Christian Jarrett || The Science of Personality Change

Italia and The Guardian. He was the founding editor and creator of the British Psychological Society's Research Digest, presenter of their Psyche Crunch podcast, and an award winning journalist on The Psychologist magazine. His books include The Rough Guide to Psychology and Greatness of the Brain. His most recent book is called Be Who You Want, Unlocking the Science of Personality Change. Christen, So nice to finally meet you and talk to you you two school. Thank you for having

me talk to you on the podcast. I should say we've talked on Twitter, DMS. We have. Yeah, And I think I wrote for you many years ago when you launched the creativity post. Wow, that that was a lifetime ago. Yeah, I know. Yeah, So we go right back, we do? We do? So is it true that I can be who I want? I think within reason, you can definitely become a better version of yourself, and you can you can change yourself in ways to help you live according

to your values and what matters to you most in life. Okay, so that was my cheeky question, But I want to like back up to like your childhood for a second. You said that when you were a child you were characterized as too quiet by your teachers when you were when you were a teenager, Is that right? So how did you burst out of the shell when you started university? Yeah?

My teacher reports when I was at school, they all basically said the same thing that I don't talk enough and I'm hiding in the shadows and trying to get me to contribute more. Yeah, which I think was true

to an extent. And yeah, when I went to university, Well, I think one thing is some of the crowd that I fell in with, I made good friends from the beginning with a real out and out extrovert, and I think that speaks to the fact that one of the strongest influences on our personalities is the people that we mix with. I also, I think, you know, my own goals changed. I wanted to have fun when I arrived at university and the whole media there was. It was

encouraged and more sociable lifestyle. But I think the fact that I was so influenced by some of the friends I had is consistent with some theory, like and findings in the psych research that our personalities are to a large degree affected by our relationships and the and the the personalities of our friends and so on rub off on us. And also the kind of you know, the kind of role you play in your friendship group. I think if if you're caricatured a certain way, it can

make it. It can be especially in a way that you don't like. I mean, it can almost make you start to play a certain role and live up to your a certain reputation. So I think when I started university, you know, I had a whole new set of friends and new environment, and that helped me do what I wanted to do, which was, you know, build more outgoing, be more gregarious. And yeah that's that's how I managed it at that time. But a little bit of alcohol

probably helped as well. It does and also living in England, I this this happened to me too. I broke out of my show when I was in England and I was about twenty five on a scholarship to Cambridge just to drop that there. Yeah, but I I really I I went wild. I became friends with this big like punk rocker looking like English British extrovert, and we'd go you know, out all the time, and and I was like, wow, I can do this, you know. But but it didn't last too It didn't last too long. I feel like

my my introverted tendencies kept calling you back. But look, let me ask you something you know about the biological aspect of this. You know, in the research that that you did for this book, what role did you find for biology? And uh and temperament? Yeah, well, personality definitely gets beneath the skin, as they say, so I think often it feels personality can seem very abstract, like is it a real thing or is it just a description?

And there are quite a few findings coming out now on I mean, the neuroscience of personality is a real burgeoning area. So you know, true, Yeah, strong introverts, you know, their brains will if you scan their brains and a brain scanner, you'll find their brains really are more sensitive

to stimulation. For example, if you compare like high scorers and neuroticism, whoseff you know, who experience highs and lowers of emotion compared with someone lower neuroticism, who's very emotionally stable, even down to the level of the myelination of nerve fibers. You kind of see these differences between these groups. Even things like gut bacteria, Like people high in neuroticism tend to have more so called bad bacteria in their guts.

Things like that inflammate market biological markets of information are higher and people lower in conscientiousness, people higher and neuroticism. So you know, whether it's brain activity or brain structure, or your you know, your inflammation in your body and your go bacteria, all these different levels, You've got personality manifesting at these different levels. Yeah. Sure, did you come across my colleague Colin de Young's work at all? It

doesn't ring a bell? Well what she found? His name is Colin and he he Colin the Young, really leading leading the charge in the field of personality. Yeah, I have. Yeah, I think he's I think I cite his work in the book. Oh no, I'm actually I'm actually talking to him today for the podcast oh brilliant. I think he did a kind of a neat review of the kind of neuroscience for us. Now. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I was in that lab in grad school. That was the lab I was in, and he was the post doc

