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Can People Choose to Change Their Personality Traits? (2015) [pdf]

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Re: Can People Choose to Change Their Personality Traits? (2015) [pdf]

#81

Post by [deleted] »

jcadam wrote: post #79
volgo wrote: post #2

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…

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…

[deleted]

Re: Can People Choose to Change Their Personality Traits? (2015) [pdf]

#82

Post by peterwwillis »

EGreg wrote: post #25
themodelplumber wrote: post #9

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…

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 becaus…

Attention is often commanded by subject. It could be that with some people you're just talking about something boring, and with others you are literally the only source of information and people paid thousands of dollars to listen to you.

Basically, try talking about something the people you are talking to want to hear.

Re: Can People Choose to Change Their Personality Traits? (2015) [pdf]

#83

Post by [deleted] »

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #80
jcadam wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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

[deleted]

Re: Can People Choose to Change Their Personality Traits? (2015) [pdf]

#84

Post by goshx »

If anyone here is looking to change something in themselves, I recommend this book (or audiobook, in my case) "Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself" by Dr. Joe Dispenza.

Sometimes just by being conscious and watching yourself as an external spectator of your own thought can do wonders.

Re: Can People Choose to Change Their Personality Traits? (2015) [pdf]

#85

Post by peterwwillis »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #50
EGreg wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 becaus…

Try and make your sentences short and to the point. Take one of the paragraphs you spoke, then repeat it over and over and over again until you're at the point and avoided the tangents. I'm no expert but I think that's also why your colleagues stop listening, because you don't get to the point. Avoid fillers too - uhs and ums, stuttering, stop-words, etc - and try to focus on bringing your point across in a single, f…

This might help too. IEEE Resources for Engineers: Write Clearly and Concisely http://sites.ieee.org/pcs/communication-resources-for-engine...

Re: Can People Choose to Change Their Personality Traits? (2015) [pdf]

#86

Post by mapcars »

dschuetz wrote: post #3

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!

>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.

Re: Can People Choose to Change Their Personality Traits? (2015) [pdf]

#87

Post by michrassena »

notheguyouthink wrote: post #72
twobyfour wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

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 enjo…

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.

Re: Can People Choose to Change Their Personality Traits? (2015) [pdf]

#88

Post by rwnspace »

spyckie2 wrote: post #44
volgo wrote: post #2

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…

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 innat…

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.

Re: Can People Choose to Change Their Personality Traits? (2015) [pdf]

#89

Post by YCode »

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?"

It's more rhetoric than academic.

Re: Can People Choose to Change Their Personality Traits? (2015) [pdf]

#90

Post by 0xcde4c3db »

aalleavitch wrote: post #69
twobyfour wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

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…

> 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").

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