[volgo]

Read through the paper. It doesn't reveal anything really surprising, but it's a start. Conclusion was:

- Most people want to change their personality

- People with personalities that are considered "negative" by society (ex: introversion) wanted to become more extroverted

- People that wanted to change their personality, did change their personality slightly, and self reported daily behaviors that worked toward the goal (ex: “I smiled and laughed with others,” “I mixed well at a social function”)

- Personality at the start and the end were self reported, giving way to bias.

[twobyfour]

Are they changing their personality or are they changing their behaviors? I would think of the personality as the predisposition to certain behaviors.

You can change your behaviors to differ from those you're predisposed to; but it takes more conscious effort to maintain those behaviors than it does to maintain the ones you are predisposed to.

And changing those behaviors doesn't count as changing your personality, though it may change some people's perception of your personality. Changing behaviors is something we all do at least situationally (even the most cheerful, boisterous person will generally manage to be reasonably subdued at a funeral). That doesn't mean we're changing our personalities every time we walk into a funeral home.

[notheguyouthink]

Depends on how it would be perceived. I did something similar to the described increased-extroversion. I believe my work proved successful - of sorts.

I still have the personality trait of being an introvert, but when I was specifically working to push myself, my tolerance for "things" was increased. So while my personality hasn't changed, specifically my preferences haven't changed, my tolerances and ability to enjoy things outside of my preferences has been flexible.

I wonder if that's what a lot of these self-reported people reported. "Before I couldn't go to a party and enjoy myself, now I can!" isn't exactly indication that their personality changed. Even if they enjoy the parties and want more, I'd argue that their personality could still be the same - it has been for me.

I also think ultimately my self-identified trait of introvert might not be correct - and likewise many subjects here I wonder if they might be incorrectly self-identified. For myself, what I think I really dislike is not the outside/etc - it's new encounters. I hate them. Really, I loathe them. Even things as simple as driving new places. The unknown area, the frenzied feeling of finding the correct street, parking in cities, etc. I don't like driving because of that, honestly. So am I really an introvert? I actually like going places, it's just that life brings a lot of unknowns, and those are ultimately what I dislike and I have to fight to keep a reasonable hold on.

[michrassena]

I think if we were to dig into the reasons someone would want to change their introverted personality, it would be specifically to enjoy or at least tolerate situations they associate with being extroverted.

I wonder if the outcome is what matters. Changing one's personality may or may not be possible, and would certainly be a difficult task if it were, but obtaining the behaviors associated with the desired personality are attainable. Isn't an introvert saying they wish they were an extrovert (for example) really just shorthand for wanting it to be easy to interact and socialize, as they imagine it is for extroverts.

As a personal example, I've recently taken a short sketching course. If only I had the "artist" personality type, then I wouldn't have to put in the hard work to learn to draw. So I wonder if what we regard as contrasting personality types in others isn't a proxy for a form of talent that we either don't have, or don't readily perceive in ourselves. And from the outsider position, it's very difficult to know how much work someone has spent honing a skill. The "natural" may have worked very hard indeed.

[phkahler]

>> Isn't an introvert saying they wish they were an extrovert (for example) really just shorthand for wanting it to be easy to interact and socialize, as they imagine it is for extroverts.

Introversion vs extroversion isn't really defined (as I understand it) by your social skills or even your desire to be around people. It's based on where one derives their mental energy. Introverts can socialize but it is mentally taxing and they need alone time to recharge. For extroverts interacting with people is exhilarating and kind of is their way to recharge. In this light, you may be able to change a persons ability to socialize but not so much the effect it has on them. I don't think these are entirely separate either If you're not good at it it's got to be more taxing, but then perhaps ability and self perception are not the same thing!

[michrassena]

Perhaps the reason extroverts find interacting with people exhilarating is because it's not much work for them. Or perhaps because their perception of what is at stake in an interaction to be less than what introverts perceive. Better dancers step on fewer toes, as it were. And while I'm sure there are terrible dancers with a thousand hours on the dance floor, they must be a rarity.

Practice won't turn the introvert into the Haile Gebrselassie of social interaction (natural talent exists), but it will help. A couch potato will suffer through every mile of a run, until they give up. A seasoned runner will be energized by a run over the same distance.

