48 | New Scientist | 15 January 2022deviation, were still present a year later.
Shifting personalities over our lives or
in response to a treatment programme is all
well and good, but I wanted to know whether
I could change on purpose. Intriguingly, there
is fresh evidence to suggest it is possible. For
a study published last February, Roberts and
several colleagues attempted to change
one personality trait in each of 1523 Swiss
participants who had a mean age of 25. Each
person was coached by a smartphone app
called PEACH, which gave them specific
tasks, such as to talk to new people if they
wanted to become more extroverted or write
down all the important birthdays for the year
ahead in their calendar if they wanted to
become more conscientious.
It is easy to see that our personality traits
can influence how we think and behave. But
the idea behind personality change is that our
thoughts and behaviour could also influence
our personality traits. Given that people
typically change in predictable ways as they age,
it is reasonable to assume this is partly down to
committing to various roles and expectations,
the researchers argue. When we decide to study
hard at university, for example, the change in
behaviour eventually becomes automatic
and is integrated into our personality.
After three months, the researchers found
that those participants who wished to boostemotional stability, extroversion or
conscientiousness – which was the majority
of the group – had succeeded. They had
changed these personality traits by between
a third and a half of a standard deviation. That
is up to half the shift an average person can
experience in a lifetime. “People can change
pretty dramatically pretty fast,” says Roberts.
“That’s been the big surprise for us.”
The study involved self-reporting
via questionnaires, which is problematic
because we may not always have an
accurate understanding of our feelings
and behaviour. But the researchers also
gathered evaluations from “observers” –
friends and family of the participants. These
evaluations also revealed personality change,
albeit not to the same extent as reported by
the participants themselves.JIM
HO
LD
EN
/AL
AM
Y
“ Fake it till you
make it pretty
much sums up
how to change
personality”
Mathias Allemand, a psychologist at the
University of Zurich in Switzerland who led the
study, thinks they weren’t just seeing a placebo
effect. If that had been the case, he argues, the
changes would be unlikely to persist three
months after the end of the intervention,
which they did. In fact, many people continued
to develop in line with their goals after the
experiment had ended and the coaching
had stopped. What’s more, says Allemand,
personality change involves a new way of
looking at the world, so it makes sense that
it should be more vividly experienced by the
participants themselves.
This is just one study, of course. And if the
recent history of psychology has taught us
anything, it is that we shouldn’t trust splashy
studies that haven’t been replicated. Except
that this study was largely repeating several
smaller, previous ones. Nathan Hudson, a
psychologist at Southern Methodist University
in Texas, says the work represents a “nice
replication” of his own research on college
students. He says it is great to see that the effect
holds for a large, general group of people and
adds that the observer reports are a valuable
addition. A 2020 meta-analysis of 12 of his own
previous studies on volitional personality
change in college students, however, found
slightly smaller effects. Other researchers
have found similar results, too.
Now it was my turn to try. You have to be
very motivated, Allemand told me. “It’s not
easy at all.” It is also a good idea that anyone
who wants to hack their personality educates
themselves about the benefits of the changes
they are trying to make, he says. I looked into
the advantages of being conscientious and
discovered there is some evidence to suggest
people with higher levels of conscientiousness
are generally healthier, live longer and do
better at studies and work than people
with low levels. I was motivated.
In terms of how you go about making the
change, you can pretty much sum it up with
the phrase “Fake it till you make it”. I mainly
used a long list of tasks published in the
appendix of a 2019 paper by Hudson and
his colleagues, and written in order of
increasing difficulty. If you want to become
more emotionally stable, for example, try to
find positive details in negative situations
and, when you feel upset with someone,
spend 2 minutes reflecting on their goodCould forcing
yourself to be
organised alter
your underlying
nature for good?