Empirical Paper
Your Personality Does Not Care Whether You Believe It Can Change: Beliefs About Whether Personality Can Change Do Not Predict Trait Change Among Emerging Adults
Nathan W. Hudson,
R. Chris Fraley,
Daniel A. Briley,
William J. Chopik,
Corresponding Author
Nathan W. Hudson
Department of Psychology, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, TX, USA
Correspondence to: Nathan W. Hudson, Department of Psychology, Southern Methodist University, PO Box 750442, Dallas, TX 75275, USA.
E-mail: nwhudson@smu.edu
Search for more papers by this authorR. Chris Fraley
Department of Psychology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Champaign, IL, USA
Search for more papers by this authorDaniel A. Briley
Department of Psychology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Champaign, IL, USA
Search for more papers by this authorWilliam J. Chopik
Department of Psychology, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA
Search for more papers by this authorNathan W. Hudson,
R. Chris Fraley,
Daniel A. Briley,
William J. Chopik,
Corresponding Author
Nathan W. Hudson
Department of Psychology, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, TX, USA
Correspondence to: Nathan W. Hudson, Department of Psychology, Southern Methodist University, PO Box 750442, Dallas, TX 75275, USA.
E-mail: nwhudson@smu.edu
Search for more papers by this authorR. Chris Fraley
Department of Psychology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Champaign, IL, USA
Search for more papers by this authorDaniel A. Briley
Department of Psychology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Champaign, IL, USA
Search for more papers by this authorWilliam J. Chopik
Department of Psychology, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA
Search for more papers by this authorThis article earned Open Data and Open Materials badges through Open Practices Disclosure from the Center for Open Science: https://osf.io/tvyxz/wiki. The data and materials are permanently and openly accessible at https://osf.io/bq7xz/. Author's disclosure form may also be found at the Supporting Information in the online version.
Abstract
Theorists have suggested that beliefs about whether personality can change might operate in a self-fulfilling fashion, leading to growth in personality traits across time. In the present two studies, we collected intensive longitudinal data from a total of 1339 emerging adults (ns = 254 and 1085) and examined the extent to which both global beliefs that personality can change (e.g. ‘You can change even your most basic qualities’) and granular beliefs that the individual Big Five personality domains can change (e.g. ‘You can change how extraverted and enthusiastic you generally are’) predicted trait change across approximately 4 months. Results indicated that traits did change across time, yet beliefs that personality can change were almost completely unrelated to actual change in personality traits. Our findings suggest that personality development during emerging adulthood does not depend to any meaningful degree on whether or not individuals believe that their traits can change. © 2020 European Association of Personality Psychology
Supporting Information
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