Can People Change Gender In Their Next Life

When I was xvi years old, I was a pretty outgoing teen with lots of friends and a busy social calendar. I took my academics seriously and was diligent about doing homework. Merely I also tended to worry a lot and could cry at the drop of a hat.

Now here I am more than 50 years later, and, in many ways, I seem much the aforementioned: extraverted and conscientious, but a fleck neurotic. Does that mean that my personality hasn't inverse over the last half-century?

Non necessarily. Many of united states of america tend to think of personality as existence fixed and unchangeable—the function of you that is inherently who you lot are. But according to a recent study, while our early personalities may provide a baseline, they are surprisingly malleable as we age.

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In this study, researchers had access to unusual survey information. American adolescents had filled out questionnaires about their personalities in the 1960s and then had washed so again fifty years subsequently, reporting on personal qualities associated with the "Big Five" personality traits:

Extraversion: How outgoing, social, cheerful, or total of energy and enthusiasm you are in social settings.
Agreeableness: How warm, friendly, helpful, generous, and tactful you are.
Emotional stability (or its reverse, neuroticism): How calm, content, and unflappable—versus anxious, angry, jealous, lonely, or insecure—you are.
Conscientiousness: How organized, efficient, and committed you are to finishing projects or reaching your goals.
Openness to experience: How curious, adventuresome, and receptive you are to new ideas, emotions, and experiences.

Some of the findings were quite provocative. Almost notably, people'south personality traits did not always stay the aforementioned over the five decades, with many people showing quite dramatic changes.

"Some of the changes we saw in personality traits over the 50 years were very, very big," says the lead author of the report, Rodica Damian of the University of Houston. "For emotional stability, conscientiousness, and agreeableness, the changes were 1[southward] which would exist clearly visible to others."

On the other hand, that didn't mean that people didn't stay true to their personality traits over time at all. Coauthor Brent Roberts of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign says that much of our personality does seem to stay the same—only not as much every bit nosotros might await. For example, an extraverted teenager similar me would have a 63 percent chance of nonetheless identifying equally an extravert in their 60s, he says.

Why does this matter? Thinking of personality as fixed could lead us to feel like we can never abound, or to dismiss people with certain qualities we don't like, concerned that change isn't possible when that'south non the instance.

Still, we don't simply modify our personalities in random ways, explicate the researchers. What seems to be more consequent over time is the relationship amid all of our personality traits. This means that if someone tended to exist really conscientious but a chip disagreeable or neurotic early, they might proceed that relative personality profile as they aged, fifty-fifty if some of their traits shifted a chip.

Additionally, the researchers found that adolescents as a group tended to motility in a positive direction for particular traits—like emotional stability, conscientiousness, and conjuration—after 50 years, suggesting a growth in social maturity.

"These attributes of social maturity are expert things to acquire, if yous want to get forth with your spouse and coworkers and stay salubrious," Roberts says.

This finding fits well with some of Roberts'southward prior research showing that people experience smaller, incremental personality changes over shorter periods of time. And it helps confirms his theory that personality change is cumulative over our lifespan, likely happens in response to our life experiences, and often leans in a positive, helpful direction.

And then, apparently, our personalities are a mix of stable and unstable. Roberts advises parents and teachers to keep that in heed when they try to influence their children to be more responsible or mature. Change, when it happens, occurs gradually rather than all at once, he says, which means nosotros demand patience with kids who are growing into themselves.

"If you go into the enterprise of shaping your child's personality, be apprehensive in your approach…and much more forgiving," he says.

Even the elderly, whom we might look to be more than rigid and set in their ways, tin change. Therapists who work with older clients with neurotic tendencies or troubled relationships should not feel discouraged or surrender, says Damian, given what research shows is possible.

Damian also argues that this research could inform people in long-term relationships. Rather than expecting someone to be the aforementioned person they were decades ago, partners would be improve served by learning to value what remains constant in someone's personality while simultaneously embracing personality shifts as they occur.

"If you lot married someone considering they're a fine person, they're probably yet going to be a fine person later on; so that'southward reassuring," she says. "But at the same time, it'due south of import to proceed an eye on them to encounter how they're changing, then you don't get blindsided by the changes and grow apart."

Then, am I irresolute myself? I hope so—at to the lowest degree on some level. I similar the idea of letting become of some of my neuroticism, while becoming more than agreeable and conscientious as I enter my older years.

Who knows? Maybe I am the teen I used to be…just a fleck more than mature.