in the lab. Yeah, really, really awesome. Guy deserves a lot, a lot of credit. So there's lots of do you know with the miss unpacking the mysteries of personality sciences, It's like, well we could there's so many different entry is you know, so we just discussed biology a little bit in the effect the biology doesn't doesn't make destiny though, right, I think it's important important to point out too. You know this that's nurse Yeah, oh well, I mean the

biology of personality. One thing it points to is how important our health and kind of sport behaviors are if you want to change your personality for the better. So you it might not seem directly related to personality, but by working on your physical health you can actually benefit your personality. Yeah, yeah, that's that's that's very true. Do

you do you work on your physical health? If anything, I'm probably a little bit prone to big, a bit addicted to I'm one of those people who doesn't like it, you know, if I miss the chance. So yeah, yeah, I like I'm guilty of one of the being one of the annoying people who have joined the Peloton family. Yeah, I thought about that. I thought about the Peloton world. Okay, So there are a lot of things that can influence personality.

What about like that the whole research literature on changing roles, like if you go to a new job or an or you like, change your identity, you know, your work identity changes. That could be one thing, right, definitely. Yeah, that's one of the sort of strongest theories in the personality change literature and better supported theories, I would say, yeah, social investment theory, I think they I think they call it. So, yeah, the job, the roles we take on in life do

shape us. We get feedback on how we're expected to behave and so yeah, if you begin a new job, especially, I think if you find it rewarding and you enjoy it, and you're given clear feedback on how you what is expected of you, I think you're bound to see increase in trade conscientiously. Yes, And that's what you see with

graduates when they get their first jobs. Their conscientiousness typically increases after a job promotion, you tend to see people get an increase in trade conscientiousness, And I meant more extreme examples would be things like people who go into special forces training or military training. You know, then you get to see even sharper increases and maybe lower neuroticism, that kind of thing. So at what leadership positions again,

you get these kind of changes. So yeah, definitely, I think it doesn't have to be work, of course, but I think the roles that we take on in life because because they demand certain things of us, and if we are motivated and we're rewarded for certain kinds of behavior, because a lot of personality is ultimately built on the habits of our thinking and our emotions and our behavior. If we are rewarded for behaving in certain ways over period of time, it's going to shape us over time. Yeah,

ultimately changing our personalities. Yeah, but didn't like the behavioral genetics research kind of change our ideas about what exactly has the biggest influence on our personality differences as we like, you know jeth Rich Harris's book with seminal in saying, well, our peers, you know, have a lot more influenced their parents. That's what she said. Yeah, what do you think about that? Yeah, yeah,

I think that's I think that's right. I think, of course, there's a whole industry built around, you know, how to parent, how to be a good parent, and it can which I think it can be very anxiety provoking for parents. And yeah, the research, a lot of it suggests parents influence on their kids' personality besides what they hand down

in their genes is relatively modest. Exactly as you say, it seems to be the unique experiences outside the home, including peer influences, which have more more of an influence. So I don't think that's to say of obviously, parenting is irrelevant, but I think it's more it comes down to more like are you an authoritative parent? Are you are you warm and encouraging and consistent that will be beneficial to your child's personality versus are you authoritarian? Are

you cold and distant and inconsistent? You know? And I think those two broad things you can you could say that the warmer, encouraging style is beneficial for a child's personality and the cold, distant, inconsistent is harmful. But beyond that, yeah, I don't think parents kind of and for a second, kind of deliberately sculpt their kids to have certain kind of personalities. And I've seen I've seen for myself. I have seven year old twins, and I've seen for myself

the limit the limits of parental influence. It's amazing to see what they what, you know, what children bring to the equation in their own obviously their own genetic endowment, that what personality dispositions and proclivities they have that they start out with. But if things are too extreme, you really can mess mess them up, right, Like, like, what's

the research on divorce on on and that effect of personality. Yeah, so when I say the influence of parents is relatively modest, yeah, obviously extremes of you know, neglect and abuse and that kind of thing is going to have no question harmful impact, especially on as you you know, as you know on for example, attachment, a person's attachment through their life. So divorce, I don't think there there's like a specific consistent outcome.

