Christian Jarrett
Appearances
Something You Should Know
How to Awaken Your Genius & Is Personality Change Possible? - SYSK Choice
Thanks for having me on.
Something You Should Know
How to Awaken Your Genius & Is Personality Change Possible? - SYSK Choice
Well, in psychology, your personality is your very strong tendencies of behavior, thinking and feeling. And they tend to be relatively stable across different situations and over long periods of time. So that's how psychologists define it.
Something You Should Know
How to Awaken Your Genius & Is Personality Change Possible? - SYSK Choice
So I should say as well, the personality is how you act in different situations without thinking about it, without conscious efforts. There's a certain automaticity to it. It's what comes naturally to you. And the big five traits that capture all the different elements of personality, would you like, should I go through those five?
Something You Should Know
How to Awaken Your Genius & Is Personality Change Possible? - SYSK Choice
Yeah, so there's extroversion, introversion, which is one dimension. There's openness to experience. There's conscientiousness. There's neuroticism, which is the flip side of being emotionally stable. And there is agreeableness, which is how friendly and warm you are and how trusting you are of other people.
Something You Should Know
How to Awaken Your Genius & Is Personality Change Possible? - SYSK Choice
Well, actually, in surveys that have been done actually all around the world, it's upwards of 90% of people say there is at least one personality.
Something You Should Know
How to Awaken Your Genius & Is Personality Change Possible? - SYSK Choice
aspect one of those big five traits that they would like to change of course that doesn't mean we want to radically transform ourselves into a totally different type of person but at least in some ways most of us would like to change some aspects of ourselves so why don't we i mean it it seems that some of the traits you described like conscientiousness
Something You Should Know
How to Awaken Your Genius & Is Personality Change Possible? - SYSK Choice
Well, lots of people do try, or they might harbor the wish, but they don't know how to go about it, or they have this aspiration, but they don't act on it, which studies there actually suggest that that can be counterproductive, that
Something You Should Know
How to Awaken Your Genius & Is Personality Change Possible? - SYSK Choice
that having the desire to change your personality, but not having any concrete plan in place for how to make those changes and not doing anything differently is actually... you're likely to actually go backwards counter to how you want to change if you don't have some specific plans in place.
Something You Should Know
How to Awaken Your Genius & Is Personality Change Possible? - SYSK Choice
Yeah, so this has really been a long-running debate in psychology for decades. And you had some psychologists who believed personality is pretty much set in stone from a young age. William James said it was from age 30, that personality was set like plaster. And then there's this different camp, you know, very skeptical about personality.
Something You Should Know
How to Awaken Your Genius & Is Personality Change Possible? - SYSK Choice
And they argued and came up with studies showing what's much more important is the situation that people find themselves in. And if the situation is strong enough, it will override people's so-called personality.
Something You Should Know
How to Awaken Your Genius & Is Personality Change Possible? - SYSK Choice
A kind of classic example in the literature would be Zimbardo's Stanford Prison Experiment, where he recruited these students to play the role of, some of them to play the role of prison guards and some of them to play the role of prisoners. And he found that those recruited to be guards
Something You Should Know
How to Awaken Your Genius & Is Personality Change Possible? - SYSK Choice
you know, started acting in a very tyrannical, authoritarian manner, and they were abusing the students acting as prisoners, and those acting as prisoners started acting submissive.
Something You Should Know
How to Awaken Your Genius & Is Personality Change Possible? - SYSK Choice
In other words, whatever personality difference these two groups of students might have had before the experiment started, ended up, you know, completely drowned out by the strength of the situation or the role, the social roles they were playing in this study.
Something You Should Know
How to Awaken Your Genius & Is Personality Change Possible? - SYSK Choice
Findings like that prompted some psychologists to say that personality is quite a weak concept, that it's overwritten or overpowered by social roles and social situations we find ourselves in.
Something You Should Know
How to Awaken Your Genius & Is Personality Change Possible? - SYSK Choice
Well, what's happened over time is there have been tons and tons of studies now that have looked at personality and look at how it gets expressed in different situations. And really, the consensus that has emerged now is personality traits are real. They're very important. They do predict a lot of what happens in our lives.
Something You Should Know
How to Awaken Your Genius & Is Personality Change Possible? - SYSK Choice
So if you took a personality test and it got scored up and we had your scores on the different main traits, we could make some fairly accurate predictions about things that are going to happen in your life, your health outcomes, your career outcomes, the sort of things you enjoy doing and so on. But at the same time, the research has shown that it is not set in stone.
Something You Should Know
How to Awaken Your Genius & Is Personality Change Possible? - SYSK Choice
Your traits aren't, they aren't fixed. So we end up with this kind of compromise, I suppose you could say. So it's frustrating for anyone who likes things to be black or white, you know, the idea that it's either all about the situation and social roles, or it's all about personality. But it's really a bit of both.
