y ago

I have always liked this quote: “Up to a point a man's life is shaped by environment, heredity and movement and changes in the world about him; then there comes a time when it lies within his grasp to shape the clay of his life into the sort of thing he wishes to be. Only the weak blame parents, their race, their times, lack of good fortune, or the quirks of fate. Everyone has it within his power to say this I am today, that I shall be tomorrow. The wish, however, must be implemented by deeds.” - Louis L'Amour

gbuk2013 10y ago

"Who am I?" - Zen koan.

known 10y ago

You are a product of your environment. http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/inmotiv.htm http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/inmotiv.htm

rajanchandi 10y ago

Looks like people here haven't examined MBTI. Your personality may not be fixed but it takes up to 2 years to change it. 16personalities.com is a good way to test your personality as being one of the 16 types. It takes 10 mins.

scribu 10y ago
Myers Brigs tests are fun, but they're not much more scientifically valid than your astrological sign. See http://www.vox.com/2014/7/15/5881947/myers-briggs-personality-test-meaningless http://www.vox.com/2014/7/15/5881947/myers-briggs-personalit...
- xaedes 10y ago
  The way I would use this test: See each dualism as a continuous dimension. Reflect where I probably fall on each dimension at this time. Think and point out where I would like to fall. Personally I'd prefer to fall on the middle of each dualism. This gives me some hints what in my personality needs to change first if I greedyly want to optimize.
- ymse 10y ago
  The tests are wildly inaccurate, and MBTI itself is not the full story of cognition and personality, but I think there is enough evidence suggesting that the cognitive functions as described by Jung[0] are very real. The article you linked to uses lack of MBTI in psychology journals as an argument against its validity, but its applications in the field are very limited. You're more likely to find MBTI references in neuroscience journals as there are appears to be clear correlations between type preferences and brain activity patterns[1]. Even so, knowledge of a persons cognitive preferences just isn't very useful. So the main application of MBTI is indeed "just for fun". 0: http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Jung/types.htm http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Jung/types.htm 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGfhQTbcqmA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGfhQTbcqmA
  - tkxxx7 10y ago
    it's pretty useful for those who have a difficult time understanding and getting along with people otherwise.

mendelsd 10y ago

Personality is influenced by hormone levels, and hormone levels are an aspect of health. Here's a specific example [1] which may be of particular interest to those of a nervous disposition. [1] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3520819/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3520819/

cylinder 10y ago
What should one do if they have long suspected their hormone levels are quite low due to heredity and it adversely limits their energy levels and outlook?
- mendelsd 10y ago
  I'm no expert but I'd suggest: 1) make a list of all your chronic symptoms over time 2) speak to a doctor about your particular concerns re: hormone levels, and get blood tests taken 3) if your doctor reckons, based on the results, that treatment is justified, I guess you're on your way; if not: 4) study the literature - if you disagree with your doctor about your results, you should be able to find literature that quantitatively supports your position based on your test results and symptoms 5) if you can find supporting literature, ask your doctor for treatment (don't be confrontational when dealing with your doctor, treat them as a resource and a partner, and respect their opinion even if you disagree with them based on what you've learned) 6) find another doctor if your doctor won't agree with a reasoned opinion If you need help with this stuff, there may be practitioners out there more in tune with chronic illness than your bog-standard GP. I'm partial to the ancestral health movement and paleo diet therefore I'd look here: [1]. Finally, I'd recommend the work of Paul Jaminet - I found his book [2] and his Retreat (which includes personalised health coaching based on blood test results) [3] both to be incredibly helpful in dealing with my own long-term health issues. [1] http://primaldocs.com/ http://primaldocs.com/ [2] http://perfecthealthdiet.com/buy-our-book/ http://perfecthealthdiet.com/buy-our-book/ [3] http://perfecthealthdiet.com/perfect-health-retreat/ http://perfecthealthdiet.com/perfect-health-retreat/
  - cylinder 10y ago

jokoon 10y ago

Of course, until you know about the brain plasticity and how it decreases with age. So it becomes more "fixed" with the years. It's true, there is no such thing as personality. But then, why do recruiters want to know about the "profile" of a candidate? What do they talk about when they want someone who is "at harmony with the group"? If we could really change as we liked, we would not talk about personality. People will always carry a baggage of learned behaviors with them. The sum of this is called personality. It can change of course, but in the "brave new world" that we live in, the incentives to do so never appear.

brimstedt 10y ago

Im not native english, but: "It has to do with Mischel's most famous experiment, called the marshmallow test, which he first conducted in 1960. You can still find videos of it on YouTube". Doesn't it sound like they were put on YouTube in the 60s? :)

Retr0spectrum 10y ago
No, it does not.

mswen 10y ago

I have a scholar/hermit/coder persona and a leader/teacher/social persona. I feel like I can switch pretty easily from one into the other depending on the situation. If I spend too many months pretty exclusively within one of those personas I will start to feel the need to express the other.

brokenmachine 10y ago

I love the quote from Fight Club, "If you wake up at a different time, in a different place, could you wake up as a different person?"