
You Can Change Your Personality - wallflower
http://nymag.com/scienceofus/2017/01/how-to-change-your-personality.html
======
albertTJames
This is a stale and old debate, personality is extremely flexible and heavily
depends on environmental and social constraints, as were demonstrated by
seminal social experiment studies such as those of Milgram or Zimbardo. The
argument that the changes seen there are short lived can be contradicted by
the fact that subjects always go back to their normal environment after the
experiment. What I believe Ed Boyden would call the illusion of isolation.
That is why important changes usually occur at key breaking moments in a life:
change of school, leaving home, changing city/country. The social environment
has far more power on the psyche than any therapy. But the social environment
of an individual usually do not change, and the only real power he has on it
is to willingly chose isolation, which is worst of all.
[http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/174569161456835...](http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1745691614568352)

Personality disorders, on the other hand, are characterised by fixed traits of
personality, rigid in time in spite of detrimental effects on the life of the
subject or the life of others.

~~~
bjterry
This reminds me of an article I read which said that 95% of the soldiers in
Vietnam who had become addicted to heroin simply stopped when they came back
to America.

1: [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/johann-hari/the-real-cause-
of-...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/johann-hari/the-real-cause-of-
addicti_b_6506936.html)

~~~
Broken_Hippo
I have read about this a few times. I think the main difference is in what the
folks are changing: They are changing habits and lifestyle - their input -
rather than changing their base personality - their output. Naturally with
different input they act differently: Same for dropping a drug that affects
the way you act.

And I do somewhat understand - I changed a lot of things when I moved
overseas. I likely seem different: But I'm also happier and have a different
knowledge base than I did a few years ago. People's expectations of me changed
as well: As soon as people realize I'm not Norwegian (the English accent gives
me away), it is OK if I break some social norms - those things that I had
trouble grasping anyway.

~~~
johnchristopher
We are, if anything, creatures of habit. Drawn to the safety and the comfort
of the similar.

~~~
Nomentatus
Meditation is one good way to break this. Rubbing your nose endlessly in your
own thoughtless patterns can be bloody embarrassing. Certainly life-changing.

------
nxc18
People often use "its just my personality" as an excuse for bad behavior.
Intuitively I think most people know that you have control over your behavior
at the very least as well as aspects of your personality. Just like any other
activity, you can practice being a more considerate, or more respectful, or
less neurotic personality.

There is a weird meme that tech people aren't capable of being "team players"
or working with other people. Maybe research will help address that
perception; awkward is ok, but we shouldn't accept that techies will be dicks
to people all the time.

~~~
tw04
I've always wondered, given this "stereotype" if there isn't more to it. Is it
possible that because, in general, people who were "nerds" were likely more of
a social outcast growing up, that they have essentially become "hardened", if
you will, to social graces. They spent so much of their developmental years
being teased/ridiculed/whatever that what is "normal" treatment of others has
essentially become foreign to them? Sure, you can form a relationship with
your family, but that really doesn't extend to how you interact with people
outside of your inner circle.

There seems to be such a strong correlation, curious if anyone has ever
studied it. It seems we've gotten to the point that so very much of our adult
behavior can be traced to childhood events/upbringing that this can't be an
outlier.

~~~
dpark
I think this is mostly an effect of nerds not wanting to be exclusionary and
therefore enabling this kind of behavior. If you're a nerd and you're kind of
a prick, other nerds will tend to excuse it rather than just pushing you away.
They'll disregard your behavior and keep inviting you to events. They'll
ignore the fact that you're unpleasant when bonuses/promos are being handed
out at work because it should be based on merit, as if there's no merit in
behaving sociably. They'll generally look the other way because the
alternatives are to be confrontational (which most people, including nerds,
don't want to do) or to exclude you.

On the other hand, if you're not a nerd and you act like a prick, people will
just start to cut you out of their lives. You won't get invited to social
events. You probably won't get promoted because no one wants to work with you.
Your behavior will impact your life. You can be a prick and be successful, but
it's harder, because you have to balance it by being really good at something
else. You're an amazing salesperson so you get rewarded despite being
unpleasant. You're wealthy so people hang out with you even though you're
rude.