You know, it will depend on how well the parents navigate their separation and how supportive they are of the kids and so on. So I don't think parents should agonize about that too much. But more extreme forms of maltreatment for children, unfortunately can lead especially yeah, to attachment problems. And as I say, you know, children bring their own side to the equations. So I'm sure you'll have heard

of the concept of all kids children. Yeah, there are probably you know, a minority of kids will be extra sensitive to a difficult upbringing, difficult circumstances. The majority of so called dandelion kids will fare better in difficult circumstances. They'll w relatively impervious whether things are incredibly good or terribly bad, whereas the or kid kids, their personalities and

their mental health will suffer more in bad times. But if they are if they have a supportive, loving, nourishing upbringing, they will thrive even more than the dandelion kids. So you get these into it's an interaction between one once genetics and environment through upbringing. Is it's the two, as

you know, interacting with one another. Is that true though, because is that true among dandelions though you just you just said there are some that, regardless of the environment, tend to be really upright and not affected as much. So within reason, maybe there's the whole point there. I think was really cool, A good point. There's individual difference is an extent to which genes and environment interact. Yeah, that's right. So the in the sense that if you

if your genetic disposition inclines you to or kid hie. Yeah, and then the environment is you're more sensitive to the environment, right right, right, But then but then the dandelion, Yeah, it's not as not as there's more of an inner

core there. So I think I think there's there's even just more nuanced than than just kind of like the usual saying like, well, of course environment and genes interact, which they do, which they do, you know, but but I think it's I think what you pointed out is even more interesting, though, is that there's individual differences in the extent to which they interact. Yeah, it's not the same for all of us. Yeah, the the role of

the environment. Environment is more important for some than others, and we tend to talk about it in terms of children, but of course it last through life. Yeah. Yeah. And another really interesting part of that research is that the very same uh environment that if you're if you have the kind of temperament where you can be swayed very easily, if you are raised in a very malnourished environment, you can you develop anxiety, you can develop you're more likely

to develop anxiety kind of like traits. But if you grow up in a support of environment, you're more likely to develop curiosity and exploration like traits. So that's pretty important. You know, fighting is there, you know, I'm sure you read the Summer Camp study on that finding these kids depending on their their genotype, depending on how they were raised and and and and treated, you know, it could

go in two very different directions. Yeah, and I think it's you know, it's so important because it's it's a reminder that people on you know, they're not stuck. The personality isn't sort of one permanent thing. It can be channeled in different directions depending on their experiences in life and how supportive or not they are. And obviously as we get older we can start to be more intentional about that for ourselves. Yeah. So, are there happy events

in life that don't necessarily translate to positive effects on personality? Yeah, Well, we've been speaking about parenthood, so one let's brings to mind immediately. Yeah, is so that that whole social investment theory to do with the roles we take on shaping us in a beneficial ways. You would think becoming a parent, with all the demands that entails, would be like a perfect training camp for trait conscientiousness. But if any, if anything, the research seems to show it goes off the cliff.

You know, parents personality tend to in some ways you could say, suffer in the immediate aftermath of parenthood self esteem. There's this research with mothers suggests self esteem goes down, neuroticism goes up, conscientious goes down, all this kind of stuff. So it's a joyful, happy time, but it's obviously not easy, and I don't think there's a clear explanation in the literature.

Of my own take on it would be that the social investment theory research is based on when you have a role where the demands on you are very clear of what is expected of you, and you get these kind of rewards for behaving in the way it's expected of you. I think with parenthood it's just such a messy, overwhelming time. It's too confusing and chaotic, and it's not clear what's the right thing to do or the wrong

thing to do. Us factoring sleep deprivation and such a radical change in lifestyle and freedom and all these things. I don't think when you, if you pause and think about it, is not so surprising that it comes with these at least short lived challenges with personality. Yeah, well what about dandelions? Can they do they deal with it better? Dandelion parents? Yeah? Yeah, that's something I don't I don't think anyone's looked at that, like as far as I yeah, like,

what is an orchid child? What kind of parent do they become? Or I know, I'm curious. Yeah, and yeah, maybe maybe you would imagine a dandelion parent would maybe cope better, or they'd be more show more trait stability maybe, whereas maybe an orchid parent would, depending on how things are going, show more very you know, more variation. I mean, of course, parenting is very different for different people, depending

on their own circumstances. So you know, whether they're juggling work or not, and whether they have support you know, you have a supportive partner or not. And of course, some children, although we all want to think our kids are bundles of joy, some kids are more of a challenge to raise than us. Well, you know, but there's a strong genet component there, so the difficult children, you're probably a difficult parent, absolutely, and then there's an interaction

so the two end up being very difficult with each other. Yeah, absolutely, yeah, that's right. Yeah, you can get some difficult child parent dynamics unfolding for sure. I think, yeah, you know, high trate and neuroticism, it's going to be handed down and then yeah, you can have all sorts of fire works.

