Is Personality Development an Ethical Obligation or Just Confusion?
We might feel obligated to improve certain aspects of our personality, while other aspects are less flexible and more morally neutral. We should all strive to be more honest, compassionate, and tolerant; however, we cannot expect overly enthusiastic people to calm down or shy people to become bolder.
This line of thought is impacted by the distinction between "basic personality traits" like shyness and "character traits" like compassion. Psychological research demonstrates this division, as studies of personality in the 20th century concentrated on the presumed immoral characteristics of the self. Many psychologists still believe that the five fundamental traits—conscientiousness, agreeableness, openness, extraversion, and emotional stability (previously known as neuroticism)—can help us categorize individuals worldwide.
Some of these traits are more clearly ethical than others. Beginning in the late 1990s, the positive psychology movement focused on traditional virtues such as kindness and forgiveness to compensate for their absence in other studies. Studying character traits is one area of psychology, studying the basic personality is another.
To explain the variations in their ethical traits, researchers usually point to two primary distinctions between personality and character. The first distinction implies that while personality cannot be developed through practice, character can. Therefore, each individual is responsible for developing their character. You deserve appreciation if you are sincere because you have reached where you are through effort. However, if you are harsh, you deserve blame for failing to change that.
On the other hand, personality is thought to be largely fixed and inherited, which is where the notion of character changeability originates. Therefore, little can be done to change personality, even though it is desirable and significant from an ethical standpoint.
Although the growing field of "voluntary personality change" casts doubt on the supposed difference between personality and character, researchers have found that people's personality development depends on whether or not they genuinely desire change and whether or not they take effective action to bring about this change.
One group of researchers led by psychologist Nathan Hudson at Southern Methodist University began publishing studies in 2015 on whether having the desire to change one’s personality was related to actual changes in personality. Last year, they published a large-scale analysis of twelve separate datasets collected to test this idea, showing that changes in the five fundamental personality traits occur in individuals eager to develop their personalities.
Should Personality Development Be Driven by Desire?
Psychologists have investigated whether intentional interventions can change people's personalities. The best evidence for this was presented in a study that was published in 2021. It randomly selected 1523 participants from a treatment group, which used a smartphone application to provide "precision interventions," encouraging participants to make the desired changes in their personalities, offering educational psychological videos, and guiding participants to reflect on their progress. The participants reported real improvement and observed the change by others, and it persisted for a minimum of three months.
This implies neither character change nor personal development are simple processes. In both situations, if we so choose, there might be actions we can take to change our personalities. However, the question remains: is it truly necessary for you to desire to change your personality? It might not be desirable or morally significant to change one's personality, even if possible.
This leads us to the second supposed distinction between character and personality. In contrast to personality traits, character traits are thought to reveal an individual's motives or values. For example, a generous person values doing good deeds for others, and an honest person values being truthful. In contrast, personality traits are meant to provide information about an individual's typical behavioral patterns rather than the reasons behind those patterns.
Considering this distinction, changing your character involves changing your values, which has the potential to make you a better or worse person. However, changing your personality traits involves changing only your behaviors, not values. Therefore, while character change is morally significant and desirable, personality change is not.
Even if it is true that changing your personality does not make you a better or worse person, this does not mean that personality change is morally insignificant. Changes in five fundamental personality traits can be ethically valuable due to their impact on outcomes. For example, personality differences can predict various important outcomes in different aspects of life, including success in love, work, safety, health, and longevity. Personality is a good predictor of certain social and economic situations or cognitive abilities.
Furthermore, character traits and personality traits are related. For example, one recent study found that all 24 of the most widely studied virtues in positive psychology are significantly related to at least one aspect measured by the five fundamental personality traits. It's possible to consider personality traits as a kind of psychological foundation that either helps or hinders the development of virtue. Therefore, attempting to change one's personality may be morally significant, even if it is merely for practical purposes.
In addition to these key points, some recent approaches in psychology emphasize that personality traits involve values and motivations. People's behavioral differences can be interpreted as a reflection of their extraversion or conscientiousness and may be linked to differences in fundamental psychological traits, including individual interests.
Recently, the study of the relationship between goals and personality traits has begun. In one study, researchers discovered that 74% of the variances in people's everyday behaviors linked to extraversion were predicted by differences in goals. According to a different study, there was more to this correlation than just a correlation. Variations in goals caused variations in personality-related behaviors. To verify this, participants were asked to adopt either conscientiousness-related goals or extraversion-related goals and then follow their daily lives for a short period before returning to the lab. As a result, it became evident that the participants' goals could predict whether or not they displayed extraverted or conscientious behaviors.
This research confirms that an individual's goals partially form personality traits. Individuals prioritizing values like having fun or fitting in are likelier to be extroverted. Conscientious people probably care about finishing tasks on time or managing their time well.
If these ideas are true, they disprove the main distinction that has been made between personality and character. Personality, like character, reflects an individual's values and motivations. However, when a personality change includes a change in these values, it might be beneficial in and of itself rather than only impacting other matters related to ethical values.
Interestingly, research has found that most people want to change their five fundamental personality traits, even if they don’t realize it. They typically aspire to improve their conscientiousness, agreeability, extraversion, openness, and emotional stability. Furthermore, throughout their lives, people tend to change each of the five fundamental personality traits slightly. However, the research above indicates that change can occur more quickly and purposefully than previously thought and may involve a radical shift in individuals' interests.
Opportunities for personality development become more accessible as we investigate the reasons behind particular personality traits and learn how to change personality. Right now, as a starting point, there is an easy step to reconsider our beliefs; perhaps it would be best if we abandoned the idea of the perfect, morally neutral personality. As a result, we may be able to change how we view personality and evolve.