Highlights
• In large part, individuals’ volitional personality change desires did not predict actual change in the desired direction.
• Desired increases in Extraversion, Agreeableness and Conscientiousness corresponded with decreases in corresponding traits.
• Participants perceived more change than actually occurred.
• Decreases in Emotional Stability predicted perceptions of personality change.
Abstract: Using an idiographic-nomothetic methodology, we assessed individuals’ ability to change their personality traits without therapeutic or experimental involvement. Participants from internet and college populations completed trait measures and reported current personality change desires. Self-reported traits as well as perceptions of trait change were collected after 1-year (Internet) and 6-months (College). In large part, volitional personality change desires did not predict actual change. When desires did predict change, (a) desired increases in Extraversion, Agreeableness and Conscientiousness corresponded with decreases in corresponding traits, (b) participants perceived more change than actually occurred, and (c) decreases in Emotional Stability predicted perceptions of personality change. Results illustrate the difficulty in purposefully changing one’s traits when left to one’s own devices.
Keywords: Volitional personality changeIdiographic-nomotheticPersonality development
From Baranski's 2018 PhD Thesis https://escholarship.org/content/qt6pk2h81f/qt6pk2h81f.pdf?t=pexwxu:
Volitional personality change across 58 countries
First, on average across 58 countries, 61.38% participants report that they are
currently trying to change an aspect of their personalities. The sheer number of people
around the world that are trying to accomplish personality change goals is in and of itself
notable. Indeed only eight countries had percentages lower than 50%. Nevertheless, there
was substantial variation across countries in the percentage of individuals who were
attempting this change. Specifically, country proportion of volitional personality change
attempts ranged from 84.75% (Indonesia) to 28.07% (Israel).
In an attempt to explain this variation, I first related country-level variables to
countries’ proportion of volitional personality change. In countries with high employment
rates, a higher proportion of individuals report trying to change their personalities. It may
be the case that workplace demands inspire individuals to attempt to improve their
personalities in ways that would be beneficial to workplace success. In support of this
possibility, previous research in lifespan development indicates success in the workforce
(e.g., being detailed oriented and dependable) is related to high levels of
conscientiousness (Barrick & Mount, 1991; Tett & Burnett, 2003). It may be the case,
therefore, that individuals beginning a new job or adding new responsibilities to an
existing position may be intentionally increasing levels of conscientiousness to meet their
new workplace demands. Also, low levels of country-level subjective health was related
to high proportions of volitional personality change. One possible explanation for this
relationship is that individuals residing in countries with low averages of self-reported
health might be inspired to work towards feeling better in all areas of their lives. In other
words, in an attempt to improve low wellbeing evidenced by their subjective health
ratings, individuals may seek to be more emotionally stable (to improve psychological
well-being) or conscientious (to improve self-care).
I next investigated what predicted volitional personality change on the individual
level. Across the majority of countries, individuals with high levels of negative
emotionality and its facets (i.e., anxiety, depression and emotionality) and low levels of
both subjective and interdependent happiness tended to report currently trying to change
an aspect of their personalities. There was also a trend for individuals high in openness
(driven by intellect) to also report volitional personality change, albeit less consistently
across countries. These results imply that individuals who have negative emotions yet are
highly intellectual tend to want to change an aspect of their personalities. In other words,
individuals who are thinking deeply about their own negative personality traits or general
wellbeing, tend to be report changing something about their personalities.
The aforementioned findings cue us in to who is trying to change their
personalities around the world. The next question to examine, then, is what exactly it is
people want to change. Similar to individuals across US states, the majority of
participants from our international sample indicated that they were trying to be more
emotionally stable, conscientious, extraverted and agreeable. Again replicating analyses
from our US sample, facet level analyses revealed that a proportion of responses that fell
in to each category, some categories varied more than others. For instance, the degree of
variation for increased emotional stability was nearly a fourth of that for increased
extraversion. Indeed, the lowest proportion of individuals with an volitional personality
attempt to increase emotional stability is 14.55% (Hong Kong), whereas the lowest
proportion for attempts to increase extraversion across countries was 3.37% (Croatia).
The latter finding may be explained by already high levels of extraversion for Croatian
participants – who had among the highest levels of this trait relative to the other countries
included in the analyses.
Finally, I assessed the relationship between current personality traits and specific
volitional personality change attempts. For extraversion, agreeableness,
conscientiousness and negative emotionality, there were strong relationships between
current trait levels and corresponding volitional personality change traits. For instance,
individuals with low levels of extraversion tended to report that they were currently
trying to increase levels of extraversion (driven by attempts to increase levels of
sociability). Like analyses across US states, these patterns did not vary across countries.
The one exception, however, was negative emotionality which did vary in its relationship
to attempts to increase emotional stability across countries. Indeed, looking at these
relationships by country reveals that in some countries there is a positive relationship
between current levels of negative emotionality and the attempt to increase emotional
stability, and in others there is a strong positive relationship. For example, in Slovakia,
those who reported a current attempt to increase emotional stability tended to have low
levels of negative emotionality, whereas in New Zealand, individuals who report trying to
increase levels of emotional stability tend to be high in negative emotionality. It seems to
be the case that in some countries, negative emotionality prompts volitional personality
change in the same way it does with other traits (e.g., high negative emotionality
prompting attempts to be more emotionally stable), yet in others, low levels of negative
emotionality prompts individuals to be even more emotionally stable.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment