research on personality changes

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• Published: 15 March 2024

The process and mechanisms of personality change

• Joshua J. Jackson   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-9490-8890 1 &
• Amanda J. Wright   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-8873-9405 2  

Nature Reviews Psychology volume  3 ,  pages 305–318 ( 2024 ) Cite this article

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• Human behaviour
• Personality

Although personality is relatively stable across the lifespan, there is also ample evidence that it is malleable. This potential for change is important because many individuals want to change aspects of their personality and because personality influences important life outcomes. In this Review, we examine the mechanisms responsible for intentional and naturally occurring changes in personality. We discuss four mechanisms — preconditions, triggers, reinforcers and integrators — that are theorized to produce effective change, as well as the forces that promote stability, thereby thwarting enduring changes. Although these mechanisms are common across theories of personality development, the empirical evidence is mixed and inconclusive. Personality change is most likely to occur gradually over long timescales but abrupt, transformative changes are possible when change is deliberately attempted or as a result of biologically mediated mechanisms. When change does occur, it is often modest in scale. Ultimately, it is difficult to cultivate a completely different personality, but small changes are possible.

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Jackson, J.J., Wright, A.J. The process and mechanisms of personality change. Nat Rev Psychol 3 , 305–318 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s44159-024-00295-z

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Personality change across the lifespan: Insights from a cross-cultural longitudinal study

William j. chopik.

Department of Psychology, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI

Shinobu Kitayama

Department of Psychology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI

Associated Data

Personality traits are characterized by both stability and change across the lifespan. Many of the mechanisms hypothesized to cause personality change (e.g., the timing of various social roles, physical health, and cultural values) differ considerably across culture. Moreover, personality consistency is valued highly in Western societies, but less so in non-Western societies. Few studies have examined how personality changes differently across cultures.

We employed a multi-level modeling approach to examine age-related changes in Big Five personality traits in two large panel studies of Americans (n = 6,259; M age = 46.85; 52.5% Female) and Japanese (n = 1,021; M age = 54.28; 50.9% Female). Participants filled out personality measures twice, over either a 9-year interval (for Americans) or a 4-year period (for Japanese).

Changes in agreeableness and openness to experience did not systematically vary across cultures; changes in extraversion, neuroticism, and conscientiousness did vary across cultures. Further, Japanese show significantly greater fluctuation in the level of all of the traits tested over time than Americans.

Conclusions

The culture-specific social, ecological, and life-course factors that are associated with personality change are discussed.

Researchers have assumed that personality traits are characterized by both stability and change across the lifespan. The primary interpretation of age-related changes in personality is that our personalities change in response to the social roles and responsibilities that we adopt over time ( Roberts, Wood, & Smith, 2005 ). For example, people become more agreeable and conscientious when they invest more in their occupation and less so when they retire ( Specht, Egloff, & Schmukle, 2011 ). People also become more introverted following marriage ( Specht et al., 2011 ). Military personnel decrease in agreeableness following military training ( Jackson, Thoemmes, Jonkmann, Ludtke, & Trautwein, 2012 ). A meta-analysis showed that many personality changes result from the degree to which people invest in social roles in work, family, religion, and volunteering ( Lodi-Smith & Roberts, 2007 ). However, social roles, expectations, and the timing of these events often differ by culture, so the degree to which personality changes may differ accordingly across different cultures and social settings. In the current study, we examined life-course changes in personality from longitudinal data obtained from the United States and Japan. With this analysis, we examined life-course trajectories of different personality traits and how these trajectories might differ between the United States and Japan.

There is a strong consensus among personality psychologists that five broad domains characterize much of human variation in personality ( John, Naumann, & Soto, 2008 ). These five broad, global traits—often referred to as the Big Five—are extraversion (traits like outgoing and lively ), agreeableness (traits like helpful and sympathetic ), neuroticism (traits like moody and worrying ), conscientiousness (traits like hardworking and responsible ), and openness to experience (traits like imaginative and curious ). Examining how these five traits differ across the lifespan has been the subject of many previous studies, both cross-sectionally (e.g., Soto, John, Gosling, & Potter, 2010 ; Srivastava, John, Gosling, & Potter, 2003 ) and longitudinally (e.g., Roberts, Walton, & Viechtbauer, 2006 ; Terracciano, McCrae, Brant, & Costa, 2005 ). The preponderance of evidence from these studies shows that neuroticism, extraversion, and openness to experience tend to decline across the lifespan. Agreeableness tends to increase across the lifespan. Conscientiousness often has a curvilinear association with age, such that people become more conscientiousness until about middle age before declining in late life ( Lucas & Donnellan, 2011 ; Terracciano et al., 2005 ). This late life decline is hypothesized to coincide with rapid declines in health and cognitive ability ( Wagner, Ram, Smith, & Gerstorf, 2015 ).

Will such life course trajectories of personality vary across different cultures? Some researchers have suggested that personality development is relatively similar or universal across cultures, reflecting changes not in environmental circumstances, but rather in intrinsic, biological systems across life that are present in all cultures ( McCrae, 2004 ; McCrae et al., 1999 ; McCrae et al., 2000 ). Moreover, even if personality is not fully determined by intrinsic, biological factors, life course trajectories of personality could be similar across cultures if many of the social roles hypothesized to cause adult personality development are present in most cultures ( Roberts et al., 2005 ). Unlike the biological review, however, the latter social role view implies that there should be substantial cross-cultural variability in personality change to the extent that the timing of family-, education-, and employment-related transitions is cross-culturally variable ( Bleidorn et al., 2013 ).

Previous cross-cultural studies show similar age differences in cultures such as Belgium, Russia, China, the Czech Republic and several more ( Bleidorn et al., 2013 ; McCrae et al., 2004 ; McCrae et al., 2002 ; McCrae & Terracciano, 2005 ) whereas others have found considerable age-related personality changes and differences across cultures ( Donnellan & Lucas, 2008 ; Lucas & Donnellan, 2009 ; Wortman, Lucas, & Donnellan, 2012 ), even among cultures that are relatively similar (e.g., Britain, Germany, and Australia). One important caveat is that many of these studies are cross-sectional in design. Among the few longitudinal studies conducted, they are exclusively focused on personality change in Western cultures ( Lucas & Donnellan, 2011 ; Wortman et al., 2012 ). With cross-sectional designs, it is impossible to dissociate true personality change from birth cohort effects ( McCrae et al., 1999 ; McCrae et al., 2000 ). In fact, this consideration is often used to explain why studies of age differences across cultures sometimes yield contradictory findings ( Donnellan & Lucas, 2008 ). With respect to how personality changes over time in non-Western cultures, little data currently exists to examine this question. How does personality change differ among two relatively dissimilar countries, like the United States and Japan? To make progress in this area, it is crucial to have cross-cultural, longitudinal data that cover a wide age range.

