“I want to be more ...” Can we intentionally change our personality traits?

Abstract

In this article, we reviewed and critically evaluated the latest research in the field of personality psychology that focuses on understanding and empirically examining a person’s own effort or self-regulation as a source of personality trait change. Articles included in this literature review were found through EBSCOhost, Web of Science, ScienceDirect, and Scopus, using “volitional personality change” or “intentional personality change” as key words. The review of 25 scientific articles published between 2012 and 2020 has shown that most of the individuals want to change some of their personality traits, which is indeed possible in a relatively short period of time by investing deliberate effort and relying on specific goals and plans to change selected personality traits. In general, most authors understand volitional personality change as a “bottom-up” process with a main mechanism being a change in current behavior, thinking, and emotions that over time manifests in a long-term personality change. Several interventions have been developed and preliminary tested to promote volitional personality change. Although first studies in this area show some promising results, they have several limitations in common. Among those are reliance on self-reports, small size and homogeneity of samples, and short time frame to monitor stability of the observed changes. Despite the limitations, results from these studies suggest that intentionally changing one’s personality may have beneficial consequences for an individual.

Keywords

• volitional personality change
• lifespan personality development
• big five
• interventions