All for the Best? The Trait Levels People Want to Change

When people want to change, they typically have certain patterns of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors in mind that they want to change in themselves. Such patterns are represented by certain levels in personality traits, implying that people sometimes picture themselves as having different trait levels.

But which traits do people want to change in particular? For which traits do people have "change goals"? And do different people just have different change goals for different traits or are there general patterns of how people want to change? A recent investigation by Isabel Thielmann and Reinout de Vries provides comprehensive evidence to answer these questions.

Source: Gerd Altmann/Pixabay

How people want to change in general

At first, the researchers conducted a meta-analytic review of previous studies looking at change goals for the Big Five traits. Across the studies involving more than 13,000 participants, they found a negative correlation (relation) between people’s own trait levels and their change goals on Emotional Stability, Conscientiousness, and Extraversion, showing that those with lower (typically considered as "less socially desirable") levels on these traits want to have higher levels. Interestingly, however, there was only a small negative relation between trait levels and change goals for Agreeableness, and no correlation at all for Openness to Experience.

The researchers then collected corresponding new data in three studies, looking at the HEXACO (instead of the Big Five) traits. Across the studies and different analyses (e.g., in one study, self- and observer reports of personality were collected), they again found support for negative relations between people’s own trait levels and their change goals for low Emotionality (the HEXACO trait most strongly overlapping with the Big Five's Emotional Stability), Conscientiousness, and Extraversion. Further, they found support for a negative relation for Agreeableness vs. Anger, but not (or only weakly) for Honesty-Humility and Openness to Experience.

Source: Pixource/Pixabay

How the findings can be explained

What the findings show is that for some traits—but not for all—people want to change in a way that they have more "socially desirable" trait levels. For instance, higher levels in Conscientiousness are often considered as more socially desirable because being, e.g., diligent and organized are characteristics that are usually positively evaluated by others (importantly, this refers to evaluations of people from cultures similar to those in which the studies by Thielmann and de Vries were conducted). At the same time, the goal to have more socially desirable trait levels was not apparent for all traits. That is, higher levels in (Big Five) Agreeableness (e.g., being kind, sympathetic, warm) and (HEXACO) Honesty-Humility (e.g., being fair-minded, modest sincere) are typically considered as being more socially desirable, too, but there was no consistent support for a negative relation between people’s own trait levels and their change goals for these traits.

The theoretical explanation resolving this puzzle—and also fitting to the observed patterns for Openness to Experience (which showed virtually no relation between people’s own trait levels and their change goals), as well as the different findings concerning Big Five vs. HEXACO Agreeableness—is the value account (which we know, for example, from research on how people perceive similarities between themselves and others): That is, people do not want to change for the better with regard to these traits that are central to their value system. In the Big Five framework, these are Agreeableness and Openness to Experience, and in the HEXACO framework, these are Honesty-Humility and Openness to Experience (note that there are some differences between Big Five and HEXACO Agreeableness, explaining why, next to Openness to Experience, in the Big Five framework, Agreeableness is most central to people’s value system, whereas, in the HEXACO framework, this is Honesty-Humility). Thus, people with lower trait levels aim for more socially desirable levels in all traits, except those underlying individual differences in values. In such traits, people do not report consistent goals to change.

Source: Gerd Altmann/Pixabay

The role of knowing one’s own trait levels

Thielmann and De Vries did not simply leave it there, however, but wondered whether people would indeed also like to change on the value-related traits once they know about their own trait levels. More illustratively, once people know that they have, say, rather low levels in Honesty-Humility (and, in turn, a socially less desirable trait level), would they want to change then? So, in their last study, the researchers provided (some) participants with feedback about their HEXACO trait levels before the participants indicated their goals to change their personality. In this setting, the differences between Honesty-Humility and Openness to Experience vis-à-vis Emotionality/Extraversion/Agreeableness vs. Anger/Openness to Experience disappeared. Thus, once people have sufficient knowledge about their trait levels, those with lower levels want to change for the better on every trait.

Overall, the investigation shows that when people are asked to indicate how they want to change their personality, those with socially less desirable trait levels aim for more desirable trait levels—except for those traits underlying their value system. For such traits, people do not show a particular desire to change in a socially more desirable direction (which makes sense because this would otherwise indicate that people are generally not satisfied with their behavior in the aspects being of key importance to themselves) unless they receive feedback about their actual trait levels. In this case, people aim for socially more desirable trait levels, too.