I would characterize an extrovert's social interactions as existing in a state of flow. An extrovert has a perception of their ability that closely matches their actual ability. An introvert has too little confidence in their actual abilities, or too little ability.

So my point, and if nothing else, I've convinced myself of this fact, which might be useful in a fake-it-until-you-make-it fashion, is that social interaction is a skill, a learnable/teachable skill. And as such, we can group those who possess this skill into introverts and extroverts.

[ap3]

>A couch potato will suffer through every mile of a run, until they give up.

Couch potatoes can train until they stop being couch potatoes and become runners

Similarly with introversion, you learn more skills and become less afraid of the interactions

[aalleavitch]

If you condition yourself to more regularly exhibit a certain behavior, how is that different from changing your predisposition towards that behavior? Certainly, new habits can be formed and over time people come to exhibit new behaviors reflexively if they've made a habit out of them. Some habits may be harder to form than others, and one's environment will always have a major impact on which habits they're able to form, but there doesn't appear to be a strict limit on one's ability to alter their own behavior (even if there may be a healthy limit).

[0xcde4c3db]

> If you condition yourself to more regularly exhibit a certain behavior, how is that different from changing your predisposition towards that behavior?

In practice, it's often only the same behavior at an abstract level because the drives and sensations involved aren't the same. For example, many gay men have gotten married to women, had sex with them, and raised children with them. Deaf people sometimes seem to hear things because they've trained themselves to look for associated cues that non-deaf people aren't aware of. Colorblind people sometimes go years without anyone realizing that they're colorblind because they learn what colors common objects are expected to be (e.g. the "go" light on many traffic signals will look gray/white to someone with deuteranomaly, but it might not even occur to them to call it something other than "green light").

[mercer]

A personal example of what could describe the difference: Since I was a kid I had a tendency to isolate myself and gravitate towards activities that were compatible (computer stuff, books, etc.) I spent much of my twenties 'practicing' extraversion and felt like I made a lot of progress.

In more recent years, for various reasons, I stopped 'practicing' and it's been kind of shocking how quickly I've reverted to the original 'baseline' hermit-like life.

While of course I hesitate to draw firm conclusions about my 'nature', it does seem as if a good 10-15 years of effort have not made being more extraverted any more natural, just easier and tolerable.

Contrast that with my extravert friends who can barely manage to spend one day alone, and have been this for most of their lives. I'm sure they could learn to tolerate solitude, but I wouldn't be surprised if they have a similar tendency to 'revert' to their extravert selves if they don't put in continuous effort.

[klibertp]

I don't know what can change the nature of a man, but I think simply changing your behavior is not enough to do so.

While it certainly is possible to form new habits, but as long as they go against your nature the price to pay for this is high: you could cultivate a neurosis or depression by doing so.

[zuzuleinen]

"While it certainly is possible to form new habits, but as long as they go against your nature the price to pay for this is high: you could cultivate a neurosis or depression by doing so."

Can you please elaborate on this?

[peoplewindow]

How can you separate them? From the perspective of an external observer, personality is a set of behavioural traits. Other than self-reported inner insight (which may not be true) there's no other way to establish what someone's personality is or even define it.

I've changed my personality in the past, always for the better (I think). At school I was shy, couldn't talk to women, found it intimidating to socialise in new groups of people, wasn't entertaining, lacked confidence. All the usual stuff. I didn't like any of these traits and set about changing them. I had a bit of help along the way, but it was mostly my own doing.

These days I am confident, can easily entertain women with amusing conversation, do public speaking regularly, can mix in large groups of strangers without problems etc. It's a big change. Once or twice friends who have known me continuously since high school remark on it.

One issue I'm currently pondering is that of personality disorders. To what extent is such a "disorder" something the individual can fix with sufficient self reflection and willpower? My own experience tells me personality is quite plastic. So perhaps I find myself lacking in sympathy for such people. They can and should heal themselves.

[notduncansmith]

Some predispositions are plastic and can be altered over time by behavior, though it is a complicated business. New preferences, new problem-solving techniques, new mental hygiene habits, these can all effect real change at what many people would call the “personality” level.