What is the lemon juice personality test? Well, this goes this goes back to hands isainc and you know he had this theory that the key difference between introverts and extroverts is to do it there how sensitive they are

to stimulation. So the lemon juice personality test is you use a Q tip and you put you hang it from a thread, and you put lemon juice on one side, and you put the the plain side in your mouth for a short time, switch it around, put the lemon juice side in your mouth for a short time, and then dangle the QUE tip and see how evenly balanced it is. And the idea is introverts being much more

sensitive to stimulation. They salivate a lot more in response to the lemon juice, which makes that side heavier, So the idea being if you're an introvert, the lemon juice side of the Q tip will dangle down lower. But I've tried this in a tool on personality and in a London bar and it was a disaster. It was. It didn't work out. I mean, if I thought about

it more carefully, I should have known. I mean, imagine people don't want to put a Q tip in their mouth in public and start mucking They're they're issues even pre pandemic. There are issues of cleanliness, understandably and all that kind of stuff. People don't particularly want to rock about with putting things in their mouth and dangling from threats and things. So yeah, it didn't go too well. It became more a test I think of extra version. Probably it was willly or well all No, it's many

be a test extra version. I mean, maybe more a test of conscientiousness. You know, how squeamish. Yeah, yeah, I like how squeamish people. You know. Heines Hans isainc is a bit of a controversial figure. Now a lot of his work has been found to not you know, replicate, and I think he had abhorrent views on certain issues. But anyway, it doesn't mean no one's all good and no one's all bad, is what I like to say.

That's true. Yeah, it's a bit, it's a bit of fun. Really, I don't think it's I wouldn't take the lemon juice test very seriously. It's not a controversy, as you would say. It's not this one. The lemon juice test is not is one of his least controversial things. Uh okay, Well, you know this whole idea of cancel culture, right, that like we should cancel people who because they've done something stupid at one point in their life, or you know, we dig up something they did and high school and

it's like, as a fifty year old, cancel them. Now what do you How does that kind of mentality dovetail with your research on personality change and the idea that maybe people can actually grow over their life. Well, the research and thesis that I put forward in my book is directly against cancel culture. I would say, because I suppose I'm all, I would be all in favor of

giving people a second chance. So I mean, I profile various public figures in the book who had you know, real lows in life or did bad things in their life and who turn managed to turn themselves around, change their personalities for the better. One would be, for example, Marjid Nawaz, who I mean he does. He does remain a controversial figure, but yeah, he was a one time extremist is a miss, you know, in favor of killing homosexuals. And he went around with a night as a teenager

with a knife strap to his back. He ended up jailed for trying to foment terrorism and what have you. He he had this experience in jail where he educated himself intensely. He read, he read widely. He kind of changed his values and goals in life, and he really he became that same you could maybe call it, you know, extreme extra version and almost obsessive drive that he had. He channeled it into being a force for promoting peace and tolerance. So he co founded the world's first kind

of counter extremes organization. Well he's a post. I mean, they may well still be people who would like to cancel him, but you could say if he'd been canceled as a young, very young man, then the world will never have benefited from his peace work. But of course there are less extreme examples than that, and yeah, so I would and what every you know, everyone makes mistakes. We're all make mistakes, so I and we all have the potential to grow and improve ourselves and become better

versions of ourselves. So I yeah, Unfortunately, the cancel culture is you know, anathema to all that. Thanks for not canceling me, for fumbling your bio. I was panted, I know, I know, I saw you. Well, what do I want to talk about next? Well, here's something that a topic that I that I that I that I'd like to discuss. You know what about people with personality disorders? Don't they have unique challenges in trying to change their personalities? Yeah,

they do so well. For a long time, personality disorders were considered untreatable. It was almost part of the definition. So yeah, narcissistic personality disorder or borderline personality disorder, there are quite a long quite a lot of them. Anti social personality disorder. Yeah, so it's been a controversial area in psychiatry and clinical psychology actually for a number of years over whether such people can be helped or helped,

can help themselves, or can change themselves. There is I think, you know, I looked at the whole literature, and I think there's growing evidence that even yes, these people who have particularly problematic personalities that can be helped and can help themselves. There are ways, But what are the new challenges? Like, Like, for instance, if you're a narcissistic personality disorder and you

