Personality does not persist even over one lifetime

The Watercooler
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The study begins with data from a 1950 survey of 1,208 14-year-olds in Scotland. Teachers were asked to use six questionnaires to rate the teenagers on six personality traits: self-confidence, perseverance, stability of moods, conscientiousness, originality, and desire to learn.

This time, aged 77 years old, the participants rated themselves on the six personality traits, and also nominated a close friend or relative to do the same.

“Correlations suggested no significant stability of any of the 6 characteristics or their underlying factor, dependability, over the 63-year interval,” wrote the researchers. “We hypothesized that we would find evidence of personality stability over an even longer period of 63 years, but our correlations did not support this hypothesis,” they later added.

One one side, it’s good because we’re free to transform ourselves into (even more) wonderful people.

On the other side, there’s no guarantee the next time we meet it’s not on a forum dedicated to bullying orphans and kicking puppies :frowning:

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Yes. Who said it was stable anyway? :laughing:

I sort of feel my personality has scaffolding around it constantly as I work my way through the dhamma!

With metta

Mat

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At 60, the only things that are the same as when I was 14 are that I’m still nearsighted and still like to read. Since every cell in my body has been replaced multiple times, how can I even think of myself as the same person?

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My question is: how did they understand what they were saying? :slight_smile:

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