Do People Really Change?
Key findings from a recent review show how treatment can modify personality.
Posted January 6, 2017 | Reviewed by Jessica Schrader
" Personality " is a word used to describe traits that are consistent across time and place. For example, we expect a highly extraverted person to be outgoing at home, at work, and at school. While personality is not a perfect predictor of behavior, it does give us a general idea of how someone is likely to think and act.
The authors of a new review article note that personality can change over long periods of time—for example, we tend to become more responsible and emotionally stable as we age. These changes generally unfold over many years, and seem to reflect a natural developmental process.
The researchers set out to answer an important related question: Can treatment change personality over a short period of time ? They focused on the " Big Five " personality traits of extraversion , emotional stability , openness, conscientiousness , and agreeableness .
Roberts and colleagues reviewed over 200 studies that measured personality traits both before and after some type of intervention and included a control group. Interventions included primarily medications and various forms of psychotherapy for a psychological condition, and lasted 24 weeks on average. Their analyses revealed some intriguing results:
What are the implications of these findings? First, as the authors note, they suggest that personality change can happen relatively quickly. Additional analyses showed that treatment needed to last for at least 4 weeks to significantly affect personality. However, after 8 weeks, additional treatment did not lead to greater change.
The authors had an important caveat: It's possible that a person's personality may have changed as a result of the condition that brought the person to treatment. For example, an episode of depression may have significantly decreased a person's level of emotional stability.
Thus what looks like an increase in emotional stability due to treatment could actually be an effect of treatment on depression, which subsequently restores the person's pre-depression emotional stability. This explanation cannot be ruled out based on existing data.
I do suspect, based on my own experience as a therapist, that a lot of the personality change in treatment is actually a return to a person's level of functioning before their anxiety, depression, or other condition. People often come to treatment because they feel like they're not their best selves—no longer as patient, agreeable, relaxed, or outgoing. A s treatment takes hold people often describe feeling "more like themselves" again. Family members will say they feel like they have their loved one back.
If you've thought about starting therapy because you feel disconnected from the person you used to be, consider this additional benefit of treatment: You'll probably feel not just better but more like the best version of you.
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Roberts, B. W., Luo, J., Briley, D. A., Chow, P. I., Su, R., & Hill, P. L. (2017, January 5). A systematic review of personality trait change through intervention. Psychological Bulletin . Advance online publication. doi:10.1037/bul0000088.
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Seth J. Gillihan, Ph.D., is a licensed psychologist and author specializing in mindful cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT).
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This article is part of the Bringwise Psychology Journal — daily insights on human behavior, mental health, and personal growth.