Something You Should Know
How to Awaken Your Genius & Is Personality Change Possible? - SYSK Choice
And so personality traits, the accumulation of evidence suggests they are real, they matter, they are relatively stable, relatively, but they are not totally fixed. So they can and do change over time.
Something You Should Know
How to Awaken Your Genius & Is Personality Change Possible? - SYSK Choice
That's right. So there are average patterns of change that have been seen. It's called the maturity principle in the research literature. So you see these average trends across the main traits. For example, on average, as they get older, people tend to become less extroverted. They tend to become less neurotic, so that is more emotionally stable.
Something You Should Know
How to Awaken Your Genius & Is Personality Change Possible? - SYSK Choice
Conscientiousness tends to show this inverted U-shaped curve. Conscientiousness tends to increase through the first half of life. It peaks around midlife and then declines into later life. Openness to experience is one that tends to gradually decline through life.
Something You Should Know
How to Awaken Your Genius & Is Personality Change Possible? - SYSK Choice
There isn't a huge amount of research on this question, but generally what it's shown is, yeah, people who desire to change and then, you know, the researchers ask them, well, you know, how do you plan to go about that change?
Something You Should Know
How to Awaken Your Genius & Is Personality Change Possible? - SYSK Choice
And if they've got some specific plans in place about changes they're going to make to how they behave and their routines and habits in life, they tend to be successful and the change happens. that they want happens, and it seems to last.
Something You Should Know
How to Awaken Your Genius & Is Personality Change Possible? - SYSK Choice
But those participants who say, yeah, I really wish I could be more conscientious or whatever it might be, but they don't have any plans in place to do anything differently, if anything, they kind of relapse. They go in the opposite direction. The key finding at the moment is you've got to follow up on your desires to change. It's certainly not enough just to wish yourself different.
Something You Should Know
How to Awaken Your Genius & Is Personality Change Possible? - SYSK Choice
Yeah, there's a step-by-step process. So one of the most important ways to change is to develop new habits. Because if you can imagine, habits kind of sit in between your desires to change and your underlying personality. And by shifting your habits, doing things differently often enough until it becomes automatic, then in a way it's trickling down and it's becoming a part of your personality.
Something You Should Know
How to Awaken Your Genius & Is Personality Change Possible? - SYSK Choice
So the approach I've advocated for is doing certain things to change yourself from the inside out and I recommend specific techniques and approaches for the different traits.
Something You Should Know
How to Awaken Your Genius & Is Personality Change Possible? - SYSK Choice
Extroversion is one of the easiest to talk about because it's a trait that lots of people say they would like to have more of. So to change yourself from the inside out would be to do things like form so-called if-then plans. So you might start off gently. If you're very withdrawn and introverted, you might start off by saying, if I am waiting at the bus stop,
Something You Should Know
How to Awaken Your Genius & Is Personality Change Possible? - SYSK Choice
and there's a stranger next to me, then I will make an effort to strike up conversation. Or if I'm in the coffee room at work, then I will strike up conversation with someone else in the room. If it's a Saturday and I'm not going out, then I will ring a friend for a chat. This kind of thing. So it's just to encourage yourself to form new sociable habits.
Something You Should Know
How to Awaken Your Genius & Is Personality Change Possible? - SYSK Choice
Another way from the inside out would be, so extroverts tend to be more optimistic than introverts. They think things are going to be well. They think things are going to go well. It's one of the reasons they're more willing to take risks. So you could practice rehearsing this intervention. It's called the best possible self intervention, which is visualizing yourself in the future
Something You Should Know
How to Awaken Your Genius & Is Personality Change Possible? - SYSK Choice
in as much detail as you can, using all the different senses, and imagining everything in your life has gone how you want it to. It's played out how you would like it to. And doing this several times a week has been shown to boost optimism. And by boosting your optimism, again, it's gonna trickle down and increase your extraversion. And then we are all affected by the company that we keep.
Something You Should Know
How to Awaken Your Genius & Is Personality Change Possible? - SYSK Choice
And you might have noticed this yourself. that different friends or relatives bring out different aspects of your own personality. So this kind of approach would be being a little bit more conscious and deliberate about thinking who you hang out with.
Something You Should Know
How to Awaken Your Genius & Is Personality Change Possible? - SYSK Choice
So if you have a certain friend or relative with whom you feel more outgoing, more confident, more gregarious, well, make a plan, make an effort to hang out with them more.
Something You Should Know
How to Awaken Your Genius & Is Personality Change Possible? - SYSK Choice
Most of the people I've spoken to overwhelmingly say it was worth it. Yeah, because typically people are wanting to change. I would say one of the main things people are trying to change is their trait neuroticism, you know, which is characterized by a lot of worry and low mood.
