Personality-informed interventions for healthy aging: Conclusions from a National Institute on Aging work group.

Abstract

We describe two frameworks in which personality dimensions relevant to health, such as Conscientiousness, can be used to inform interventions designed to promote health aging. First, contemporary data and theory do not suggest that personality is “immutable”, but instead focus on questions of who changes, in what way, why, when, and how. In fact, the notion that personality could be changed was part and parcel of many schools of psychotherapy, which suggested that long term and meaningful change in symptoms could not be achieved without change in relevant aspects of personality. We review intervention research documenting change in personality. Based on an integrative view of personality as a complex system, we describe a “bottom-up” model of change in which interventions to change basic personality processes eventuate in changes at the trait level. A second framework leverages the descriptive and predictive power of personality to tailor individual risk prediction and treatment, as well as refine public health programs, to the relevant dispositional characteristics of the target population. These methods dovetail with and add a systematic and rigorous psychosocial dimension to the personalized medicine and patient-centeredness movements in medicine. In addition to improving health through earlier intervention and increased fit between treatments and persons, cost-effectiveness improvements can be realized by more accurate resource allocation. Numerous examples from the personality, health, and aging literature on Conscientiousness and other traits are provided throughout, and we conclude with a series of recommendations for research in these emerging areas.

Changing personality traits: Some considerations from psychotherapy process-outcome research for intervention efforts on intentional personality change.

“…Self-regulatory mechanisms such as the selection of certain environments or the modification of situational features, and change processes such as habit formation might be driving forces for this shift (Denissen, van Aken, Penke, & Wood, 2013;Wood & Rünger, 2010;Wrzus & Roberts, 2016). This precondition goes along with the idea of bottom-up change processes from states to traits via habits (Chapman et al, 2014;Magidson et al, 2014).…”

“…There have been recent discussions about intervention efforts to intentionally change specified personality traits in desired directions (Chapman et al, 2014;Hudson & Fraley, 2017;Magidson et al, 2014;Martin, Oades, & Caputi, 2012;Mroczek, 2014). However, empirical evidence about the efficacy of such interventions is lacking so far, except for some notable examples.…”

“…Because states are more variable and probably more responsive to intended change efforts than broader constructs such as traits, some researchers recently suggested that targeting and changing specific behaviors and experiences would prove more successful than targeting traits directly (Chapman, Hampson, & Clarkin, 2014;Magidson, Roberts, Collado-Rodriguez, & Lejuez, 2014). However, short-term change may not automatically impart lasting changes, as changes at a lower level can but do not have to affect the higher levels (Rosenberg, 1998).…”

“…This medium level would be the target for a third intervention strategy that focuses on changing habits (see Wood & Rünger, 2016 for more details). The process of habit formation may ultimately impart permanent changes that may be manifested in changes at the trait-level (Chapman et al, 2014). The basic idea is that the accumulation of changes at the level of states would eventually lead to personality change at the level of traits through bottom-up processes of change and habituation (Wrzus & Roberts, 2016).…”

“…Second, people must consider performing the new experiences and behaviors feasible and they must be able to implement the desired changes (level of states in Figure 1). These two preconditions roughly reflect the value and expectancy that determine people's commitment and likelihood of success at performing or omitting experiences and behaviors (Chapman et al, 2014;Magidson et al, 2014). The third precondition suggests that experiential and behavioral changes need to become habitual (path from states to habits in Figure 1) in order to constitute a stable shift in personality traits and to impart lasting change (path from habits to traits in Figure 1).…”