Peut-on changer de personnalité ?

Voulez-vous changer ?

Source : Barbara Egin : Barbara Egin, avec son autorisation.

La plupart des gens souhaitent modifier certains aspects de leur personnalité. Par exemple, Tom pourrait vouloir être plus extraverti, tandis qu’Emma pourrait vouloir être plus organisée. Ce n’est pas une coïncidence si Tom et Emma veulent changer dans des directions que l’on pourrait qualifier de socialement souhaitables. En fait, la plupart des gens veulent changer dans une direction socialement souhaitable (c’est-à-dire augmenter l’extraversion, la conscience professionnelle, la stabilité émotionnelle, l’agréabilité ou l’ouverture), et les personnes qui obtiennent un score faible pour un trait donné sont encore plus enclines à changer ce trait. Mais comment les gens modifient-ils leurs traits de personnalité ?

Pour mettre en œuvre un changement de personnalité, les gens utilisent des objectifs de changement. Les objectifs, en général, donnent une direction, une structure et un sens. Les objectifs de changement, en particulier, motivent le changement de personnalité et sont intrinsèquement dynamiques. Cela implique qu’il n’y a pas d’état final fixe à atteindre (comme finir l’université et rembourser son prêt étudiant) mais que les objectifs de changement servent de motivation constante pour changer la personnalité dans la direction souhaitée. Ainsi, il est probable que Tom et Emma utilisent des objectifs de changement pour devenir plus sociables ou plus organisés.

La question urgente est la suivante : peut-on changer intentionnellement de personnalité ? Oui et non. Les résultats des recherches antérieures sont hétérogènes : Alors que certaines études indiquent que les objectifs de changement prédisent un changement de personnalité dans la direction souhaitée (ces études incluent souvent des interventions de changement de personnalité), d’autres fournissent des résultats plus mitigés et certains indiquent même un changement dans la direction opposée, non souhaitée.

A recent study from Lücke and colleagues (2020) sought to address this heterogeneity and identified two aspects of change goals that might be relevant for people’s volitional personality change: First, goal importance (i.e., how important and desirable is it to change that trait?) and second, goal feasibility (i.e., how likely and feasible is it to change that trait?). The authors argued that these two aspects – and particularly their combination – would render it more likely that change goals predict personality change. The crucial component here is people’s daily life: If change goals are important and/or feasible to people, they would more likely change their daily habits and invest in daily situations that are relevant for the trait they want to change. This, in turn, would replace their habitual thoughts, feelings, and behaviors (i.e., personality states; see my previous post) with the desired thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. For instance, if Tom’s goal of being more outgoing is important to him and if trait-relevant behavior (such as meeting new people) is feasible, Tom would more likely change his daily habits and might become more outgoing in his daily life. On the contrary, if Emma’s goal of being more organized is not genuinely important to her (for instance, because only other people want her to be more organized), Emma would less likely change her daily habits and would not become more organized in her daily life.

The authors tested their hypotheses in an age-heterogeneous sample of 383 participants in Germany. Their study lasted over 2 years and had a non-interventional design, implying that participants’ personality change was tested in a naturally occurring context. Participants’ Big Five Traits and their change goals (including their importance and feasibility) were assessed multiple times by self-report questions. The situations that participants encountered and the states that they experienced were assessed on a daily basis on up to 10 days.

What did the authors find? First, against their prediction, people with more pronounced change goals were not more likely to change in the desired direction. That is, the strength of Tom’s change goal would not predict his likelihood of effectively becoming more outgoing. Second, although goal importance and goal feasibility varied substantially between people, neither goal importance nor goal feasibility was consistently linked to personality change. That is, even if Emma’s change goal was both important and feasible to her, she would not be more likely to effectively become more organized.

What do these insights tell us for our New Year’s resolutions? Should we still strive for changing aspects of our personality? Yes. As the authors themselves argued, it is essential how change goals are formulated: Most importantly, change goals need to be as specific as possible. That is, Tom’s change goal of “being more outgoing” might have been too abstract for motivating him to change his daily routine. Instead, he might want to have a more specific change goal, such as joining a weekly reading club to meet new people. Similarly, rather than “being more organized, » Emma might want to have a more specific goal, such as using weekly to-do-lists. Over time, these new habits might change Tom’s tendency to be outgoing and Emma’s tendency to be organized. In addition to being more specific, (change) goals should also be measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound (as summarized by the acronym SMART). Finally, it is essential to know the type of situation that is relevant for increasing/decreasing a respective trait. For instance, the very same change goal (e.g., being more outgoing) might involve a different situation for Tom than it might involve for Emma. Thus, each person needs to individually identify the situations in which they can express their SMART change goals. By doing so, we might intentionally and successfully change aspects of our personality in 2021, if we want to do so.