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.
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.
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.
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
I'm a personality type coach and I help people implement the kinds of changes described in the paper. There are many different models that deal with this kind of change. But taking one step back, I think it should be made more clear up front that "having a desire to change one's personality traits" itself is a trait. There is no need to pressure (most) people to change, and many good people feel a strong pressure to change just by being on the internet. Some seem to have a natural desire to change. They are self-improvers by nature. Some are curious, more open in general. They try this or that and wonder how life would change if they were more of an introvert, or more conscientious. Others are pushed into change, brought to their knees, so to speak, by patterns of poor outcomes in their lives.
One of the often-unspoken realities here is that this growth and change will cause anxiety directly. It's observable in any living organism. (Now think about New Year's resolutions...they can be real anxiety spikers) If any really pleasing dopamine reward is to come of this process in humans, its full manifestation is often very time-delayed as the change process itself takes its course. So depending on the traits and their role in the trait-changer's own systems, models, and beliefs, it is helpful to identify pathways that can involve the trait-changer's strengths and yield some increased leverage. For example, "being open to _what_ is less stressful than being open to _that thing I can't typically stand being open to_?" There's this blended approach.
Beyond traits, I find that typologies and archetypes are very helpful in establishing a quick and dirty template for change. If you identify as a "type" that finds benefit from developing cleverness, even if you yourself aren't very clever _right now_, we may see some surprising success if we try some exercises to identify and harness a latent cleverness in service of your goals. If you are a natural idealist, an idealistic princess who befriends all the little forest creatures, that's actually a very helpful model to examine as well. The story has been shared across cultures for many centuries, and it's a matter of running down the list of type attributes and noting the deltas with regard to your current life. I call my own method Type / Trait Interleave and so far I've been happy with the outcomes for my clients.
With traits we quickly understand the contextual you and your contextually-variant patterns. With type we get at questions of your core self and begin to understand how your contextually-variant patterns could be sabotaging or benefiting some other system functioning in your life. Thanks op for the thought-provoking post, I didn't expect to see it here. :-)
Given your description of your job, I have a quick question:
I have found that when I speak, I rarely command attention and captivate as some others do. Probably something in my speech patterns. Perhaps they are slightly more apologetic / geeky / nice than others. People may interrupt me or turn away, even people who respect me.
When I do get rapt attention, such as teaching a class, I get an impostor syndrome because I'm not that used to it. I don't let it show - and I finish my thoughts. But I feel my speech is more rambling and unfocused than it should be. I have so many asides that I want to get to, and I like to speak using true sentences so I hedge what I say sometimes, and other times don't make overly ambitious claims.
Is there a way I can improve this? What do you see in your experience?
I've been thinking about this recently as it pertains to changes in my own life... I've been training myself to be less addicted (in the general sense), and I've noticed several aspects of my 'personality' flip like a switch, in terms of preparedness to deal with uncertainty, fitting extroversion or introversion to the context, sticking up for myself but being more pragmatic in other ways.
You might (probably correctly) say I'm coming out of a depression through my own CBT interventions, though I'm pretty sure I was already on an initial upward trend because of positive environmental changes, so chicken/egg.
What you mentioned about anxiety triggered a lot of associations with Sapolsky's writing on stress (Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers etc), and how bodily aspects interleave with personality tendencies... I do wonder sometimes if a very 'Cartesian' view of personality is problematic pragmatically and philosophically. I.e., 'I'm just an introvert' can be reached by a bad diet or untreated psychiatric symptoms or low social status or just plain old preferring fewer social contacts, and so it's difficult to really /do/ anything with that conception of onself.
Hey there. I'm a personality type enthusiast and would be interested to chat about some of these things. If you're up for it, send me a note to: [email protected]
This is taken from correlations with facebook likes. There's a lot of interesting observations here. For instance, introversion correlates very strongly with "nerd culture" stuff. Openness seems to strongly correlate with left or right politics. Emotionally stable people seem to like sports and outdoor activities (adding to a weird theory that lack of sunlight and exercise causes depression.)
There is nothing weird in theory that lack of exercise causes depression. The human body needs physical activity, it does not feel as good without it. You don't have to try 10000 people for years to know that, you can do it at home in a week.
While it might not be causing depression instantly, feeling bad in your physical body certainly doesn't help depressive tendencies.
Also lack of sunlight means less Vitamin D production. It's a big problem in northern countries where people have to take Vitamin D supplements.