think there's nothing that needs to be changed. Let's say you think you're perfect, you think that you're the best, you're winning, you're winning. Why would you want to change if you're winning? But let's say you're wreaking havoc everywhere you go. What do you do with that person? Or

how does that you know what's going on there? Yeah, that there are unique challenges with such people, and I would say I have to say intentional, deliberate personality change is always going to be so much harder, if not impossible. If a person does not want to change, it almost goes without saying. So, you're quite right. If someone is does not have insights into there being anything wrong, that is such a huge hurdle to get over in the

first place. I think there are the question of insight in different personality, in different personality disorders, and it will mental health problems in general is a fascinating one. I think there are some people with personality disorders who will have a degree of insight, and so you can you can build on that, you know, can you can work

on that and build on that. There will be people with those narcissistic personality disorder for example, I'm not saying all of them by any means, but especially over time, they might come to see that their way of relating to others and the world is harming them. Over time, actually they will experience more stress, you know, in their life, stressful events than average. They will see that they might thrive early in their social relationships. That tends to be

the pattern people. We tend to like narcissists early on. They make a splash at the beginning, and then we tire of them very quickly. And you know, some narcissists, people who score high and narcissism will will recognize that over time and they might want help and they they can be helped. Besides that, without insight, you know, there are some devious ways to try and work with people with narcissism or psychopathy because you you can try and

play things to their motivation. You know, you if you could try and show them that it's in their interest, for example, to work on certain skills that such as their empathy for example, and if you if you can show them that by increasing their empathy for others, they will be more successful, you know, in their goals, even

though they're remaining kind of selfish. You're you can sneak under the radar, you can you can sneak things like empathy training into and so to them, which of course, if the if things like the empathy training is successful, it will have it will help lower narcis system and psychopathy for example, for example, so that there's a way of framing the interventions in a more tantalizing way for people who are more self interested and self centered. That's

somewhat hopeful. Well, so are there US presidents that are are US presidence in general more likely to display psychopathic traits? And so why yeah, there is evidence to suggest they are especially well, especially a subtrait of psychopathy called fearless dominance there is. So that's the kind of it's a trait that's also found high levels in for example, surgeons

and special forces operatives and that kind of thing. So that the one way of looking at it is as extremely low neuroticism, like almost unnerving levels of emotional stability. So you can you can see why it might be beneficial to a president or a surgeon who has to make life or death decisions or yeah, well, in the case of a president, obviously make decisions that are going to affect millions of people. In case of a surgeon,

you know, slicing with a scalpel into someone's body. And so it's the subtrate or facet of psychopathy that is probably most associated with what some reach research is called like successful psychopathy or success that they talk about so called successful psychopaths. I mean any of these traits in isolation of the others are not are not the whole, right, I mean like you can have you can score high. Let's say the only the only facet of psychopay you

score high in is fearless dominance. It doesn't mean you score high in psychopathy, right, It just means you score high in ferist dominance. I guess on average, if you know, if you took a large sample of people, you would expect the fills dominance to correlate with the other subtrates as well. On our surgeon isn't a psychopath I hope my surgeon just scores high in freist dominance coupled with compassion.

That would be the ideal. Yeah, there there there there was a general paper looking at psychopathy insurgents that it, you know, suggesting it is yeah, higher than average insurgeons, you know. Yeah, and we can see ce CEOs, you know, compathy is supposedly on our retire among CEOs. And but yeah, if you break it down into these subtraits, yeah, the idea would be that you can. You don't score uniformly across all the different subtraits, but you could in theory.

You have some individuals who have a profile where they're they're high on the freest dominance and not so high on the less favorable subtrates. But I mean, some of this is constrable. I know you will know this. You know. People argue about how finally we can break down these different traits, you know, and how much it makes sense to talk about subtraits or not and what have you. You know, some people are skeptical about the dark triad at all, the dark triad. Yeah, have they never met

an asshole before? Well, I think they would lump it into like low agreeability for example, they would, you know, collapse it into the big five. Some people who will more you mean that more likely collapse into hexaco honest humility factor. Yeah, well that's the yeah, for those who favor the sixth Yeah, the big sort of the sixth trait. Yeah yeah, yeah, okay, okay. So what is a challenge

mindset versus a threat mindset? Oh? Well, a challenge mindset is this is this pertains when you have an event ahead of you that you're fretting about that is very demanding. So it could be a sports event, giving a public speech, doing a podcast interview, whatever it might be. And a challenge mindset is if you have a challenge mindset, you see it as within your abilities, within your You believe your capabilities exceed what is going to be demanded of you.

