Personality traits are less stable than people think

Researchers and laypeople alike have traditionally viewed personality as being highly stable across the lifespan. Although years of recent research supports personality’s malleability, it is unclear how lifespan changes in personality traits compare to changes in other individual differences and how the public perceives their relative stability. Here, we investigate these perspectives using a multimethod, comparative approach across personality and other individual differences. In an online survey with a US-representative sample (n = 887), we found that laypeople believe personality traits change significantly less across the lifespan than other variables from domains like health and well-being. In contrast, using data from eight longitudinal panel studies (n = 166,971), we found that changes in personality were similar to many other commonly studied aspects of life, even surpassing lifespan changes in life satisfaction, self-esteem, subjective health, and church attendance, among others. Together, our results highlight that the durable public view that personality traits are among the most stable aspects of life is at odds with the empirical reality. Given the implications of personality change and beliefs about personality change for future outcomes and successful interventions, it is crucial to effectively disseminate evidence to foster accurate beliefs about personality change.