Some of that stuff is considerably culture dependent, so I don't know that I'd call it "The most interesting", but it is fairly thought provoking to a Western perspective.
What stood out to me was how Rap & hip-hop correlated most with Conservative and Relaxed types, I didn't expect that at all.
“Whether you think you can, or you think you can't--you're right.” ― Henry Ford
I think this is quite on the money. The problem is that many of us don't manage to think "you can".
For one thing, many hold kind of fatalistic beliefs and feel powerless. Others suffer from over-confidence. That's not really thinking "you can" but delusion. I could imagine that this is a nature & nurture thing and that nurture would be enough for most people if only they could find them-selves in an environment that's right for them. The problem is, however, that we still kinda suck at bringing the right people together.
In my own experience, you can teach yourself to be a bit more extrovert for instance, but the change is not permanent and you tend to slide back into your "defaults" very quickly when you stop actively caring about it (e.g. find yourself in a very stressful or low energy period). Very much like fitness, it requires the regular practice to keep it.
Just to clarify a common misconception introversion != shyness. It's a matrix of shy/not shy and extravert/introvert. Introverts prefer to spend more time solo, but certainly don't have to be shy. Not shy introverts tend to be the power players in society. And there is such a thing as a shy extravert. You all probably know one or can remember them from your earlier years. The wallflowers who go to every social gathering but don't really interact with others. As a not shy introvert, I can tell you that I enjoy and need the occasional social gathering, but too much time with others gets draining.
I'd go further - exhibited personality is essentially acting. You can get better at playing parts. There is probably a baseline of the 'real you' that happens when you're not 'on', and we can assert that the real you never changes.
But functionally, almost everybody can learn to exhibit personality traits that benefit them personally and 'commercially'. You can be on for the interview, the meeting, the one-on-one. And you can conserve your energy when working at your desk or at home.
You can execute patches but they don’t run as fast or as reliably as your underlying personality. Over a long period of time, the patches can become habituated and a kind of hybrid personality results. The underlying code remains.
Did you find that the generalisation of this model of software development was supported/not-supported in some way by the results being discussed here?
I'm often fond of saying that idealism is not lost in adulthood, but rather gets patched for real world vulnerabilities. So I generally like the idea of a series of patches making a whole. After all, isn't that what evolution is?
That's not necessarily true - the brain can rewire itself and probably will if some underlying functions are not contributing to your behavior. Maybe not actually deleted, but put into a low-power mode.
But that doesn't change your tendencies and dispositions necessarily, as I'm sure this paper is examing. I think there's a bit of fudging often when discussing personality on exactly what personality is.
Tangential question - the study calls itself longitudinal and was conducted over 16 weeks. I was not familiar with the word so I googled longitudinal:
> A longitudinal study (or longitudinal survey, or panel study) is a research design that involves repeated observations of the same variables (e.g., people) over long periods of time, often many decades (i.e., uses longitudinal data).
An interesting angle on studying personality is through the lens of research on psychoactive substances. A study on magic mushrooms several years ago found that "just one strong dose of hallucinogenic mushrooms can alter a person's personality for more than a year and perhaps permanently." Previously, it was posited that: "personality rarely changes much after the age of 25 or 30..... This is one of the first studies to show that you actually can change adult personality.."
This raises the follow up question: what is changing? Is there a fundamentally different reaction to the same situation, or is there instead a different interpretation of the situation which is what is leading to a different reaction?
Cognitive behavioral therapy, the "most widely used evidence-based practice for improving mental health," provides evidence that the latter is absolutely a possible answer. "CBT is a psychotherapy that is based on the cognitive model: the way that individuals perceive a situation is more closely connected to their reaction than the situation itself."
Based on this, it seems very possible at least one way people can "choose" to change their personality (as defined by their reactions (feelings, thoughts, and actions) to situations) is to seek to find ways to change the way they percieve the world.
This paper is dangerous. It lets an ignorant mind assume that personality is a choice in some way, so a person with unpopular (e.g. more personal) personality traits will need to change those to more popular and sociable ones. People refusing to do so will be considered selfish and will be punished/excluded from society. Welcome to Orwellia!
What you're describing is actually the way the world is. People who find it easy to be pleasant get further in life, while those with antisocial tendencies experience rejection - even when they're make more of an effort to be pleasant than those for whom it comes naturally. On the other hand, the unpleasant person may discover a billion dollar idea thinking alone in his basement. So it goes.
This is an alarmist response. From my own experience, a person CAN change their personality traits dramatically over time. Simply acknowledging that this is within your power doesn't change anything. Socially imposed "personality requirements" already exist anyway.
