Psychological Bulletin a Systematic Review of Personality Trait Change Through Intervention Brent W
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Psychological Bulletin A Systematic Review of Personality Trait Change Through Intervention Brent W. Roberts, Jing Luo, Daniel A. Briley, Philip I. Chow, Rong Su, and Patrick L. Hill Online First Publication, January 5, 2017. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/bul0000088 CITATION Roberts, B. W., Luo, J., Briley, D. A., Chow, P. I., Su, R., & Hill, P. L. (2017, January 5). A Systematic Review of Personality Trait Change Through Intervention. Psychological Bulletin. Advance online publication. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/bul0000088 Psychological Bulletin © 2017 American Psychological Association 2017, Vol. 142, No. 12, 000 0033-2909/17/$12.00 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/bul0000088 A Systematic Review of Personality Trait Change Through Intervention Brent W. Roberts Jing Luo and Daniel A. Briley University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign University of Tübingen Philip I. Chow Rong Su University of Virginia Purdue University Patrick L. Hill Carleton University The current meta-analysis investigated the extent to which personality traits changed as a result of intervention, with the primary focus on clinical interventions. We identified 207 studies that had tracked changes in measures of personality traits during interventions, including true experiments and prepost change designs. Interventions were associated with marked changes in personality trait measures over an average time of 24 weeks (e.g., d ϭ .37). Additional analyses showed that the increases replicated across experimental and nonexperimental designs, for nonclinical interventions, and persisted in longitudinal follow-ups of samples beyond the course of intervention. Emotional stability was the primary trait domain showing changes as a result of therapy, followed by extraversion. The type of therapy employed was not strongly associated with the amount of change in personality traits. Patients presenting with anxiety disorders changed the most, and patients being treated for substance use changed the least. The relevance of the results for theory and social policy are discussed. Keywords: personality trait change, clinical psychology, personality change, intervention Supplemental materials: http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/bul0000088.supp A significant body of evidence has accumulated to show that necessarily be fate because people could develop in ways that personality traits predict meaningful life outcomes, such as eco- might positively impact their future. nomic well-being, relationship success, health, and longevity (see, The answer to the question of whether personality traits change e.g., Borghans, Duckworth, Heckman, & Ter Weel, 2008; Ozer & is yes, and not just early in the life span. Indeed, multiple studies Benet-Martinez, 2006; Roberts, Kuncel, Shiner, Caspi, & Gold- have now provided evidence that personality traits change in berg, 2007 for reviews). While important findings in their own young adulthood (e.g., Neyer & Asendorpf, 2001; Robins, Fraley, right, the links between personality traits and important life out- Roberts, & Trzesniewski, 2001), middle age (e.g., Hill, Turiano, comes invites the question of whether personality is fate. This Mroczek, & Roberts, 2012), and even old age (e.g., Mõttus, question is really a question of whether personality traits change. Johnson, & Deary, 2012; Mroczek & Spiro, 2003; Small, Hertzog, If personality traits do change, then personality traits would not Hultsch, & Dixon, 2003). Moreover, meta-analytic work has sug- gested that people become more confident, agreeable, conscien- tious, and emotionally stable with age (Roberts, Walton, & Viech- This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers. tbauer, 2006). That said, the rate of personality trait change This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly. demonstrated in all of these studies is rather modest. Therefore, Brent W. Roberts, Department of Psychology, University of Illinois, normative changes in personality traits may provide little comfort Urbana-Champaign, and LEAD Graduate School, University of Tübingen; Jing Luo and Daniel A. Briley, Department of Psychology, University of for those starting life low on key traits, such as conscientiousness. Illinois, Urbana-Champaign; Philip I. Chow, Department of Psychology, By the time these individuals might catch up with their peers, they University of Virginia; Rong Su, Department of Psychological Sciences, may be too old to take advantage of the opportunities afforded by Purdue University; Patrick L. Hill, Department of Psychology, Carleton growth. University. Nonetheless, the fact that personality traits do change through- We are grateful to Terrie Moffitt, Avshalsom Caspi, Emily Durbin, out the life course invites a reasonable question: Can personality Michael Bagby, Lee Anna Clark, and Rodica Damian for helpful com- traits be changed through intervention? Moreover, if personality ments made on earlier drafts of the article. traits can be changed, how fast does the change occur and does the Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Brent W. Roberts, Department of Psychology, University of Illinois, Urbana- change remain once it has occurred? Within the field of personality Champaign, 603 East Daniel Street, Champaign, IL 61820. E-mail: psychology, there is a distinct lack of research investigating tech- [email protected] niques to change personality traits, thus the question would appear 1 2 ROBERTS, LUO, BRILEY, CHOW, SU, AND HILL to have not been systematically addressed. However, in clinical therapy. The assumption underlying both positions is that any psychology there is a long-standing, if relatively unappreciated, given personality trait measure captures both state and trait vari- current of research that incorporates personality trait measures to ance to some unknown degree. The first position, the state-artifact test the effectiveness of various forms of therapeutic interventions position, argues that any changes seen in personality trait measures on clinical outcomes, such as anxiety and depression. In almost all that appear as the result of therapy can be attributed to the state- cases, the focus of these studies was not to change personality level variance in personality trait measures (Du, Bakish, Ravin- traits (cf. Tang et al., 2009), but simply to track the effectiveness dran, & Hrdina, 2002; Gracious, 1999; Marchevsky, 1999). For of therapy while using a wide variety of measures. The effort to be example, an episode of depression would cause an inflection in comprehensive in assessing potential outcomes has resulted in a personality trait scores because it would push down the state surprisingly large corpus of studies that include change in person- variance of a relevant trait-like emotional stability. Once the de- ality trait measures. pressive state is lifted, one would expect trait scores to rise too. The overarching question of whether measures of personality The increase in personality traits, such as emotional stability, traits can and do change in therapy is not only an interesting would not be attributable to change in the trait component of the question, but also one that is highly relevant to the theory and construct but the state component instead. Therefore, what looks utility of personality traits. Theoretically and conceptually, the like personality trait change (e.g., the decrease in emotional sta- topic of personality trait development was not the focus of per- bility associated with a major depressive episode and the subse- sonality research for many years because the field was dominated quent increase in the trait as the depression lifted) would only be by extreme positions that characterized personality either as es- temporary state changes that result from the fact that our trait sentially fixed (an essentialist position) or as so inconsistent that it measures are imperfect and capture both state and trait variance. was inconsequential (contextualist; see Roberts & Caspi, 2001). Conversely, the cause-correction hypothesis (Soskin et al., Accordingly, dominant theoretical models of personality provide 2012) proposes that the changes demonstrated in psychological little theoretical help to explain the fact that personality traits outcomes, such as depression, are the result of changes in the trait exhibit both continuity and change. Recently, however, theoretical component and not the state component of personality. For exam- frameworks have been developed that treat personality traits as ple, a double-blind placebo control trial (Tang et al., 2009) showed developmental constructs (Durbin & Hicks, 2014; Roberts & Jack- that taking paroxetine (an antidepressant) resulted in both im- son, 2008). The central perspective within the more developmental provement in depression and increases in emotional stability. Most take on personality traits is that they combine both continuity and importantly, the changes in emotional stability were differentiated change and typically change slowly and incrementally (Roberts, from changes in depression and appeared to be the mechanism 2006) with meaningful change taking course over the span of years through which lasting changes in depression were made, as they rather than weeks. The existence of personality trait change that mediated the effect of antidepressants on depression and long-term occurs within the time-line of a typical therapeutic context would relapse. challenge