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Comment by vivekd | Hacker News Reader

Did I just miss something or did the article offer no evidence for it's position that personality can changer other than presenting some writing exercises by high schoolers that asked them if personality can change. It didn't seem to elaborate about how these exercises affected or changed their personality or present any other evidence or examples of changing personality.

Don't get me wrong, I do believe that personality can change, just this article didn't seem to present a good basis for that thinking.

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They named the the journal and the issue but not the title of the meta-analysis itself.

"In an analysis of 207 studies, published this month in the journal Psychological Bulletin, a team of six researchers found that personality can and does change, and by a lot, and fairly quickly. But only with a therapist’s help. (Imagine that.)"

Edit: someone tracked down the original. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13452075

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Brent_Roberts/publicati...

> I do believe that personality can change

I don't think personality actually changes much, it just has some latent and some manifested aspects, depending on circumstance. In different circumstances it can manifest different aspects. It doesn't mean it changes, just that it can variate depending on context.

It's often possible that trying to change your personality would lead to much suffering, because it's inherently difficult. I read some time ago a psychological study that applied MBTI to cult members. They were asked how they viewed their personality before, in the present and in the future. The trend was to attempt to emulate the personality type of the cult leader. Their happiness was inversely correlated to how much off-base they were attempting to be.

I used to be a very overconfident, arrogant, extroverted asshole but after a while in depression I started to look inwards and recovered a totally different person. I am now more empathetic, more emotional, introverted and hopefully not an asshole anymore. I do really believe that strong stimuli like depression can trigger lasting changes in your personality.

I think that's because the authors are pro psychologists, all of whom long ago accepted as dogma that clinical psychology CAN make a difference in thinking/behavior, especially in reducing neuroses. While this change for the better usually isn't described as "changing your personality", to most non-pro-psychologists, it could be.

I suspect it's just a matter of how much change, and how the change manifests. If one of the classic attributes of personality is sustainably reset to a different level, like trust or sharing or kindness, I'd certainly consider that personality to be changed. I haven't read the article, but that may be what it proposes.

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