>so a person with unpopular (e.g. more personal) personality traits will need to change those to more popular and sociable ones.
There is a whole bunch of assumptions here. Why need? If you are ok with the way you are (you chose you are) why do you think people should pursue social status higher than their own choice and views? Also, social and popular traits are constantly changing, it requires enormous energy to keep up with trends. They also depend on society, culture, and a billion of other factors.
The way you should look at it is it gives you an idea that you can adapt your personality the way you want it. You want to be social - get some social traits. Want to be respected - another bunch of traits. Want to be a somebody else - do it accordingly.
>People refusing to do so will be considered selfish
People who want to judge and "consider" other people selfish just chose this trait, aren't they? So it's their own problem, not anybody else's.
>will be punished/excluded from society
Which one? There is a bunch of societies out there, you are probably excluded from many of them already today. Are you in a society of richest people? politicians? religious groups? street junkies? criminals? probably not, you are already excluded. This is how society works, you want to be among a certain group of people - get certain traits. As easy as that.
Is there any reason to think it's not a choice at some level? I doubt it's a conscious choice, and almost certainly guided by environment and habituation, but I also suspect it's malleable to at least some extent.
I'd also say that what you describe is just a more extreme version of how the world currently is - people with more popular personalities _tend_ to get further.
Anecdotal: I've found that personality is a choice, to an extent.
If you've ever known somebody who served in the military, you know that they often come back a changed person. I'm not talking about PTSD in combat vets, I'm just talking about simple personality traits like neatness.
On a more self-driven note, I became a less patient person in some specific ways after I lost a parent some years ago. (Because it become painfully obvious how limited our time is...)
>People refusing to do so will be considered selfish and will be punished/excluded from society
There's nothing wrong with expecting someone to change their personality. Even if you want to claim that it's not a choice, it is a choice to at least attempt to change your personality, and that's the very least we should expect from anyone who has negative personality traits.
This is based on the "Big Five" personality traits that are fairly well established: Openness, Conscientiousness, Extroversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism or OCEAN.
Was listening to a talk on the radio while driving home today by a couple of psychologists/college professors, Southwick and Charney, and it was specifically about resilience but has some applicability to this topic - and they had suggestions for judging your quality of life and how to improve it, and how to make you or your children more prepared for challenges in life. Found the website about it and they recorded it in 2013:
http://www.harvard.com/event/steven_m._southwick_and_dennis_...
From that, it's obvious that some personality traits can be changed (e.g. being punctual and neat) but others will be very hard (e.g. curious, imaginative, self-disciplined, feeling inadequate).
Using Stranger Than Fiction as an example in this paper rubs me the wrong way, maybe because it also accounts for about a third of the conclusion.
I like that movie, but it doesn't really add anything to the paper and even if it does I feel like this is the equivalent of saying "In Harry Potter a boy finds out he's special and goes on a magical adventure. Can we all find out we are special?"
"You can have more than you've got because you can become more than you are. On the other side of that coin: If you don't become more than you are, you'll always have what you've always got"
-Jim Rohn
I believe that anybody who has put in any effort into bettering themselves knows for a fact one can completely change his/her own self-perception, and in-turn, their personality.
On the part of actually changing those traits, one could attempt to use a very precise radiotherapy machine combined with FMRI to find and kill the parts of your brain that bother you.
I'm not really sure I'd want to try to literally hack my brain this way. I have a lot of traits I don't like (hey, I'm posting this here while I should be working... Look! Shiny!) I understand they are what makes me the person my family loves (although some may say it's an acquired taste)
You can, many religious evangelisers are born introverts and self-adjust to extraverts by talking to large numbers of people spontaneously (forced, at first).
I don't think personality can change. What can change is the situation and the people you interact with, and depending on them, discover aspects of your personality you weren't aware of before. Maybe that counts as a change, but it's just better self knowledge and world knowledge.
I also think personality is not unique - we have a whole range of "personalities" we employ depending on who we talk with and what the situation is. Thus, personality is a function of self-values and external situation - we have many masks, one for each occasion.
That guy, how he dresses, the wristbands, the pictures on the wall, steam-punk lamp... Most contrived thing I've seen in a VERY long time. Which is a pity in that I needed to forcibly focus myself on what he was saying, in spite of my bias. Because maybe he might have had something useful to say.
[+] [-] volgo|8 years ago|reply
- 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|8 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] spyckie2|8 years ago|reply
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
[+] [-] jcadam|8 years ago|reply
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
[+] [-] chii|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] themodelplumber|8 years ago|reply
One of the often-unspoken realities here is that this growth and change will cause anxiety directly. It's observable in any living organism. (Now think about New Year's resolutions...they can be real anxiety spikers) If any really pleasing dopamine reward is to come of this process in humans, its full manifestation is often very time-delayed as the change process itself takes its course. So depending on the traits and their role in the trait-changer's own systems, models, and beliefs, it is helpful to identify pathways that can involve the trait-changer's strengths and yield some increased leverage. For example, "being open to _what_ is less stressful than being open to _that thing I can't typically stand being open to_?" There's this blended approach.
Beyond traits, I find that typologies and archetypes are very helpful in establishing a quick and dirty template for change. If you identify as a "type" that finds benefit from developing cleverness, even if you yourself aren't very clever _right now_, we may see some surprising success if we try some exercises to identify and harness a latent cleverness in service of your goals. If you are a natural idealist, an idealistic princess who befriends all the little forest creatures, that's actually a very helpful model to examine as well. The story has been shared across cultures for many centuries, and it's a matter of running down the list of type attributes and noting the deltas with regard to your current life. I call my own method Type / Trait Interleave and so far I've been happy with the outcomes for my clients.
With traits we quickly understand the contextual you and your contextually-variant patterns. With type we get at questions of your core self and begin to understand how your contextually-variant patterns could be sabotaging or benefiting some other system functioning in your life. Thanks op for the thought-provoking post, I didn't expect to see it here. :-)
[+] [-] EGreg|8 years ago|reply
I have found that when I speak, I rarely command attention and captivate as some others do. Probably something in my speech patterns. Perhaps they are slightly more apologetic / geeky / nice than others. People may interrupt me or turn away, even people who respect me.
When I do get rapt attention, such as teaching a class, I get an impostor syndrome because I'm not that used to it. I don't let it show - and I finish my thoughts. But I feel my speech is more rambling and unfocused than it should be. I have so many asides that I want to get to, and I like to speak using true sentences so I hedge what I say sometimes, and other times don't make overly ambitious claims.
Is there a way I can improve this? What do you see in your experience?
[+] [-] rwnspace|8 years ago|reply
You might (probably correctly) say I'm coming out of a depression through my own CBT interventions, though I'm pretty sure I was already on an initial upward trend because of positive environmental changes, so chicken/egg.
What you mentioned about anxiety triggered a lot of associations with Sapolsky's writing on stress (Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers etc), and how bodily aspects interleave with personality tendencies... I do wonder sometimes if a very 'Cartesian' view of personality is problematic pragmatically and philosophically. I.e., 'I'm just an introvert' can be reached by a bad diet or untreated psychiatric symptoms or low social status or just plain old preferring fewer social contacts, and so it's difficult to really /do/ anything with that conception of onself.
[+] [-] bayonetz|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Houshalter|8 years ago|reply
This is taken from correlations with facebook likes. There's a lot of interesting observations here. For instance, introversion correlates very strongly with "nerd culture" stuff. Openness seems to strongly correlate with left or right politics. Emotionally stable people seem to like sports and outdoor activities (adding to a weird theory that lack of sunlight and exercise causes depression.)
[+] [-] Erlich_Bachman|8 years ago|reply
Also lack of sunlight means less Vitamin D production. It's a big problem in northern countries where people have to take Vitamin D supplements.
[+] [-] irickt|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] slfnflctd|8 years ago|reply
What stood out to me was how Rap & hip-hop correlated most with Conservative and Relaxed types, I didn't expect that at all.
[+] [-] cJ0th|8 years ago|reply
I think this is quite on the money. The problem is that many of us don't manage to think "you can". For one thing, many hold kind of fatalistic beliefs and feel powerless. Others suffer from over-confidence. That's not really thinking "you can" but delusion. I could imagine that this is a nature & nurture thing and that nurture would be enough for most people if only they could find them-selves in an environment that's right for them. The problem is, however, that we still kinda suck at bringing the right people together.
[+] [-] ivanhoe|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cik2e|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] JoeAltmaier|8 years ago|reply
But functionally, almost everybody can learn to exhibit personality traits that benefit them personally and 'commercially'. You can be on for the interview, the meeting, the one-on-one. And you can conserve your energy when working at your desk or at home.