The bar for nerds looking the other way seems to be lower. You're rude, but
that's just how you are. Obviously there are limits even for nerds, but the
limits seem to be pretty high.

~~~
g00gler
Why not both?

~~~
qball
To someone with an uncommon interest (a "nerd", in other words, though nerdy
interests tend to require higher-than-average intelligence to possess), people
with that interest are hard to find.

Once you finally meet someone sharing that interest, and it turns out that
they act like a prick, you have a difficult choice (if you value sociable
behavior over the opportunity to be social at all; willingly choosing
isolation is frequently not a tenable position).

The cost and stakes for confrontation (and exclusion) are higher than it is in
a "nerdier" group than for people with more common interests, simply because
of the lack of people who are capable of the interest in the first place. So,
more bad behaviors are tolerated. It's also worth noting that "bad" covers
both "weird" and "malicious", which is also why groups with these interests
tend to be much more accepting of people with other interests outside of those
standard for the surrounding society.

The feedback loop is as such less; personality quirks don't get as rounded-off
as they would in a less-exclusive group, so any conversions from asshole ->
non-asshole in a small community will take longer if they even happen at all.

So, it should be no surprise that individuals more aware than most of the fact
that "good people are hard to find" are willing to make certain sacrifices to
retain them. For individuals whose interests and abilities involve a larger
cross-section of the population, however, people are much more
interchangeable, so excluding weird/malicious behavior is much easier.

As an example, consider the tech community's recent trend of attempting to
exclude speakers with non-standard political views from conferences. The
arguments for doing so come from people with the mindset that technology
experts are interchangeable (which is valid in some areas), the arguments
against it come from those who see technology experts as an unusually scarce
resource (which is valid everywhere else in the world).

------
vivekd
Did I just miss something or did the article offer no evidence for it's
position that personality can changer other than presenting some writing
exercises by high schoolers that asked them if personality can change. It
didn't seem to elaborate about how these exercises affected or changed their
personality or present any other evidence or examples of changing personality.

Don't get me wrong, I do believe that personality can change, just this
article didn't seem to present a good basis for that thinking.

~~~
nommm-nommm
They named the the journal and the issue but not the title of the meta-
analysis itself.

"In an analysis of 207 studies, published this month in the journal
Psychological Bulletin, a team of six researchers found that personality can
and does change, and by a lot, and fairly quickly. But only with a therapist’s
help. (Imagine that.)"

Edit: someone tracked down the original.
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13452075](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13452075)

~~~
jaytaylor
[https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Brent_Roberts/publicati...](https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Brent_Roberts/publication/312105742_A_Systematic_Review_of_Personality_Trait_Change_Through_Intervention/links/5870f1f308ae329d621714aa.pdf)

------
ajb
Original paper:
[https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Brent_Roberts/publicati...](https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Brent_Roberts/publication/312105742_A_Systematic_Review_of_Personality_Trait_Change_Through_Intervention/links/5870f1f308ae329d621714aa.pdf)

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bkanber
I believe that we have control over our personality.

Like exercise (to change your body), changing your personality takes time and
conscious effort. You need to dedicate time every day for honest self-
reflection, self-awareness, meditation, reading and education in the topic,
etc.

There are two ways you can lose weight. Accidentally, by getting sick or
stressed, for instance; and on purpose, through concerted diet and exercise.
The same can happen with personality changes. It can happen accidentally,
through change of environment or mental illness like depression.

But doing it on purpose seems more wholesome. Losing weight on purpose is
better than losing it accidentally, even though the result is the same,
because those people are healthy and the others aren't. Put another way: you
shouldn't have to get sick to lose weight.

Everybody should spend some time daily on those mental health items above.
It's exercise. Through it you can point your personality and mind in the
direction you'd like it to go, and with hard work and patience you'll get
there. As your mind gets healthier the less likely you are to become mentally
ill. You'll avoid common issues like depression, substance abuse, anxiety and
eating disorders.