Beyond investment and timing in social roles, which have some similarities across cultures, there are at least two important classes of considerations that are relevant to life-course changes in personality. First, cultural variation in physical health may have consequences on the life-course trajectory of personality. Longevity varies dramatically across cultures. Among modern industrialized societies, Japan enjoys the highest longevity in the world ( Miyagi, Iwama, Kawabata, & Hasegawa, 2003 ), whereas Americans fare far worse ( Benfante, 1992 ). Much of this difference may be explained by physical health. A recent study using markers of inflammation (interleukin-6 and c-reactive protein) and cardiovascular functioning (systolic blood pressure and heart rate) to assess biological health risk and found that, across a wide age span, Japanese adults are at a substantially lower biological health risk than Americans ( Coe et al., 2011 ). Health may also prove to be relevant in understanding age-linked changes in personality traits. Two important considerations may follow from this analysis.

To begin, as people age, there may be a decline of physical ability—severely limiting their ability to go out and explore new social relationships or new knowledge ( Jokela, Hakulinen, Singh-Manoux, & Kivimaki, 2014 ; Wagner et al., 2015 ). Thus, older adults may be less extraverted and less open to new experiences due to health limitations. Support for this possibility can be found in an explanation for the origins of cultural variation in personality from an evolutionary perspective. For example, people living in countries with high disease prevalence rates may be less extraverted and open because their local ecologies shape their interpersonal behavior and social institutions ( Schaller & Murray, 2008 ). However, this decline in extraversion and openness to experience may be buffered if Japanese adults are healthier over longer stretches of time. Moreover, older people may prioritize social emotional goals of “feeling good” over more task-relevant and information-related goals ( Carstensen, Isaacowitz, & Charles, 1999 ), leading them to be both less neurotic and more agreeable. Further, evidence that individuals become less anxious and emotionally mature as they age would also lead to the prediction that neuroticism declines and agreeableness increases ( Gross et al., 1997 ; Srivastava et al., 2003 ). However, insofar as some degree of good health is required to pursue such goals ( Charles & Luong, 2013 ; Lockenhoff & Carstensen, 2004 ), both decreases of neuroticism and increases of agreeableness may be more pronounced among healthy populations, namely, among Japanese as compared to Americans.

Second, cultural variation in values may have important consequences on the life-course trajectory of personality. A large body of research in cultural psychology ( Markus & Kitayama, 1991 ), comparative sociology ( Lincoln & Kalleberg, 1990 ), and international politics ( Norris & Inglehart, 2011 ) provides evidence that Western European and North American cultures emphasize independence in general and strong personal agency in particular and, as a consequence, work-related responsibilities may be associated with increased demands for personal agency in Western cultures. This perspective may be most relevant in understanding age-related trajectories of conscientiousness often found in studies of Western populations: The level of conscientiousness (as reflected in characteristics such as “organized” and “hard-working”) peaks at the prime of work life (i.e., midlife, around 40-50 years of age). In contrast, many non-Western cultures emphasize interdependence with others in general and social duty and obligation in particular ( Markus & Kitayama, 1991 ; Schweder & Bourne, 1982 ; Triandis, 1989 ). In these cultures, individuals must to be attuned to social norms and conform to them regardless of personal agency and, moreover, this need for social adjustment and conformity to work-related norms might be especially strong at the prime of work-life. We thus anticipated that the age-related changes in conscientiousness might be very different in Japan than the U.S. Among Japanese participants, conscientiousness might be particularly low during midlife as individuals emphasize social duty over personal agency.

Relatedly, the cultural difference in endorsement of independence versus interdependence implies that Westerners might be less impacted by various social and contextual events than non-Westerners ( Markus & Kitayama, 1991 ; Oishi, Diener, Napa Scollon, & Biswas-Diener, 2004 ). Thus, non-Westerners may be influenced by an assortment of environmental events including those that are idiosyncratic to each individual or each cohort. In contrast, Westerners may be influenced primarily by environmental events that are pervasive and overwhelming, namely, those that occur equally strongly over most individuals in a given society. In fact, Westerners have been assumed to strive for personal consistencies to a greater extent than non-Westerners do ( Kanagawa, Cross, & Markus, 2001 ; Kitayama & Markus, 1999 ). This would mean that there should be more random fluctuations in personality trajectories among Japanese as compared to among Americans. Because of more random fluctuations in trajectories, we expect less dramatic (i.e., more attenuated) age-related mean-level changes in personality.

In the current study, we used two nationally representative samples from the U.S. and Japan to examine age-related changes in personality across the adult lifespan. Participants filled out personality measures twice over either a 4- or 9/10-year period. We employed a multi-level modeling procedure to examine age-related changes in trajectories of personality development and whether these trajectories were moderated by culture.

Participants and Procedure

Participants were from two large national surveys conducted in parallel in the U.S. (the Midlife Development in the U.S.; MIDUS) and Japan (the Midlife in Japan; MIDJA).

The first wave of the MIDUS study (MIDUS 1; 1995-1996) sampled 7,108 English-speaking adults in the United States, aged 20-75 years. The current sample is based on the 6,259 individuals who had at least one wave of personality data (52.5% Female; Mage = 46.85, SD = 12.91). Median level of education was some college education (37.6% high school/GED or less, 30.5% some college, 32.0% have at least a bachelor's degree). In the second wave of data collection (MIDUS 2; 2004-2005), approximately 70 percent of the original sample (n = 4,963) were successfully contacted for follow-up assessments. The average follow-up interval was approximately 9 years. Compared to those who did not provide data for wave 2, participants with complete data were lower in agreeableness ( d = .06), lower in neuroticism ( d = .06), higher in conscientiousness ( d = .18), more likely to be female (55.3% of the follow-up sample were women, compared to 52.5% at wave 1), more highly educated (36% of the follow-up sample had at least a bachelor's degree, compared to 32% at wave 1) and younger on average ( d = .14). Compared to the broader American population of midlife adults, MIDUS is comparable with respect to gender (53% Female for our sample and 51% Female for the general midlife population) but slightly oversamples midlife adults (the current sample had 25.9% adults aged 40-49 compared to 20.4% in the American population of midlife adults).

The first wave of the MIDJA study (MIDJA 1; 2008) sampled 1,027 participants randomly selected from the Tokyo metropolitan area, aged 30-79 years. The current sample is based on the 1,021 individuals who had at least one wave of personality data (50.9% Female; Mage = 54.28, SD = 14.10). Median level of education was some college education (42.8% high school/GED, 25.1% some college, 32.1% have at least a bachelor's degree). In the second wave of data collection (MIDJA 2; 2012), approximately 64 percent of the original sample (n = 657) were successfully contacted for follow-up assessments. The average follow-up interval was approximately 4 years. Compared to those who did not provide data for wave 2, participants with complete data were higher in agreeableness ( d = .18) and higher in conscientiousness ( d = .18). Those with and without data were otherwise comparable with respect to age, gender, education, and other personality traits. Compared to the broader Japanese population of midlife adults, MIDJA is comparable with respect to gender (51% Female for both our sample and the general population) but slightly oversamples older adults (the current sample had 20.1% adults aged 70-79 compared to 16.9% in the Japanese population of midlife adults).

Personality traits

Big Five personality traits were assessed using adjective-based measures. Participants were asked the extent to which each of 25 adjectives described them on a Likert scale ranging from 1( not at all ) to 4( a lot ). The groups of adjectives were: moody, worrying, nervous, calm (for neuroticism; α MIDUS = .74, α MIDJA = .51); outgoing, friendly, lively, active, talkative (for extraversion; α MIDUS = .78, α MIDJA = .83); creative, imaginative, intelligent, curious, broad-minded, sophisticated, adventurous (for openness to experience; α MIDUS = .77, α MIDJA = .84); organized, responsible, hardworking, careless, thorough (for conscientiousness; α MIDUS = .58, α MIDJA = .57); helpful, warm, caring, softhearted, sympathetic (for agreeableness; α MIDUS = .80, α MIDJA = .87). These adjective-based measures of personality correlate well with longer measures of personality and have good construct validity ( Lachman & Weaver, 1997 ; Mroczek & Kolarz, 1998 ; Prenda & Lachman, 2001 ). Tests for invariance (configural, metric, and scalar) were conducted across cultures and over time for each of the Big Five traits. As seen in Supplementary Table 1 , there was no scalar invariance across cultures, limiting our ability to make mean-level comparisons across cultures (all ΔRMSEAs> .05), which is often the case in adjective-based measures of personality ( Nye, Roberts, Saucier, & Zhou, 2008 ). However, there was moderate invariance in each of the Big Five traits over time within both MIDUS ( Supplementary Table 2 ) and MIDJA ( Supplementary Table 3 ), allowing us to examine age-related trajectories in each. 1 Nevertheless, we acknowledge the lack of scalar invariance across cultures as a limitation of the current report and hope that culturally invariant measures of personality become available in the near future.

Analytic Plan

As noted, a major drawback of the currently available cross-cultural data on life-course trajectory of personality stems from the fact that the majority of these studies are cross-sectional. To overcome this issue, we used a multi-level modeling procedure, drawing on an approach used by Terracciano et al. (2005) , that enabled us to combine longitudinal changes over 4-9 years. These changes over shorter intervals are estimated from individuals of different ages and are pieced together to estimate the overall life-course trajectory of personality. The two cultural samples were combined for the purposes of multi-level analyses. The multi-level modeling allows for flexibility in the number and spacing of measurement observation across people. Even participants who provided one observation can be used to stabilize estimates of means and variances within an assessment wave. Thus, all available data can be used. The use of two data sets constituted a variant of an accelerated longitudinal design, in which members of different birth years were followed over time. Using this design, we were able to estimate age trajectories over a broad age span by using data collected over shorter intervals. In this way, growth curves can be estimated for individuals of different ages and then pieced together to reveal an overall age trajectory (see Terracciano et al., 2005 , for a similar approach). Age-specific changes (e.g., multiple groups of individuals aged 20-75 followed over a 9-year period) are often used to approximate developmental changes in personality over longer intervals in the absence of available data for all individuals at every age of the lifespan (e.g., one group of 20-year old individuals followed annually for 55 years; Raudenbush & Chan, 1992 ).

Multi-level modeling allows for the estimation of both within person (e.g., how does personality change over time?) and between person (e.g., how do cultures differ in personality?) variation, as well as cross-level products (e.g., does personality change differ between cultures?). Age was grand-mean centered and allowed to vary from wave 1 to wave 2. The linear, quadratic, and cubic functions of age were computed. Prior research suggests that the most complex age-personality relations that can be meaningfully interpreted involve cubic patterns ( Chopik, Edelstein, & Fraley, 2013 ; Terracciano et al., 2005 ). Age and personality traits were treated as time-varying, and culture (-1: MIDJA, 1 = MIDUS) was treated as a time-invariant moderator of age-related trends in personality. Because gender and socio-economic status have been shown to not only explain variation in personality but also important life outcomes ( Roberts, Kuncel, Shiner, Caspi, & Goldberg, 2007 ; Schmitt, Realo, Voracek, & Allik, 2008 ), we therefore included them as covariates in all models. Due to the difficulty in creating a common metric of socio-economic status across cultures, we chose educational attainment as a proxy measure for socio-economic status, although we acknowledge the limitations with this approach ( Braveman, Cubbin, Egerter, & et al., 2005 ). Gender (-1: men, 1 = women) and education were treated as time-invariant covariates. All analyses were conducted using the SPSS MIXED procedure ( Peugh & Enders, 2005 ).

Because MIDUS (∼9 years) and MIDJA (∼4 years) were collected on different time scales, an adjustment was applied to make the personality scores more comparable. To achieve this, we adopted a similar approach to the one used by Jokela and colleagues (2014) to create an equivalent unit of change when comparing panel studies of personality change. Because previous research on personality change suggests that it changes in a linear fashion over shorter (<10 years) intervals of time, we applied an adjustment to change scores to yield new wave 2 values (representing four-year change) for the MIDUS sample ( Jokela et al., 2014 ; Roberts et al., 2006 ). We began by taking the difference score of each personality trait (Extraversion W2 – Extraversion W1 ) in the MIDUS sample. We then multiplied this score by 4/9 to yield a change score that represents the amount of change that would occur within four years. This new change score was then added to the wave 1 score to produce a new wave 2 score, representing a person's standing on each trait allowing four years of change. For example, a MIDUS participant's scores on extraversion at waves 1 and 2 could be 3.00 and 4.00, respectively. The difference between these two scores (1.00) would be multiplied by 4/9 (.44) and then added to his/her wave 1 score. Thus, the new scores on extraversion at waves 1 and 2 could be 3.00 and 3.44, respectively—capturing the amount of change that would occur within a four-year period, given the knowledge of how he/she changed over a 9-year period, assuming linear change ( Jokela et al., 2014 ).

The purpose of this transformation was to make the data from the two samples more comparable. Importantly, multi-level analyses were also conducted on non-transformed values (as the estimate of age can be interpreted as a one year increase in age); results from these analyses were substantively the same as those presented below.

Preliminary Results

Correlations for age, gender, and personality are presented in Tables 1 (MIDUS) and 2 (MIDJA).

Note. N = 3850-7019.

Gender: -1 = male, 1 = female.

Women were higher in extraversion, agreeableness, neuroticism, and conscientiousness compared to men; men were higher in openness to experience compared to women. People with a bachelor's degree or higher were lower in agreeableness ( t s > 6.67, p s < .001, d s < .24) and neuroticism ( t s > 6.64, p s < .001, d s < .22), and higher in conscientiousness ( t s > 3.52, p s < .001, d s < .16) and openness to experience ( t s > 10.30, p s < .001, d s < .35) at both waves compared to those with less than a bachelor's degree. Age was positively correlated with agreeableness and negatively correlated with neuroticism at both waves, such that older adults were more agreeable and less neurotic. These results are consistent with studies of age differences in personality ( Soto et al., 2010 ). Age and conscientiousness were positively correlated at wave 1 but negatively correlated at wave 2, although these correlations are small. Age was also associated with lower openness to experience at wave 1 and higher extraversion at wave 2. Each of the Big Five personality traits were intercorrelated with each other, similar to previous research ( Anusic, Schimmack, Pinkus, & Lockwood, 2009 ). Nine-year test-retest correlations between the traits among American participants ranged from .61 to .70.

There were fewer consistent gender differences among Japanese participants, as found in previous research ( Schmitt et al., 2008 ). Men were higher in neuroticism and openness to experience compared to women. People with a bachelor's degree or higher were higher in conscientiousness ( t s > 4.33, p s < .001, d s < .29) and openness to experience ( t s > 2.64, p s < .009, d s < .51) at both waves compared to those with less than a bachelor's degree. Age was negatively correlated with neuroticism and openness to experience at both waves, such that older adults were lower in neuroticism and openness to experience. Age and conscientiousness were positively correlated at both waves, such that older adults were higher in conscientiousness. Age was positively correlated with agreeableness at wave 1, such that older adults were more agreeable; however, age and agreeableness were unrelated at wave 2. Each of the Big Five personality traits were once again intercorrelated with each other, similar to previous research. Four-year test-retest correlations between the traits among Japanese participants ranged from .63 to .74.

Multi-level Analyses

The results from the multi-level models are presented in Table 3 and plotted in Figures 1 - ​ -5. 5 . American participants were higher in each of the Big Five personality traits compared to Japanese participants; however, the magnitude of these differences should be interpreted with caution as the adjective-based measure of personality was not invariant across cultures.

Age-related changes in extraversion in U.S. and Japan Note . The model-implied regression slope for the relevant age effects across all age observations is plotted. The shorter, faded lines represent the patterns of cohort change over the two assessments within each culture.

Age-related changes in openness to experience in U.S. and Japan Note . The model-implied regression slope for the relevant age effects across all age observations is plotted. The shorter, faded lines represent the patterns of cohort change over the two assessments within each culture.

Note. Gender: -1 = male, 1 = female. Reference group for education is a high school education/GED or less.

For extraversion, we found that for Americans, extraversion declined across the lifespan, as seen in previous work. Among Japanese, the decline in extraversion was attenuated (see Figure 1 ). Agreeableness increased across the adult lifespan, and this pattern was consistent for both Americans and Japanese (see Figure 2 ). As predicted, neuroticism declined among both Americans and Japanese, but this decline was more pronounced among Japanese (see Figure 3 ). For conscientiousness, contrasting age trajectories were observed (see Figure 4 ). Whereas Americans showed a peak in conscientiousness in midlife, Japanese showed the lowest level of conscientiousness in midlife, with substantial increases occurring later in midlife (∼50s). For openness, lifespan declines are attenuated among Japanese; however, the interactions between age and culture were not significant (see Figure 5 ).

Age-related changes in agreeableness in U.S. and Japan Note . The model-implied regression slope for the relevant age effects across all age observations is plotted. The shorter, faded lines represent the patterns of cohort change over the two assessments within each culture.

Age-related changes in neuroticism in U.S. and Japan Note . The model-implied regression slope for the relevant age effects across all age observations is plotted. The shorter, faded lines represent the patterns of cohort change over the two assessments within each culture.

Age-related changes in conscientiousness in U.S. and Japan Note . The model-implied regression slope for the relevant age effects across all age observations is plotted. The shorter, faded lines represent the patterns of cohort change over the two assessments within each culture.

We also anticipated greater random fluctuation of personality change in Japanese than in Americans, which is exactly what we observed upon visually inspecting Figures 1 - ​ -5. 5 . This cultural difference was notable in its magnitude. We examined cultural differences in the absolute differences in personality changes (e.g., |Agreeableness T2 -Agreeableness T1 |)( Human et al., 2013 ). Comparisons of absolute differences revealed that the fluctuation was much greater among Japanese compared to Americans for extraversion ( d = 1.21), agreeableness ( d = 1.36), neuroticism ( d = .76), conscientiousness ( d = 1.36), and openness to experience ( d = 1.24). 2

The current study drew on two large, nationally representative samples from the U.S. and Japan to examine cultural differences in Big Five personality changes across adulthood. Largely consistent with previous research conducted on Western populations, American data showed that neuroticism and extraversion declined across the lifespan, agreeableness increased across the lifespan, and conscientiousness increased until middle age before declining in late life ( Lucas & Donnellan, 2011 ; Roberts et al., 2006 ; Soto et al., 2010 ; Terracciano et al., 2005 ). Four of the five traits (extraversion, neuroticism, conscientiousness, and agreeableness) demonstrated systematic cross-cultural differences; although the difference was also apparent in openness to experience, this effect did not reach statistical significance. Previous theorizing in this area emphasized a general hypothesis that cross-cultural variability in personality change results from cultural differences in the onset of major life events and also changes in response to them ( Specht et al., 2011 ). Indeed, cross-cultural age differences in personality can be partially explained by when life transitions tend to occur ( Bleidorn et al., 2013 ). These cultural differences could stem from cultural differences in social role transitions, health, and values ( Jokela et al., 2014 ; Schweder & Bourne, 1982 ; Wagner et al., 2015 ).

Another striking cultural difference we observed relates to how systematic personality changes were (or were not) within a culture. We found that Americans are far more consensual and uniform in their patterns of personality change as compared to Japanese, who showed far more idiosyncratic (i.e., random) changes. At first glance, this cultural difference might be puzzling since Americans appear to be more conforming to the societal norms or standards whereas Japanese appear to ignore such norms or standards. However, as we argued, Japanese might be more likely to be influenced by a variety of environmental factors. Americans might be influenced mostly by factors that are powerful enough to influence nearly everyone in the society at large, although this is our speculation. Moreover, our analysis is consistent with other work showing that Japanese adults show lower cross-situational consistency in emotional states ( Oishi et al., 2004 ).

Some limitations of the current work must be acknowledged. First, the mechanisms giving rise to personality change across the lifespan were not directly tested in our study. This omission is partially attributable to the differences in study designs between MIDUS and MIDJA and the limited number of items/constructs included in each; thus, we cannot formally test all the mechanisms that we suggested drive personality change (e.g., endorsement of cultural values). The patterns observed in the current study might also reflect methodological changes in how people from different cultures use self-report instruments. For example, frame-of-reference effects and response tendencies show cultural differences that could explain some of our findings ( Harzing, 2006 ; Heine, Lehman, Peng, & Greenholtz, 2002 ), although these cultural differences are unlikely to explain age-related patterns in personality development ( Nye, Allemand, Gosling, Potter, & Roberts, 2015 ). Gender and education differences in personality may also be attributable to non-invariance in personality measures across these groups. The adjective-based personality scales used in MIDUS/MIDJA have received considerable psychometric attention ( Zimprich, Allemand, & Lachman, 2012 ). Although these scale largely show invariance, there are several types of invariance that are not achieved, albeit these violations are small in effect size terms and rarely significantly call in to question general trends across groups ( Clark et al., 2016 ; Nye et al., 2008 ). Nevertheless, it is worth noting that many of the findings of the current study must be tentative given that the scales often showed some forms of non-invariance, especially conscientiousness and extraversion. Future research can more formally develop measures and methods that partition out variance attributable to methods effects and that are invariant across cultures to isolate patterns of personality change over time.

Further, as there are currently only two assessment waves in MIDUS and MIDJA, we are also prevented from effectively testing and ruling out all the various mechanisms underlying personality development over time. A minimum of three waves is required to test mediating processes in the context of growth curve modeling ( MacKinnon, Fairchild, & Fritz, 2007 ). As both studies add additional assessment waves, future research can examine whether social role transitions ( Bleidorn et al., 2013 ), health ( Jokela et al., 2014 ), or changes in cultural values facilitate personality change over large stretches of time and whether these influences differ across cultures. Relatedly, because each sample had only two assessment points for personality, which were collected over varying intervals of time between the two cultures, there cannot be perfect one-to-one comparisons between the studies when examining personality changes, and the mechanisms underlying them, over time. We tried to ameliorate this concern by applying a transformation and restricting the focus of our study to mean-level differences in personality, which are not influenced by the length of testing intervals. Importantly, the results reported above were the same when this transformation was not applied. Future research can examine changes in personality with multiple assessment points over longer intervals and test additional predictors of within-person changes across the lifespan. Both of these considerations are important for the study of personality development, as changes in personal characteristics often unfold over long periods of time and are often not linear in nature ( Roberts et al., 2006 ).

Finally, we used data from individuals followed over short periods of time to infer changes over longer periods of time. Thus, there is no one individual followed from age 20 to 80 in our study. Although this study somewhat ameliorates the possibility of cohort differences driving interpretations of the effects, it is nonetheless possible that developmental differences we observed could originate from differences between the cohorts. Future studies can follow multiple cohorts over comparable ages to tease out these effects further ( Elder & Giele, 2009 ).

Documenting cultural differences and similarities in lifespan personality development provides a more nuanced understanding of the role of context in an individual's life. We suspect that there are likely many factors that operate in concert with one another to facilitate personality change. We identified a few of these factors (e.g., social roles, health, goals and values). Future research can examine the exact mechanisms that foster personality change and how these mechanisms are expressed differently across social contexts.

Note. N = 649-1027.

Supplementary Material

Supp tables1, supp tables2, supp tables3, acknowledgments.

Funding : The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

This data collection for the current studies was supported by a grant from the National Institute on Aging (5R37AG027343) to conduct the Midlife in Japan survey for comparative analysis with the Midlife in the United States survey (National Institute on Aging Grant P01-AG020166).

This research was supported by a grant from the National Institute on Aging (5R37AG027343) to conduct the Midlife in Japan survey for comparative analysis with the Midlife in the United States survey (National Institute on Aging Grant P01-AG020166).

1 In the scenarios in which non-invariance was found, two approaches were undertaken to evaluate its effects on the results of the current study. First, we calculated that the effect size of the deviations from non-invariance were small in magnitude ( Nye et al., 2008 ), suggesting that the results reported below would not be significantly jeoparidized by the non-invariance. Second, we re-ran the models with partial invariance constraints (i.e., allowing an occasional item intercept to vary across time). Results from these analyses in which the effects of age were modeled on personality within each culture yielded similar results to those reported below.

2 One common response to the finding that Japanese showed more variability and less systematic change in personality is that the two samples differed with respect to sample size, so estimates of personality at each age may be less precise. Although this is a concern, our multi-level modeling technique uses all available data observations, increasing statistical power. A robustness check was also performed—a random sample of U.S. adults (15%) was chosen to examine whether changes became less systematic at lower sample sizes. In this reduced sample, Americans still showed more systematic changes than Japanese.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests : The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Contributor Information

William J. Chopik, Department of Psychology, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI.

Shinobu Kitayama, Department of Psychology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI.

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Personality stability and change: A meta-analysis of longitudinal studies

Affiliation.

• 1 Department of Psychology.
• PMID: 35834197
• DOI: 10.1037/bul0000365

Past research syntheses provided evidence that personality traits are both stable and changeable throughout the life span. However, early meta-analytic estimates were constrained by a relatively small universe of longitudinal studies, many of which tracked personality traits in small samples over moderate time periods using measures that were only loosely related to contemporary trait models such as the Big Five. Since then, hundreds of new studies have emerged allowing for more precise estimates of personality trait stability and change across the life span. Here, we updated and extended previous research syntheses on personality trait development by synthesizing novel longitudinal data on rank-order stability (total k = 189, total N = 178,503) and mean-level change (total k = 276, N = 242,542) from studies published after January 1, 2005. Consistent with earlier meta-analytic findings, the rank-order stability of personality traits increased significantly throughout early life before reaching a plateau in young adulthood. These increases in stability coincide with mean-level changes in the direction of greater maturity. In contrast to previous findings, we found little evidence for increasing rank-order stabilities after Age 25. Moreover, cumulative mean-level trait changes across the life span were slightly smaller than previously estimated. Emotional stability, however, increased consistently and more substantially across the life span than previously found. Moderator analyses indicated that narrow facet-level and maladaptive trait measures were less stable than broader domain and adaptive trait measures. Overall, the present findings draw a more precise picture of the life span development of personality traits and highlight important gaps in the personality development literature. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

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Personality Can Change Over A Lifetime, And Usually For The Better

Christopher Soto

Why do people act the way they do? Many of us intuitively gravitate toward explaining human behavior in terms of personality traits: characteristic patterns of thinking, feeling and behaving that tend to be stable over time and consistent across situations.

This intuition has been a topic of fierce scientific debate since the 1960s, with some psychologists arguing that situations — not traits — are the most important causes of behavior. Some have even argued that personality traits are figments of our imagination that don't exist at all.

But in the past two decades, a large and still-growing body of research has established that personality traits are very much real , and that how people describe someone's personality accurately predicts that person's actual behavior .

The effects of personality traits on behavior are easiest to see when people are observed repeatedly across a variety of situations. On any one occasion, a person's behavior is influenced by both their personality and the situation, as well as other factors such as their current thoughts, feelings and goals. But when someone is observed in many different situations, the influence of personality on behavior is hard to miss. For example, you probably know some people who consistently (but not always) show up on time, and others who consistently run late.

We've also gained a clear sense of which personality traits are most generally useful for understanding behavior. The world's languages include many thousands of words for describing personality, but most of these can be organized in terms of the "Big Five" trait dimensions : extraversion (characterized by adjectives like outgoing, assertive and energetic vs. quiet and reserved); agreeableness (compassionate, respectful and trusting vs. uncaring and argumentative); conscientiousness (orderly, hard-working and responsible vs. disorganized and distractible); negative emotionality (prone to worry, sadness and mood swings vs. calm and emotionally resilient); and open-mindedness (intellectually curious, artistic and imaginative vs. disinterested in art, beauty and abstract ideas).

The Personality Myth

We like to think of our own personalities, and those of our family and friends, as predictable, constant over time. But what if they aren't? Explore that question in the latest episode of the NPR podcast and show Invisibilia .

And while personality traits are relatively stable over time , they can and often do gradually change across the life span. What's more, those changes are usually for the better . Many studies , including some of my own, show that most adults become more agreeable, conscientious and emotionally resilient as they age. But these changes tend to unfold across years or decades, rather than days or weeks. Sudden, dramatic changes in personality are rare.

Due to their effects on behavior and continuity over time, personality traits help shape the course of people's lives. When measured using scientifically constructed and validated personality tests, like one that Oliver John and I recently developed, the Big Five traits predict a long list of consequential life outcomes: performance in school and at work, relationships with family, friends, and romantic partners, life satisfaction and emotional well-being, physical health and longevity, and many more. Of course, none of these outcomes are entirely determined by personality; all of them are also influenced by people's life circumstances. But personality traits clearly influence people's lives in important ways and help explain why two people in similar circumstances often end up with different outcomes.

Consider one of life's most important and potentially difficult decisions: who (if anyone!) to choose as your mate. The research evidence indicates that personality should play a role in this decision. Studies following couples over time have consistently found that choosing a spouse who is kind, responsible and emotionally resilient will substantially improve your chances of maintaining a stable and satisfying marriage. In fact, personality traits are some of the most powerful predictors of long-term relationship quality.

This is not to say that we've already figured out everything there is to know about personality traits.

Shots - Health News

Invisibilia: is your personality fixed, or can you change who you are.

For example, we know that personality change can happen, that it usually happens gradually, and that it's usually for the better. But we don't fully understand the causes of personality change just yet.

Research by Brent Roberts, Joshua Jackson, Wiebke Bleidorn and others highlights the importance of social roles . When we invest in a role that calls for particular kinds of behavior, such as a job that calls for being hard-working and responsible, then over time those behaviors tend to become integrated into our personality.

A 2015 study by Nathan Hudson and Chris Fraley indicates that some people may even be able to intentionally change their own personality through sustained personal effort and careful goal-setting. A study of mine published last year, and another by Jule Specht, suggest that positive personality changes accelerate when people are leading meaningful and satisfying lives.

So although we now know a lot more about personality than we did even a few years ago, we certainly don't know everything. The nature, development and consequences of personality traits remain hot topics of research, and we're learning new things all the time. Stay tuned.

Christopher Soto is an associate professor of psychology at Colby College and a member of the executive board of the Association for Research in Personality . Follow him on Twitter @cjsotomatic.

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Personality changes for the better with age

July/August 2003, Vol 34, No. 7

Print version: page 14

While many may suspect that people's personalities are fixed in childhood, new research suggests that most people's personalities evolve throughout their lives.

Personality changes in men and women older than 30 were demonstrated in a study conducted at the University of California, Berkeley, and published recently in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (Vol. 84, No. 5).

The researchers, who evaluated data from 132,515 adults, ages 21-60, looked at overall life span trends in the "Big Five" personality traits--conscientiousness, agreeableness, neuroticism, openness and extraversion.

"One of the major theories of personality asserts that personality traits are largely set by genetics, and, by consequence, changes in personality traits should slow as other functions of maturation slow," says lead researcher and psychologist Sanjay Srivastava, PhD. "We set out to test that."

What he and his team found contradicted long-held assumptions about when personalities are set. Conscientious-ness, a trait marked by organization and discipline, and linked to success at work and in relationships, was found to increase through the age ranges studied, with the most change occurring in a person's 20s. Agreeableness, a trait associated with being warm, generous and helpful, bucked the theory that personalities don't change after 30. On the contrary, people in the study showed the most change in agreeableness during their 30s and continued to improve through their 60s. This even happened among men, which debunks the concept of "grumpy old men," Srivastava says.

"The levels of change in these two traits seem to model what would make sense with adult roles," Srivastava says. "Conscientiousness grows as people mature and become better at managing their jobs and relationships, and agreeableness changes most in your 30s when you're raising a family and need to be nurturing."

Most of the observed personality changes were generally consistent across gender lines, except for neuroticism and extraversion, with young women scoring higher than young men. However, the gap between men and women diminished over time.

"When people talk about the 'Big Five,' neuroticism is probably the biggest sex difference--it's something that's been demonstrated before," Srivastava says. The difference in neuroticism is only apparent in youth and young adulthood and narrows as people age, Srivastava says.

Openness showed small declines in both men and women over time, a change that indicates less interest in forming new relationships, and may infer greater interest in spending time with a small group of well-known relatives and friends as people age, Srivastava says.

The large data set--collected over the Internet--allowed for the traits to be studied across many age groups, Srivastava says. Future research on the same data set will look into personality differences across regions, climates and population densities.

Psychologists Oliver P. John, PhD, and Samuel D. Gosling, PhD, and computer scientist Jeff Potter contributed to the research.

--K. KERSTING

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Personality Change Due To Another Medical Condition

Personality change due to another medical condition is the result of a medical condition that alters a person’s behavior. 1 These changes may be subtle or extreme. To qualify as a medical personality change, the  change cannot be due to a secondary disorder, trauma, or substance use . The changes typically cause significant distress 2 or impairment in occupational, social, or other areas of functioning. 

It can be  difficult to diagnose  personality change due to another medical condition for several reasons. A limited amount of research has been done on the condition, and most of the current research focuses on brain injuries that cause this change. In addition, there are limited diagnostic tools available. Finally, patients may not even recognize their symptoms, and loved ones may hesitate to bring them up out of embarrassment.

Three of the most common causes of medical personality change  include traumatic brain injury (TBI), Huntington’s disease, and brain tumors. However, dozens of other medical conditions can also be linked to personality changes. Once diagnosed, medical personality change is typically specified based on its type, which can include:

• Aggressive type
• Apathetic type
• Labile type
• Paranoid type
• Disinhibited type

The change may also fall under another type, an unspecified type, or a combination of more than one type.

A number of medical conditions can cause personality changes. Along with the few listed above,  personality changes can be caused by :

• A cerebrovascular accident
• Anoxic brain injury
• Focal radiation
• Encephalitis/vasculitis
• Wilson disease
• Neurosyphilis
• Heavy metal poisoning
• Chemotherapy
• HIV disease
• CNS neoplasms
• Personality disorders

Researchers are still learning more about how a TBI is linked to medical personality change (MPC) in adults. Research suggests that  a TBI causes MPC in 20-48% of patients , but in adults, personality change hasn’t been linked to a specific injury severity, age of occurrence, or time since the injury occurred. However, in children,  the severity of the injury tends to be related to a personality change.  In one study, 38% of children who experienced a severe TBI had persistent changes to their personalities. 

Scientists have identified a link between brain tumors and MPC in adults. Frontal and temporal lobe tumors may be more likely to cause a personality change and almost all patients who have a bilateral  glioma experience a personality change. 

Symptoms that accompany a personality change due to another condition may depend on the original condition. Below are a few common medical conditions that can lead to a personality change.

Traumatic brain injury

A traumatic brain injury, or TBI, may cause a variety of symptoms including: 

• Irritability
• Emotional dysregulation
• Inappropriate laughter
• Rapid mood changes
• Sudden euphoria 3
• Disinhibition

Brain tumor

Common personality changes that occur when someone has a brain tumor  include: 

• Hypersexuality
• Aggressive behavior
• Exaggerated mood changes
• Depression 

Huntington’s disease

In patients with Huntington’s disease,  nerve cells in the brain slowly break down and die , leading to mental, physical, and emotional changes.  Personality changes related to the disease  include: 

• Altered sexuality

While not all patients experience the same symptoms,  there are often predictable changes in behavior  that they and their caregivers can expect. Prevalence of the changes may depend on the type and stage of the disease. 

Multiple sclerosis

Researchers have identified  three primary disorders  and symptoms associated with MS: depression, euphoria, and pathological laughing or crying. In addition, personality disorders are commonly connected to multiple sclerosis, which may cause personality changes. Researchers believe a frontal lobe syndrome may be a cause of personality changes with MS, as well. 

Urinary tract infection

Urinary tract infections are more common among older adults. These infections can cause delirium in the elderly and people with dementia, with  changes including agitation, increased confusion, or withdrawal .

Thyroid disease

Hypothyroidism, a condition where the thyroid does not make enough of the thyroid hormone, 4 has been  linked  to:

• Forgetfulness
• Rapid and exaggerated mood changes

Hyperthyroidism occurs when the thyroid gland produces too much of the thyroid hormone. It can cause a variety of symptoms, including mood swings, and  symptoms may be incorrectly interpreted as depression or dementia .

Treatment of personality change due to another medical condition typically involves treating the underlying condition. Treatment could include medication, surgery, and/or a variety of therapy options.

Therapy 

Therapy can be a powerful tool when treating challenges related to personality and mental health. Typically, the goal of talk therapy is to reduce the impact that symptoms are having on a person’s life. Therapy may help reduce unwanted symptoms, but part of treatment may also involve medication or other medical interventions. 

Sometimes, a personality change due to another medical condition can be resolved with a medication that treats the condition. For example, both  hypothyroidism and hyperthyroidism can cause mood changes , such as depression, anxiety, mood swings, and even short-term memory issues. However, medication can often be used to help level your thyroid hormones and ultimately restore your original personality characteristics. 

A few conditions that cause personality changes that cannot be cured, include Huntington’s disease and Alzheimer’s. In those cases, a medical professional may recommend treatment that decreases the severity of the symptoms and preserves the quality of life for the patient. For instance,  medication may be used to treat depression  and other psychiatric disorders caused by Huntington’s disease.

It is important to consult with a doctor or medical professional before beginning or changing any medication plan. The information provided in this article is not intended as medical advice; please consult a qualified healthcare professional for personalized guidance.

Other treatment options 

Some medical conditions, such as brain tumors, will likely be treated through a mixture of surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy based on the oncologist’s recommendations. Multiple sclerosis may be treated by a variety of therapies, including plasma exchange. 

Self-care can be a crucial aspect of caring for your mental health. The National Institute of Mental Health offers a few  self-care suggestions  that may help you take better care of both your mental health and your physical health, including the following: 

• Engage in regular exercise. 
• Eat nutritious, regular meals. 
• Stay hydrated with water and limit caffeinated drinks.
• Prioritize sleep by following a schedule and limiting blue light exposure before bed.
• Stay connected with family and friends who can offer their support.
• Practice gratitude by reflecting on the things for which you are thankful.
• Prioritize what needs to get done and practice saying no when you begin to feel overwhelmed. 

Turning to a therapist when you experience personality change due to another medical condition may better equip you to handle the unexpected changes in yourself. While these personality changes may seem out of your control at times, working with a therapist may help you acquire healthy coping and de-escalation skills. A therapist can also help if someone you love has had a personality change and you’re not sure how to cope with it.

Depending on your condition, you may want to choose a general or specialized therapist. While almost all professionals are equipped to work with patients experiencing anxiety and depression, some may have specialized experience to help those who have experienced a TBI or have developed PTSD. Consider asking your primary care physician for a referral or utilize online providers such as  BetterHelp.

The  Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5)  also contains information about all diagnosable mental health conditions, including personality change due to another medical condition. 

For help with substance use, contact SAMHSA’s National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP (4357) .

Please see our  Get Help Now page for more immediate resources.

Apathy is a common personality change caused by another medical condition. Approximately 45% to 50% of people with a severe traumatic brain injury (TBI) experience apathetic personality change, which can result in poor rehabilitation outcomes and difficulty with social reintegration. Research shows that caregivers may maximize stimulation, strongly encourage patients to participate in enjoyable activities, and provide verbal cues and checklists. 

Another study looked at a medication for Huntington’s disease. While the disease involves both physical and mental decline, cognitive and behavioral changes can precede motor deficits by up to 15 years. Researchers found  that treatment with cariprazine during the early stages of Huntington’s disease led to improvement in apathy, cognitive function, and depressed mood.

Here are some key statistics on personality change due to another medical condition. 

• Between 8% to 67% of people with a brain tumor will also experience a medical personality change . However, it can be challenging to distinguish the medical personality change from the changes caused by surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation. 
• Common chronic 5 conditions including cancer, hypertension, heart disease, stroke, respiratory disease, and arthritis have also been shown to cause personality changes. Researchers found that  these conditions decrease patients’ extraversion, emotional stability, and conscientiousness.  
• Approximately  40% of people who experience a traumatic brain injury may have severe trouble controlling their anger,  which can have a lasting impact on their ability to maintain a job and invest in their relationships with others.
• Often, a personality change due to a medical condition includes symptoms of depression or anxiety. While it’s still necessary to treat the original condition causing the changes,  online therapy can significantly improve symptoms of depression and anxiety within 8 weeks . Even a year after therapy is complete, individuals may continue to see improvement. 

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• Personality

Our Personalities Have a Big Say in Our Life Outcomes

3 insights into personality from psychological research..

Updated June 20, 2024 | Reviewed by Gary Drevitch

• What Is Personality?
• Find a therapist near me
• Dispositions and mental functioning are among the variables of personality.
• Personality is malleable and can influence well-being outcomes.
• Self-knowledge can become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Imagine you had to explain the concept of personality to a group of (friendly and curious) aliens.

You could start with the etymology of the word: persona in Latin refers to the mask worn in Roman theatres through which ( per ) resounded the voice of the actor ( sonat) .

You could explain that in modern times, humans use this word as an umbrella term to characterize individual patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving, and bring examples of different personalities in action: You prefer peaceful walks in nature; your chatty sister likes to be the center of attention ; your neighbor seems perpetually grumpy.

You could ask your alien guests questions that gauge their habitual inclinations in various situations and illustrate how they differ from one another.

Or, you could offer the two variables psychologists consider when using the word “personality.” These include dispositions (i.e. enduring and distinctive psychological tendencies that best describe individuals) and mental functioning (i.e., how individual’s distinctive psychological systems, including their individuating thoughts, emotions and motivations connect with each other) (Cervone & Pervin, 2022).

Often, we tend to equate dispositional scores with mental functioning. For example, we might presume that people who share similar dispositional scores on a particular trait (e.g., conscientiousness ) also share a mental structure. This, according to personality psychologist Daniel Cervone, is one of the greatest myths of personality psychology.

