A study published by Nature Reviews Psychology, says that personality is malleable across a human’s lifespan. It was found that 4 key factors that help change personality over time are pre-conditions, triggers, reinforcers, and integrators. A human personality is known to be stable but there lies an underlying list of factors that people can use to change their personalities over time.
Going to visit an old friend or eating favorite childhood foods reminds people that personalities might not change drastically over time. But there is always a desire to change, improve or be a better version of one’s present self. There might be depressions or trauma that a person has undergone and wishes to change which also tells that a human wants to evolve themselves over time.
The study has analyzed factors that enable personality change over a person’s lifetime. This offers a roadmap for making the modifications that humans might want which in turn also exposes some obstacles that make permanent change difficult and the things they can do to overcome them.
Personalities limit access to the ‘wants’ in life. For example, one might wish to be less lonely or less anxious or be happier with simple attitude adjustments, but our current personalities might be incapable of supporting that. The study has said that even though a personality is stable over a person’s lifespan, it never solidifies which makes it malleable over time. Thus, it can be said that humans cannot completely change themselves, but slight changes that help them grow over time can be made.
Doctors analyzing this study say that the first step is to identify the personality traits that one wishes to change and then decode the preconditions, triggers, reinforces and integrators. They also suggest that one might need some external help while doing this activity since that might help identify one’s current behavior and will be able to help motivate the changes.
This exercise can only be successful if one limits the presence of a stable environment, in other words, if a person remains in their comfort zone, they can never go through a personality change per se.
Doctors also suggest ‘fake it till you make it’. This means when a person is likely to undergo certain changes, it can be uncomfortable. This approach opens a person to the thinking that it is okay to feel unnatural which in turn allows one to successfully practice the new personality and move towards integration, gradually developing a completely new version of one.
One should refrain from self-criticism and one of the ways to do that is by thinking about how important change is within their life and what it might do to their future. Creative supportive environment which also encourages change is important. This makes people more accountable. Therefore, the key to personality change is reinforced, since they help set up an environment that continues to support change that has happened after a life event.
