Category: Personality

Why friends are better at predicting how long you’ll live from personality traits.

Men with conscientious personality traits and those who are open to experience live longer, a study finds.

For women, those who are more agreeable and emotionally stable enjoy a longer life.

The kicker is that it’s your friends — not you — who are better at judging these personality traits from the outside.

The results, published in the journal Psychological Science, come from one of the longest studies in history, spanning 75 years (Jackson et al., 2015).

Dr Joshua Jackson, the study’s first author, said:

“You expect your friends to be inclined to see you in a positive manner, but they also are keen observers of the personality traits that could send you to an early grave.”

The researchers used data from research that began in the 1930s, following a group of couples then in their mid-20s.

Almost all were about to be married and tests of their personality traits were conducted on the engaged couples and their friends also reported on the couple’s personalities.

Dr Jackson said:

“Our study shows that people are able to observe and rate a friend’s personality accurately enough to predict early mortality decades down the road.

It suggests that people are able to see important characteristics related to health even when their friends were, for the most part, healthy and many years from death.”

But why is it that friends are better at judging how long we’ll live from personality traits?

Dr Jackson says:

“There are two potential reasons for the superiority of peer ratings over self ratings.

First, friends may see something that you miss; they may have some insight that you do not.

Second, because people have multiple friends, we are able to average the idiosyncrasies of any one friend to obtain a more reliable assessment of personality.

With self reports, people may be biased or miss certain aspects of themselves and we are not able to counteract that because there is only one you, only one self-report.”

Dr Jackson pointed out that the personality traits which predict long life may be different if the study were started again today.

That’s because the personality traits associated with a longer life in the 1930s may reflect out-dated gender roles.

In the 1930s women’s roles in society — often as easy-going, supportive wives — were much more confined.

Nevertheless, the study is a fascinating demonstration of the link between personality and longevity.

Dr Jackson said:

“This is one of the longest studies in psychology.

It shows how important personality is in influencing significant life outcomes like health and demonstrates that information from friends and other observers can play a critical role in understanding a person’s health issues.

For example, it suggests that family members and even physician ratings could be used to personalize medical treatments or identify who is at risk for certain health ailments.”

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Personality change is possible with the right strategies.

Most people want to change their personality, research finds.

The most desirable changes for people are to be more extraverted, more conscientious and more emotionally stable.

It is easy to see why:

• Extraverts are generally self-confident and cheerful and can also be impulsive, sensation-seekers.
• Conscientious people tend to be more self-disciplined and they aim for achievement.
• The emotionally stable are less likely to experience mental health problems.

Despite their aims, though, people find it hard to change their personality, the research revealed.

In fact, some of those trying to change their personality actually see shifts in the opposite direction.

The conclusions come from a group of around 360 college students and a group of approximately 500 people ranging in ages.

All were given a personality test and asked what, if any, aspects of their personality they would like to change.

The students and members of the general population were then surveyed again six months and a year later, respectively.

Dr Erica Baranski, the study’s first author, explained the results:

“In both samples, the desire to change at ‘time one’ did not predict actual change in the desired direction at all at ‘time two’.

In the general population sample, we didn’t find that personality change goals predicted any change in any direction.”

While the general population experienced no change in their personality, the college students saw some shifts in the opposite direction than desired.

Those that wanted to become more conscientious became less conscientious.

Young people wanting to become more extraverted became more agreeable and emotionally stable.

These changes might reflect the fact that college students are at a transformational point in their lives, Dr Baranski said:

“College students are thrown into this new environment, and they may be unhappy and may look within selves to become happier and change some aspect of their personality.

But, meanwhile, there is a bombardment of other things that they’re told they need to achieve, like doing well in a class or choosing a major or getting an internship, and those goals might take precedence.

Even though they know more sustained and introspective change might be better, the short-term effort is more attractive and more necessary in the moment.”

Strategies for personality change

Other studies have been more optimistic about personality change.

For example, psychological therapies do make people more emotionally stable.

Being more physically active makes people more extraverted, conscientious, agreeable and open to new experience.

Indeed, Dr Baranski thinks people can change their personality, but it requires more dedicated effort:

“There is evidence in clinical psychology that therapeutic coaching leads to change in personality and behavior, and there is recent evidence that suggests that when there’s a lot of regular interaction with an experimenter, personality change is possible.

But when individuals are left to their own devices, change may not be as likely.”

One of the keys to personality change is making very specific behavioural plans for certain situations.

For example, if you want to be more extraverted, you might say to yourself: “If I see someone I know, then I’ll go over and say hello.”

The new, desired behaviours can lead to changes in self-concept.

Dr Baranski  concluded:

“Across all the studies that have been done on this topic over the last several years, it’s clear that most people want to change an aspect of their personality.

If left unattended, those goals aren’t achieved, so it would be helpful for people who have those goals to know what is necessary for them to accomplish them.”

Time itself naturally changes our personalities, often for the better.

As they get older, many people become more emotionally stable, more agreeable and more conscientious, one study has found.

Somewhere approaching half of the participants in that study saw changes in their personality over five decades.

→ Read on: How to change your personality

The study was published in the Journal of Personality Research (Baranski et al., 2020).

It is possible to change a neurotic personality, results of 207 separate studies find.

People become significantly less neurotic after undergoing therapy, research finds.

