Have you ever taken a personality test? If you’re like me, you’ve scoured BuzzFeed and know exactly which Taylor Swift songs will “perfectly match your vibe.” It should be.
It may be clear that internet quizzes are not scientific, but many of the seemingly serious personality tests used to guide educational and career choices are also not backed up by research. Despite being a multi-billion dollar industry, commercial personality tests used by schools and companies to place people into ideal roles do not predict career success.
In addition to lacking scientific support, the most common approaches to understanding personality are problematic. That’s because they assume your traits are static, that is, you’re stuck with your innate personality. However, modern personality science research shows that traits can and do change over time.
In addition to having seen my own personality change over time from messy and lazy to outlandishly conscientious, I am also a personality change researcher and clinical psychologist. there is. My research supports what I’ve seen in my own growth and in my patients. People can intentionally shape the characteristics they need to succeed in the life they desire. This is contrary to the common belief that your personality type puts you in a box and that you should choose partners, activities, and careers according to your characteristics.
What is individuality and what is not?
According to psychologists, personality is your unique way of thinking, feeling, and behaving.
Are you a person who tends to think pessimistically about your life situation, or are you a glass half-full type of person?
Do you tend to get angry when someone cuts you in traffic, or do you tend to give them the benefit of the doubt that they might be in a hurry to the hospital?
Do you wait until the last moment to complete a task or do you plan ahead?
Personality can be thought of as a collection of labels that summarize the answers to these questions. Depending on your answer, you could be labeled as optimistic, empathetic, or trustworthy.
Research suggests that all of these descriptive labels can be boiled down to five overarching traits that psychologists creatively refer to as the “Big Five.”
In the 1930s, psychologists literally went through dictionaries and took all the words that describe human nature and organized them into categories with similar themes. For example, we grouped words such as “kind,” “thoughtful,” and “friendly.” Researchers have found that thousands of words can be described by classifying them into five traits: Neuroticism, Extraversion, Conscientiousness, Agreeableness, and Openness.
What your personality isn’t: People often feel protective about their personality. You might consider it to be your core. However, according to scientific definition, personality is not your likes, dislikes, or preferences. That’s not your sense of humor. It’s not about your values or what you think is important in life.
In other words, changing the Big 5 traits doesn’t change the core of who you are. It simply means learning to respond to life situations with different thoughts, feelings, and actions.
Can you change your personality?
Will my personality change? Remember that personality is a person’s unique way of thinking, feeling, and acting. Changing your personality may seem difficult, but people change the way they think, feel, and act all the time.
Let’s say you’re not a very trusting person. When you start thinking, “Being on time shows others that you respect others,” you start to feel pride when you arrive at brunch before your friends, wake up with an alarm, and set an appointment. Start new behaviors that will increase your punctuality. As a reminder, you embody the characteristics of a trustworthy person. If you can maintain these changes in thinking, feeling, and behavior over time, voila! —You can be trusted. Personality: Changed.
Data supports this idea. Personality generally changes throughout a person’s life. As people age, they experience fewer negative emotions, more positive emotions, are more conscientious, value positive relationships more, and are less critical of others. There is a tendency to
However, there is variation here. Some people change a lot, while others remain fairly stable. Furthermore, studies that have tested whether personality interventions change traits over time, including my own, have shown that by making deliberate tweaks to their thinking and behavior, people can achieve changes in their personality. It has been shown that it can speed up the process. These tweaks can result in meaningful change within 20 weeks rather than 20 years.
Develop the personality traits that serve you best
The good news is that these cognitive-behavioral techniques are relatively simple and don’t require a visit to a therapist if they’re not of interest to you.
The first element involves changing your thought patterns. This is the cognitive part. You need to be aware of your thoughts to determine if they are preventing you from acting in accordance with certain traits. For example, if you believe that people only think about themselves, you may end up acting defensively towards others.
The behavioral component involves recognizing current behavioral trends and testing new responses. If you are defensive in front of others, they will likely react negatively towards you. For example, if they withdraw or lash out at you, it confirms your belief that you can’t trust others. In contrast, if you try to be more open, for example, share with your co-workers that you’re having a hard time at work, you have the opportunity to see if that changes other people’s attitudes toward you.
These cognitive-behavioral strategies are highly effective in fine-tuning your personality. Because personality is simply a person’s unique way of thinking and acting. By continually changing your perspective and behavior, you create lasting habits and ultimately create the personality you desire.
This edited article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