[+] [-] aj7|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chriswait|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hliyan|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] akvadrako|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] maram|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] adjkant|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] khazhoux|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dandare|8 years ago|reply
> A longitudinal study (or longitudinal survey, or panel study) is a research design that involves repeated observations of the same variables (e.g., people) over long periods of time, often many decades (i.e., uses longitudinal data).
[+] [-] AElsinore77|8 years ago|reply
This raises the follow up question: what is changing? Is there a fundamentally different reaction to the same situation, or is there instead a different interpretation of the situation which is what is leading to a different reaction?
Cognitive behavioral therapy, the "most widely used evidence-based practice for improving mental health," provides evidence that the latter is absolutely a possible answer. "CBT is a psychotherapy that is based on the cognitive model: the way that individuals perceive a situation is more closely connected to their reaction than the situation itself."
Based on this, it seems very possible at least one way people can "choose" to change their personality (as defined by their reactions (feelings, thoughts, and actions) to situations) is to seek to find ways to change the way they percieve the world.
Sources: https://www.livescience.com/16287-mushrooms-alter-personalit... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_behavioral_therapy https://beckinstitute.org/get-informed/what-is-cognitive-the...
[+] [-] dschuetz|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] racer-v|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 0xBA5ED|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mapcars|8 years ago|reply
There is a whole bunch of assumptions here. Why need? If you are ok with the way you are (you chose you are) why do you think people should pursue social status higher than their own choice and views? Also, social and popular traits are constantly changing, it requires enormous energy to keep up with trends. They also depend on society, culture, and a billion of other factors.
The way you should look at it is it gives you an idea that you can adapt your personality the way you want it. You want to be social - get some social traits. Want to be respected - another bunch of traits. Want to be a somebody else - do it accordingly.
>People refusing to do so will be considered selfish
People who want to judge and "consider" other people selfish just chose this trait, aren't they? So it's their own problem, not anybody else's.
>will be punished/excluded from society
Which one? There is a bunch of societies out there, you are probably excluded from many of them already today. Are you in a society of richest people? politicians? religious groups? street junkies? criminals? probably not, you are already excluded. This is how society works, you want to be among a certain group of people - get certain traits. As easy as that.
[+] [-] stordoff|8 years ago|reply
I'd also say that what you describe is just a more extreme version of how the world currently is - people with more popular personalities _tend_ to get further.
[+] [-] JohnBooty|8 years ago|reply
If you've ever known somebody who served in the military, you know that they often come back a changed person. I'm not talking about PTSD in combat vets, I'm just talking about simple personality traits like neatness.
On a more self-driven note, I became a less patient person in some specific ways after I lost a parent some years ago. (Because it become painfully obvious how limited our time is...)
[+] [-] xor1|8 years ago|reply
There's nothing wrong with expecting someone to change their personality. Even if you want to claim that it's not a choice, it is a choice to at least attempt to change your personality, and that's the very least we should expect from anyone who has negative personality traits.
[+] [-] BurningFrog|8 years ago|reply
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Five_personality_traits
[+] [-] stevenwoo|8 years ago|reply
Found this publication from them from five years ago. http://science.sciencemag.org/content/338/6103/79
[+] [-] hasbot|8 years ago|reply
From that, it's obvious that some personality traits can be changed (e.g. being punctual and neat) but others will be very hard (e.g. curious, imaginative, self-disciplined, feeling inadequate).
[+] [-] YCode|8 years ago|reply
I like that movie, but it doesn't really add anything to the paper and even if it does I feel like this is the equivalent of saying "In Harry Potter a boy finds out he's special and goes on a magical adventure. Can we all find out we are special?"
It's more rhetoric than academic.
[+] [-] LearnerHerzog|8 years ago|reply
I believe that anybody who has put in any effort into bettering themselves knows for a fact one can completely change his/her own self-perception, and in-turn, their personality.
[+] [-] rbanffy|8 years ago|reply
I'm not really sure I'd want to try to literally hack my brain this way. I have a lot of traits I don't like (hey, I'm posting this here while I should be working... Look! Shiny!) I understand they are what makes me the person my family loves (although some may say it's an acquired taste)
[+] [-] aetherspawn|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] kristofferR|8 years ago|reply
People can clearly change their personality, it's just so difficult that most people don't try or give up when they fail.
[+] [-] visarga|8 years ago|reply
I also think personality is not unique - we have a whole range of "personalities" we employ depending on who we talk with and what the situation is. Thus, personality is a function of self-values and external situation - we have many masks, one for each occasion.
[+] [-] Spearchucker|8 years ago|reply