Smartphone App to Change Your Personality

Summary: Researchers say a new smartphone app has the power to help change those personality traits you don’t like within three months.

Source: UZH

How quickly can personality traits be modified? An international research team led by the University of Zurich has shown that daily use of a smartphone app can lead to desired personality changes within three months. And three months after the daily interventions, the changes are still noticeable.

Personality traits such as conscientiousness or sociability are patterns of experience and behavior that can change throughout our lives. Individual changes usually take place slowly as people gradually adapt to the demands of society and their environment. However, it is unclear whether certain personality traits can also be psychologically influenced in a short-term and targeted manner.

Researchers from the universities of Zurich, St. Gallen, Brandeis, Illinois, and ETH Zurich have now investigated this question using a digital intervention. In their study, around 1,500 participants were provided with a specially developed smartphone app for three months and the researchers then assessed whether and how their personalities had changed.

The five major personality traits of openness, conscientiousness, sociability (extraversion), considerateness (agreeableness), and emotional vulnerability (neuroticism) were examined. The app included elements of knowledge transfer, behavioral and resource activation, self-reflection, and feedback on progress.

All communication with the digital coach and companion (a chatbot) took place virtually. The chatbot supported the participants on a daily basis to help them make the desired changes.

Changes after three months

The majority of participants said that they wanted to reduce their emotional vulnerability, increase their conscientiousness, or increase their extraversion. Those who participated in the intervention for more than three months reported greater success in achieving their change goals than the control group who took part for only two months.

Close friends and family members also observed changes in those participants who wanted to increase expression of a certain personality trait. However, for those who wanted to reduce expression of a trait, the people close to them noticed little change. This group mainly comprised those participants who wanted to become less emotionally vulnerable, an inner process that is less observable from the outside.

This shows a man playing on his smartphone
A smartphone app measured whether the personalities of around 1,500 participants had changed. Credit: UZH

“The participants and their friends alike reported that three months after the end of the intervention, the personality changes brought about by using the app had persisted,” says Mathias Allemand, professor of psychology at UZH.

“These surprising results show that we are not just slaves to our personality, but that we can deliberately make changes to routine experience and behavior patterns.”

Important for health promotion and prevention

The findings also indicate that development of the personality structure can happen more quickly than was previously believed. “In addition, change processes accompanied by digital tools can be used in everyday life,” explains first author Mirjam Stieger of Brandeis University in the USA, who did her doctorate at UZH. However, more evidence of the effectiveness of digital interventions is needed. For example, it was unclear whether the changes achieved were permanent or only reflected temporary fluctuations.

The present findings are not only interesting for research, but could also find application in a variety of areas of life. In health promotion and prevention, for example, such apps could boost the resources of individuals, as people’s attitude to their situation and personality traits such as conscientiousness have an influence on health and healthy aging.

About this personality and psychology research news

Source: UZH
Contact: Press Office – UZH
Image: The image is credited to UZH

Original Research: Closed access.
Changing personality traits with the help of a digital personality change intervention” by Stieger, M., Flückiger, C., Rüegger, D., Kowatsch, D., Roberts, B. W. & Allemand, M. PNAS


Abstract

Changing personality traits with the help of a digital personality change intervention

Personality traits predict important life outcomes, such as success in love and work life, well-being, health, and longevity. Given these positive relations to important outcomes, economists, policy makers, and scientists have proposed intervening to change personality traits to promote positive life outcomes. However, nonclinical interventions to change personality traits are lacking so far in large-scale naturalistic populations. This study (n = 1,523) examined the effects of a 3-mo digital personality change intervention using a randomized controlled trial and the smartphone application PEACH (PErsonality coACH). Participants who received the intervention showed greater self-reported changes compared to participants in the waitlist control group who had to wait 1 mo before receiving the intervention. Self-reported changes aligned with intended goals for change and were significant for those desiring to increase on a trait (d = 0.52) and for those desiring to decrease on a trait (d = −0.58). Observers such as friends, family members, or intimate partners also detected significant personality changes in the desired direction for those desiring to increase on a trait (d = 0.35). Observer-reported changes for those desiring to decrease on a trait were not significant (d = −0.22). Moreover, self- and observer-reported changes persisted until 3 mo after the end of the intervention. This work provides the strongest evidence to date that normal personality traits can be changed through intervention in nonclinical samples.

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