“If two people share the same low score in conscientiousness, it can be due to very different reasons,” Cervone writes. “For example, attention deficit disorder (which causes them to struggle with 'self-discipline' – a component of conscientiousness); a rebellious, intentional rejection of societal norms (which causes them to reject social 'duties' – another component of conscientiousness); or depression (which causes them to feel as if they are not competent and cannot achieve excellence – again, components of conscientiousness).”

As Cervone points out, sharing similar personality profiles doesn’t mean that people are psychologically identical. Like the Roman actors wearing their masks, we wear our personalities differently.

Here are 3 insights into personality from psychological research.

1. Personality is maleable.

Despite the common misconception of the set-in-stone nature of personality, our traits are dynamic and susceptible to modification in response to environmental and behavioral changes . Moreover, unlike inherited physiological features, most psychological tendencies have variability. “No one is anxious all the time, in all situations,” says Cervone. “ Anxiety can’t be analogous to inheriting brown eyes, because you keep your eye color regardless of your circumstances.”

Personality appears to be most suseptible to change when the individual is either in their younger years or older adulthood, with rank-order stability of traits peaking around age 60. As we grow older, our personalities psychologically mature along with us. However, the timing, rate and even direction of personality change can vary across individuals.

How does this change occur?

One route is through repeated, habit-forming behaviors that reinforce new states, which eventually generalize across different domains and, in turn, facilitate trait changes.

For example, let’s say you tend to worry a lot and overthink things and would like to live with more ease and joy. You could acquire new worldviews and ways of thinking, learn new emotion regulation techniques, and adopt new behaviors. When these new patterns of thoughts, behaviors, and feelings become your habitual states and begin to generalize to broader situations, over time, according to Cervone, these changes will affect your personality.

2. Culture influences personality.

Personality is shaped by both genetic and environmental features, including culture. Culture is considered to be a “ key determinant ” of what it means to be a person. Influenced by ecological, historical, religious, socio-economic and philosophical factors, cultures sanction their own unique rituals, beliefs and patterns of behavior (Cervone & Pervin, 2022). Cultural practices, in turn, affect the construal of the “ self ” (i.e. interdependent or independent) and its role in the world.

Both within and between cultures, studies have shown links between socialization practices and personality development. For example, when children are raised in households where parents routinely treat them with acceptance and comforting, they nurture postive traits such as emotional stability , sociability, and feeling self-adequate. In contrast, when parents reject their children, for example through abuse or neglect, children become adults who are “hostile, unresponsive, unstable, immaturely dependent, and have impaired self-esteem and a negative world view” (Triandis & Suh, 2002).

As a recent study across 49 countries found, even country-level rates of the Dark Triad traits (narcissism, psychopathy , Machiavellianism ) are sensitive to a population’s social, political, and economic development, as well as cultural values.

“The less developed, less free, more corrupt, less peaceful, and more sex -asymmetrical a country is, the more narcissistic its population is,” write authors Jonason et al (2022). These results, they add, converge with predictions from evolutionary psychology about narcissism as an adaptation to “enable people to compete for limited resources in competitive environments.”

Furthermore, the study also found that countries that scored higher on Machiavellianism were more advanced on gender equality.

3. Personality influences well-being outcomes.

The link between personality and mental health outcomes is well established. A recent study found that both the Big Five and HEXACO frameworks are similarly effective in predicting well-being.

“For the Big Five model, [lower] neuroticism is a very strong predictor, extraversion and conscientiousness are fairly strong, and openness and agreeableness are more moderate. For the HEXACO model, extraversion is a very strong predictor […], conscientiousness is fairly strong, and honesty-humility, emotionality, agreeableness, and openness are more modest” (Anglim et al, 2020).

The authors add that across both these frameworks, what constitutes much of the effect of personality on well-being is the penchance to experience low levels of negative emotions and high levels of positive emotions.

Indeed, personality effects are reflected in the choices we make, “how we approach and avoid certain situations, develop skills, and respond to our circumstances of everyday experiences,” writes Cervone of the “agentic ability” of personality.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, then, knowing ourselves is critically important. Not necessarily because the knowing is always accurate, suggests Cervone, but because the knowing is “causally influential.” In other words, self-knowledge can become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

“If I know that I’ll be good at this or bad at that , I’ll end up shaping my world in which I experience this and not that . Even if the person knows themselves incorrectly, it’s still self-fulfilling. Much of personality is driven by what people believe about themselves, whether that belief is accurate or not. The dictum “Thinking makes it so” is where personality psychologists, cognitive therapists and Shakespeare have something in common.”

As research and experience show, our personalities have a big say in how we fare in life. Yet, as most things in the human experience are less rigid and more composite than they appear, we might have more say on our personalities than we realize.

Many thanks to Daniel Cervone, a Professor of Psychology at the University of Illinois Chicago, for his time and insights. His latest book is Personality: Theory and Research (2022).

Cervone, D., & Pervin, L. A. (2022). Personality: Theory and research . John Wiley & Sons.

Bleidorn, W., Hopwood, C. J., Back, M. D., Denissen, J. J., Hennecke, M., Hill, P. L., ... & Zimmermann, J. (2021). Personality trait stability and change. Personality Science , 2 (1), e6009.

Lucas R. E., & Donnellan M. B. (2011). Personality development across the life span: Longitudinal analyses with a national sample from Germany. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology , 101(4), 847–861.

Bleidorn W., Hopwood C. J., Back M. D., Denissen J. J. A., Hennecke M., Jokela M., Kandler C., Lucas R. E., Luhmann M., Orth U., Roberts B. W., Wagner J., Wrzus C., & Zimmermann J. (2020). Longitudinal Experience-Wide Association Studies (LEWAS) - A framework for studying personality change. European Journal of Personality , 34(3), 285–300.

Jonason, P. K., Żemojtel‐Piotrowska, M., Piotrowski, J., Sedikides, C., Campbell, W. K., Gebauer, J. E., ... & Yahiiaev, I. (2020). Country‐level correlates of the dark triad traits in 49 countries. Journal of personality , 88 (6), 1252-1267.

Anglim, J., Horwood, S., Smillie, L. D., Marrero, R. J., & Wood, J. K. (2020). Predicting psychological and subjective well-being from personality: A meta-analysis. Psychological bulletin , 146 (4), 279.

Benet-Martínez, V., & Oishi, S. (2008). Culture and personality. In O. P. John, R. W. Robins, & L. A. Pervin (Eds.), Handbook of personality: Theory and research (3rd ed., pp. 542–567). The Guilford Press.

Headey, B., & Wearing, A. (1989). Personality, life events, and subjective well-being: toward a dynamic equilibrium model. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 57 , 731-739.

Triandis, H. C., & Suh, E. M. (2002). Cultural influences on personality. Annual review of psychology , 53 (1), 133-160.

Rohner, R. P. (1999). Acceptance and rejection. Encyclopedia of human emotions , 1 , 6-14.

Markus, H. R., & Kitayama, S. (2014). Culture and the self: Implications for cognition, emotion, and motivation. In College student development and academic life (pp. 264-293). Routledge.

Marianna Pogosyan, Ph.D. , is a lecturer in Cultural Psychology and a consultant specialising in cross-cultural transitions.

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