[spyckie2]

In my personal observation a lot of discourse over personality stems from the fact that there are two differing ideas that both use the same word - personality - to define themselves.

One idea defines personality as an innate wiring of your cognitive processes given to you based on your genetics.

The other defines personality as the sum of all factors leading up to your current personality state (including your innate wiring).

Both of these ideas are true - there are some innate dispositional tendencies that are very observable, and there are also lots of things (structure, habits, practice, and improvement) that you can do to change yourself.

IMO, most of the arguments in the personality space come from the fact that the word "personality" is defined so loosely.

edit clarified based on comment

[akvadrako]

> One idea defines personality as an innate wiring of your cognitive processes given to you at birth.

AFAIK, there isn't anything special about birth which would freeze brain development at that point. Baby brains are quite undeveloped - they don't experience the world like we do.

Your genetics do fix something at the time of conception, but otherwise it's a continual process based on experience.

[personlurking]

Recently, I heard an interesting concept from a long-time clinical psychologist:

"Society constrains and kills you even. You die into your neural configuration. When you're first born you have more neural connections than you will ever in your life, and most of them die. And so, you die into your four-year old self, and between ages 16 and 20, you die into your adult self."

[wincy]

I don’t think you should be afraid to mention Jordan Peterson here.

[gaius]

What do you think of the Jesuit saying that a character is fixed in the first 7 years? Is there any truth in it?

[spyckie2]

For the sake of stronger definitions I have clarified the sentiment to express this point.

[rwnspace]

What is personality except a set of cognitive biases? The narratives we use to inform our perceptions, influence the priority of memories/associations, and inspire future decisions are as much our own making as they aren't. If there is friction between views of personality because one group prefers to look at innateness and another looks at influences - and intelligence doesn't seem to determine which group you're in - what other indicator of personality differences do you really need? For me it plugs into that external/internal locus of control stuff, messy as some of the research/conceptions of it are.

I'm of the opinion that most views we think we hold 'philosophically' are, well, personality tendencies expressed formally.

It all gets a lot easier to conceive if one doesn't assume there is such a thing as a unified self, just a bunch of modules our self-describing narrative inhabits depending on what the environment asks for at the time. Specifically 'training your pre-frontal cortex' seems easier to me than 'becoming a more organised person'. Sorry if that seems a little rambly/obscure.

[spyckie2]

I wanted to mention that these two views were actually just the philisophies of differencent personality tendencies but felt that it was a side point.

[rwnspace]

Pardon me, I understood you correctly, and that it's a side-point -- I just went off on my own tangent...

[jcadam]

I interviewed at a place (looking for Scala devs) that had me take a MBTI test after several rounds of (I believe) successful interviews and a take-home coding assignment. I tested INTJ, as usual. I never heard from them again.

Given what I could glean about the culture of the place, I presume the 'Introverted' part of my personality was the issue. Though, you would think a company full of extroverts wouldn't have a problem telling a candidate why he was rejected :D

[tonyedgecombe]

I doubt you can read that much into it, any org that excludes INTJ's is going to find hiring programmers quite hard.

[notduncansmith]

They may have had too many inteoverts already and needed to balance things out (though personally it’s hard to imagine giving a test like that any weight compared to actual interactions with a person).

[peoplewindow]

What kind of programming shop tries to balance introverts vs extroverts and why? I've never heard of this before.

[jcadam]

Whenever I try to fake it and act like an extrovert, I'm pretty sure it comes off fake, weird, and quite possibly creepy in an "uncanny valley" sort of way (i.e., "He's acting like a human being, but something's off").

[ap3]

Most probably no one can tell or even care

[chii]

The real question, which is unanswered, is whether it's possible to change a personality when that person doesn't want to be changed.

[Cthulhu_]

I'd say it is, but not by directly confronting them with their personality (e.g. saying "you're a dick" every day), but by more subtle behavioural things (like being nice to them when they're not being a dick).

[bryanrasmussen]

that really depends what you want to achieve, there has been lots of study that shows you can take reasonably well functioning people and break them through repeated stress.