Something You Should Know
How to Awaken Your Genius & Is Personality Change Possible? - SYSK Choice
So it's not really too surprising if people are successful at changing themselves that way, that it will be welcome, but also changing to become more extroverted. You know, people will say their life is fuller. They've met, you know, they've, they've met more people.
Something You Should Know
How to Awaken Your Genius & Is Personality Change Possible? - SYSK Choice
Bear in mind, if you can increase your extroversion just a little bit and it means you end up meeting someone you wouldn't have otherwise, that person could end up being your best friend or your partner or your new business associate. So the changes can snowball or a fairly modest change can send you down a different path in life.
Something You Should Know
How to Awaken Your Genius & Is Personality Change Possible? - SYSK Choice
Studies have shown people who spend time living abroad, for example, when they come back home, the trait neuroticism is typically lower, perhaps because in comparison to the challenges abroad where you're adjusting to new routines, new sights and sounds and a new culture, When you come back home, by comparison, it's like you slightly recalibrated what you find threatening and challenging.
Something You Should Know
How to Awaken Your Genius & Is Personality Change Possible? - SYSK Choice
So it's like dials has an effect of dialing down neuroticism.
Something You Should Know
How to Awaken Your Genius & Is Personality Change Possible? - SYSK Choice
It is, but at the same time, as you say, it's quite a substantial change. I mean, we are very much shaped by our experiences and the environment around us. So if you shake that up by going abroad, living somewhere different, mixing with new people, in a sense, you're kind of recalibrating your brain's sense of risk and threat.
Something You Should Know
How to Awaken Your Genius & Is Personality Change Possible? - SYSK Choice
So then when you come home, by comparison, the world can seem a little less threatening.
Something You Should Know
How to Awaken Your Genius & Is Personality Change Possible? - SYSK Choice
It's about 50-50, so... Studies suggest genetic inheritance accounts for about 50% of the variability between people. And of course, that then leaves about 50% for your individual life experiences. It does suggest we all have a kind of a foundation based on our genetic inheritance. So there are going to be some limits to the amount of change you can achieve based on that.
Something You Should Know
How to Awaken Your Genius & Is Personality Change Possible? - SYSK Choice
But there's plenty of scope for change as well. So if you take an analogy with your physical body, there are some things you can't change, like your height and so on. But through your exercise and nutrition and that kind of thing, obviously, you can exert a huge influence as well. So it's similar in that way.
Something You Should Know
How to Awaken Your Genius & Is Personality Change Possible? - SYSK Choice
There is some research on authenticity, for example. So I think one natural objection to wanting to change yourself is, yeah, why can't you just be self-accepting and be true to who you are? And then it almost, I suppose, gets us into philosophical territory because studies that have looked at this have found that people actually feel more authentic when they are behaving in ways
Something You Should Know
How to Awaken Your Genius & Is Personality Change Possible? - SYSK Choice
that are in line with their so-called ideal self. So the kind of person they aspire to be, when they act in ways consistent with their ideal self, rather than how they actually are, they feel more authentic.
Something You Should Know
How to Awaken Your Genius & Is Personality Change Possible? - SYSK Choice
Similarly in relationships, for example, people say they feel more authentic in relationships where they are with a partner who sees them more as their ideal self, sees them more as the kind of person they aspire to be. So while there probably is a case for trying to be a little bit more self-accepting, I suppose you could say our aspirations for who we want to be are actually a part of us.
Something You Should Know
How to Awaken Your Genius & Is Personality Change Possible? - SYSK Choice
So perhaps we shouldn't ignore those feelings of wanting to change or wanting to be a better version of ourselves. Maybe that is actually part of who we are.
Something You Should Know
How to Awaken Your Genius & Is Personality Change Possible? - SYSK Choice
Yeah, so you're right, actually. The more specific... people's goals are in this sense that actually the more likely they are to succeed at making those changes. The other thing is which wanting to change just for the sake of it is also less likely to be successful.
Something You Should Know
How to Awaken Your Genius & Is Personality Change Possible? - SYSK Choice
It's people are more likely to succeed in changing their personality if it's rather than being for its own sake, if it's in the service of some kind of higher value or higher life goal, if you like.
Something You Should Know
How to Awaken Your Genius & Is Personality Change Possible? - SYSK Choice
Cool. Excellent. Well, thanks again, Mike.
Something You Should Know
How to Awaken Your Genius & Is Personality Change Possible? - SYSK Choice
In surveys that have been done actually all around the world, it's upwards of 90% of people say there is at least one aspect, one of those big five traits that they would like to change. At least in some ways, most of us would like to change some aspects of ourselves.