After only three months of treatment, people’s emotional stability had improved by half as much as it would over their entire adulthood.

People who were anxious changed the most in the course of therapy, the researchers found.

After having psychotherapy and/or taking medication, people were also slightly more extraverted.

Both reduced neuroticism and increased extraversion were maintained in the long-term.

Professor Brent Roberts, who led the study, said:

“This really is definitive evidence that the idea that personality doesn’t change is wrong.

We’re not saying personality dramatically reorganizes itself.

You’re not taking an introvert and making them into an extravert.

But this reveals that personality does develop and it can be developed.”

The conclusions come from 207 studies including over 20,000 people.

Changing the personality trait of neuroticism is the key to treating many people with depression and anxiety.

Professor Roberts said:

“Some clinical psychologists see neuroticism at the core of every form of psychopathology, whether it’s drug and alcohol abuse, psychopathy, depression or panic disorder.

The fact that we saw the most change in neuroticism is not surprising because, for the most part, that’s what therapists are there to treat.”

Many people incorrectly think personality cannot change, said Professor Roberts:

“It is very common for individuals to think of personality as that part of them that is really distinct and enduring in a way that is recognizable

[however] there never has been any evidence that people are perfectly unchanging, perfectly stable.”

The study’s authors explained the results:

“Interventions were associated with marked changes in personality trait measures over an average time of 24 weeks.

Emotional stability was the primary trait domain showing changes as a result of therapy.”

The personality changes were dramatic, considering how difficult it can be, Professor Roberts said:

“In terms of our expectations, this is a remarkable amount of change.

In about 50 of the studies, the researchers tracked the people down well past the end of the therapeutic situation, and they seemed to have held onto the changes, which is nice.

So, it’s not a situation where the therapist is just affecting your mood.

It appears that you get a long-term benefit.”

→ Read on: How to change your personality

The study was published in the journal Psychological Bulletin (Roberts et al., 2017).

There are two psychological traits that help people resists the connection between stress and biological aging.

Stress makes people age faster, a study confirms.

Even among relatively young and healthy people, those who had experienced more stress displayed biological markers of greater aging than their actual years.

Avoiding stress, therefore, can potentially help you live longer.

Self-control and resilience

There are also two psychological traits that help people resists the connection between stress and biological aging.

Both resilience and self-control help people defy the aging effects of stress on their bodies.

Self-control refers to the ability to manage our actions and emotions — indeed, higher self-control is linked to looking younger.

Psychological resilience is the ability to overcome challenges and return to a stable frame of mind relatively quickly.

Both of these factors are potentially powerful as they allow people to avoid some of the ravages of stress on their body.

Prolonged stress has been shown to increase the risk of:

• mood disorders like depression and anxiety,
• heart disease,
• addiction,
• post-traumatic stress disorder,
• and obesity.

Stress also stops people thinking clearly and regulating their emotions efficiently.

Dr Zachary Harvanek, the study’s first author, said:

“These results support the popular notion that stress makes us age faster, but they also suggest a promising way to possibly minimize these adverse consequences of stress through strengthening emotion regulation and self-control.”

Epigenetic clock

The study included 444 people who had their biological age measured and compared to their actual, chronological age.

Biological age is revealed  by natural chemical changes that occur to DNA, which are known as ‘epigenetic clocks’.

The results showed that these epigenetic clocks had run slower in people who had experienced less prolonged stress.

However, psychological resilience and self-control made a longer and healthier life more likely, even in the face of stress.

Professor Rajita Sinha, study co-author, said:

“We all like to feel like we have some agency over our fate.

So it is a cool thing to reinforce in people’s minds that we should make an investment in our psychological health.”

The study was published in the journal Translational Psychiatry (Harvanek et al., 2021).

The signs of a reserved personality can be seen at 14-months-old.

People who are inhibited as children tend to grow up into reserved introverts, research finds.

Inhibition as a child involves cautious, fearful and avoidant behaviour towards unfamiliar objects, people and situations.

Children who show this sort of behaviour are at a greater risk for anxiety disorders and social withdrawal later on.

People showing this pattern early on were also likely to have fewer romantic partners and lower social functioning, the study found.

However, being reserved had no negative effects on people’s success in education or employment.

Dr Daniel Pine, study co-author, said:

“While many studies link early childhood behavior to risk for psychopathology, the findings in our study are unique.

This is because our study assessed temperament very early in life, linking it with outcomes occurring more than 20 years later through individual differences in neural processes.”

The study involved 165 infants who were tracked first at 14 months-old, then at 15-years-old and later at 26-years-old.

Dr Nathan Fox, study co-author, said:

“It is amazing that we have been able to keep in touch with this group of people over so many years.

First their parents, and now they, continue to be interested and involved in the work.”

In adolescence they were given a wide variety of psychological and neurophysiological tests.

One test was for people’s ‘error related negativity’ — in other words, how sensitive they were to making mistakes.

People who are highly sensitive to their mistakes tend to develop anxiety-related problems.

Those who are not sensitive enough to their mistakes are at risk of problems like substance abuse and impulsive behaviour.

The results showed that infants who were inhibited tended to grow up into reserved adults.

Dr Fox said:

“We have studied the biology of behavioral inhibition over time and it is clear that it has a profound effect influencing developmental outcome.”

• 8 Superb Signs You Have An Introvert Personality

The study was published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (Tang et al., 2020).