I think mental illness is starting to become a public health crisis. I know so
_few_ people that aren't constantly stressed due to work or school, I've seen
many people fall into legitimate depression and only recover after changing
their environment (ie quitting their job).

It's said that half of adults experience depression at least once in their
life. I bet it's more like 90%. It's like the flu. Pervasive, transmissible
and contagious, with most victims recovering quickly, but a small percentage
experiencing fatal cases. Now we have flu shots at every Walgreens.

It's time to do the same for mental health.

------
steanne
pretty typical salesmanship: if you convince people a) there's something wrong
with them and b) that thing can be changed, you can sell them a cure.

~~~
idiot74
Overly cynical comment. Article author isn't a psychologist, so has no reason
to be a 'salesman'. Additionally, the question of how changeable an
individual's personality is, is a perfectly valid and interesting topic to
research. (Unfortunately the article does not mention the title, or provide a
link to the research).

------
codingmyway
When social context matters so much I wonder how they measure things like
this. Just the act of getting to know a therapist will reduce anxiety and in
the situation you'll be comfortable so there is little value measuring
improvements under those circumstances.

As soon as you step out into the real world again fears resurface.

I'd say there's a market for trained therapists who will also coach people
through real world stressful situations rather than just talking about them.

Given the expense of doing that it would have to be in a group and the
incentives right so you can trust coaches not to exploit the vulnerable. Solve
that and you could have a nice franchise.

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NumberCruncher
It may be only me but I won't read any "scientific" article hiding behind pay
wall and between two unserious ads like "best flashlight ever selling like
crazy" and "10 fans who look like celebrities". It would be like reading life
advices on the back of toilet paper.

~~~
throw8888
You can try sci-hub.cc if it's a scientific paper. Works most of time.

~~~
NumberCruncher
Thanks, I will check the site out.

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zw123456
I think there are limitations to how much someone can change. The analogy I
would use is physical traits, you can loose weight, or you can exercise and
increase strength and so on but there are limitations. I am 59 and no matter
how hard I train I am not going to be able to run a 4 minute mile but I am
sure if I worked at it a little harder I could improve my running skills.
Similarly, I think one can, through therapy, meditation or other types of
mental fitness activities, can make improvements if they have the sufficient
desire to do so, but within limits.

~~~
RileyKyeden
The problem with this perspective is you can't know your true limit until you
actually reach it by trying to improve. So you might as well keep aiming a
little higher.

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underwater
Ironically I saw a presentation from the phycologist mentioned in the article,
Dr. Brian Little, a couple of weeks back where he said that being introverted
or extroverted _was_ fixed, which was surprising to me.

~~~
Programmatic
People can and do engage with others more or less, so I don't think intro- or
extroverted in that sense is fixed. But the understanding of introversion and
extroversion these days tends to be more whether you gain or lose energy in
general from dealing with people. I doubt that feeling drained from (not)
talking to people would change very quickly in someone.

There are plenty of outgoing introverts.

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unusximmortalis
We are programable and self programable of course.

------
ruminasean
This isn't news to me, but I like having a handy little article that I can
send to people to point to and say "See? It's not just me. Science."

~~~
TheSpiceIsLife
I feel compelled to link to this[1] bit of writing by Yudkowsky.

 _Science! It 's not a real explanation, so much as a curiosity-stopper. You
don't actually know anything more than you knew before I said the magic word.
But you turn away, satisfied that nothing unusual is going on._

1\.
[http://lesswrong.com/lw/j3/science_as_curiositystopper/](http://lesswrong.com/lw/j3/science_as_curiositystopper/)

~~~
evincarofautumn
I think it’s more along the lines of “I have changed my personality before, so
it’s obvious to me that it can be done; however, it may not be obvious to
others without some evidence that it’s a recognised phenomenon”. In that case,
“Science!” is intended not to sate curiosity, but to dispel doubt—and maybe
then even pique curiosity.

