Who in the world is trying to change their personality traits? Volitional personality change among college students in six continents.

Baranski, Erica; Lee, Daniel I.; Funder, David C.

doi:10.1037/pspp0000389

Cited by 28 publications

(24 citation statements)

References 45 publications

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“…Several additional limitations of the present study must be mentioned. First, given the obvious cultural variations in the desire to change personality traits (e.g., Baranski et al, 2021) and also in the valuing of character strengths (Pievsky & McGrath, 2022), our results cannot readily be generalized beyond German-speaking countries. Second, our measure of character strengths change goals was developed ad-hoc, though it was closely based on both an existing measure of perceived changes in character strengths and existing measures of personality change goals.…”

Section: Limitationsmentioning

confidence: 95%

“…Accumulating evidence suggests that most people want to change at least some aspect of their personality traits (e.g., Hudson & Roberts, 2014;Miller et al, 2019). Across many countries, an average of 60% of young adults report currently wanting to change their personality (Baranski et al, 2021). Such goals to change personality traits robustly predict actual longitudinal changes in personality (Hudson et al, 2020).…”

Section: Which Positive Personality Traits Do People Want To Change?mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Which positive personality traits do people want to change?

Gander¹,

Wagner²

2023

Preprint

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Recent studies suggested that most people want to change some of their personality traits, typically those they and others perceive to be lacking. However, change goals have not been studied in the context of character strengths despite the popularity of character strengths-based interventions. In this study, we investigate (1) to what extent people want to change their character strengths and how character strengths change goals relate to (2) character strength levels, (3) age, and (4) well-being. A sample of N = 2,792 German-speaking adults (79.2% women; median age = 46 years) completed measures of character strengths, character strengths change goals, and well-being. For a subsample, n = 1,970 close others (51.8% women; median age = 46 years) provided informant ratings of character strengths. Results showed that (1) participants wanted to increase all 24 character strengths. The character strengths of zest, hope, self-regulation, bravery, creativity, perseverance, love, gratitude, and humor yielded the greatest desire for positive change. Overall, character strengths change goals negatively related to (2) self- and informant-rated levels of character strengths, (3) age, and (4) well-being. People want to change their character strengths for the better, particularly those they lack and that are most strongly related to well-being.

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Section: Limitationsmentioning

confidence: 95%

Section: Which Positive Personality Traits Do People Want To Change?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Which positive personality traits do people want to change?

Gander¹,

Wagner²

2023

Preprint

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“…Past research shows that people generally want to improve their personality traits (Baranski et al, 2021;Hudson & Fraley, 2016). When asked to prioritize, however, people are much more interested in improving traits that are typically thought of as nonmoral (e.g., anxiety, sociability, and productiveness), compared to prototypically moral traits (e.g., honesty, compassion, and fairness; Sun & Goodwin, 2020).…”

Section: Religion and Philosophy Have Long Provided Prescriptions For...mentioning

confidence: 99%

How and why people want to be more moral

Sun

Meindl

Watkins

et al. 2023

Journal of Personality

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What types of moral improvements do people wish to make? Do they hope to become more good, or less bad? Do they wish to be more caring? More honest? More loyal? And why exactly do they want to become more moral? Presumably, most people want to improve their morality because this would benefit others, but is this in fact their primary motivation? Here, we begin to investigate these questions. Across two large, preregistered studies (N = 1,818), participants provided open-ended descriptions of one change they could make in order to become more moral; they then reported their beliefs about and motives for this change. In both studies, people most frequently expressed desires to improve their compassion and more often framed their moral improvement goals in terms of amplifying good behaviors than curbing bad ones. The strongest predictor of moral motivation was the extent to which people believed that making the change would have positive consequences for their own well-being. Together, these studies provide rich descriptive insights into how ordinary people want to be more moral, and show that they are particularly motivated to do so for their own sake.

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“…Personality-change goals (e.g., "I want to be much more talkative than I currently am") predict subsequent trait growth in ways consistent with the stated desire to change, albeit with small effect sizes (Hudson et al, 2020), which indicates that the motivation to change can trigger change processes even without intervention efforts. Personality-change goals are common among younger adults, as well as middle-aged and older adults (Hudson & Fraley, 2016), and there is initial evidence that the desire for personality change is not just a phenomenon of the individualistic "Western" lifestyle, but occurs all over the world (Baranski et al, 2021). One caveat, however, is that not all change goals actually translate into action.…”

Section: The Critical Role Of the Motivation To Changementioning

confidence: 99%

Personality Change Through Digital-Coaching Interventions

Allemand

Flückiger²

2022

Curr Dir Psychol Sci

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A highly relevant but provocative research question is whether and how one can intentionally change personality traits through psychological interventions, given that traits are relatively stable by definition. Recently, research has begun to investigate personality change through intervention in nonclinical populations. One attractive and innovative interventional avenue may lie in using digital applications to guide and support people in their desire to change their personality and trigger change processes. This article provides a rationale for nonclinical personality-change interventions and discusses motivations to change, the potential of using digital applications for intervention efforts, key studies that illustrate this emerging field of research, and future directions.

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Who in the world is trying to change their personality traits? Volitional personality change among college students in six continents.

Cited by 28 publications

References 45 publications

Which positive personality traits do people want to change?

Which positive personality traits do people want to change?

How and why people want to be more moral

Personality Change Through Digital-Coaching Interventions

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