You see it as a learning experience. You see it in terms of what you're going to get out of the experience. A threat mindset is like the reverse of all those So threat mindset you worry that you don't have the skills and abilities to cope. You worry about what the bad things that are going to happen to you out of this situation. You know, all that can go wrong, that would be the threat mindset. So I encountered this way of looking at things in the realm

of sports psychology. I think that's where it originates. I'm not sure. So a sports psychologist might work with an athlete to try and encourage them to have a challenge mindset when they have an event coming up, versus a threat mindset. And there are various things you can do to try and encourage yourself to have one mindset or another, for example, in in this keep keeping the sports context.

Athletes for example, can perform certain rituals before an event to help them feeling you know, somewhat familiar and in control, so that they're not feeling fearful, to encourage those feelings of confidence and that they can cope. And obviously, a sports psychologist can coach an athlete to try and see it as a you know, a learning opportunity rather than seeing it as you know, what are you what am

I going to lose today in this race? You know what's going to go wrong for me today in this race or this giving this speech, or or whatever it might be. You can think, well, what am I going to learn? You know, what am I going to learn? I'm going to I'm going to grow from this experience rather than suffer from it. And yeah, I mentioned it in my book because I think, for example, I think extroverts are probably inclined more to see things as a

challenger than a threat. They're more optimistic by nature, so they naturally see things as a chance that you know, they're hungry for reward, and they see things as an opportunity for reward and pleasure. They go seeking that out

and they're they're willing to take risks. And I suppose, but those of those of us with more introverted inclinations, I see the challenge of us as threat mindset as a way of maybe trying to come out of your shell a little bit, trying to be a bit more willing to take risks and have a more positive, optimistic attitude towards opportunities that come your way in life. I mean, clearly, neuroticism plays a huge role and strong strongly correlated with

the threat mindset. Yeah, exactly. So you've got where extroverts are drawn are drawn to reward, You've got neurotic. Neurotic people are very sensitive to and fearful of punishment. Yeah, and things going badly. Yeah, but there are two different dimensions, so you can get cases like me where I'm a neurotic extrovert. Yeah, you can, I know, and I think

that that's probably not recognized enough. It's the personality interactions that are much more interesting to me than any of these one dimensions in context of the others or devoid of context of the others. I actually wrote an article for Scientific American called Confessions of a Neurotic extra did Yeah. Yeah. The our motto, the motto of neurotic extroverts is act

first and then worry immediately. I like that. Yeah. I sometimes wonder if I am, yeah, like rather than being an introvert, like maybe I'm a kind of a neurotic narcissist or something, you know, like a vulnerable narcissist. Yeah. Like I'd really like to have more attention and be out there more. But I'm just, yeah, my nuaticism is too high, and I find it. I find it too scary. I've read a lot about vulnerable narcissism and which is

mostly a disorder of neuroticism. It really is. Yeah, I think a lot of people like I wrote about that my book Transcender wrote I had a checklist for vulnerable narsial. A lot of people were like memailing me be like that's me. Yeah, Well I think we're all. Look, we're all there's a fun, something fundamentally human about these all these personality traits. I think it's important to recognize that they're all continuums, and we all lie somewhere on these continuums.

So we can at least identify moments when we've been introverted, moments we've been extrovert, moments we've been bold psychopaths, and moments we've been you know, less bold, you know, moments when we've been conscientious. So it's we're just talking about density distributions, right, Yeah, And actually I remember you you

describe it in those terms in your book Transcend. Yeah, and I really yeah, I really like that way of looking at it, because, as you say, it's like we all have these little rather than seeing ourselves as one type. We have all the different types within us, but we just vary and how often we express them, you know, And I think part of intense personality changes it can be a question of just shifting those distributions. It doesn't have to be a profound change. You know, from one

extreme to the other, from black to white. You know, it can be just shifting the distributions a little bit could have I think, massive consequences for your life. So, I mean, that's one way I've looked at it with myself is trying to, for example, increase my willingness to take risks, so to be an extrovert, to be that kind of low low nuticism extrovert a little bit more often.

And who knows if that makes the difference between you having a willingness to go up to someone you know at a networking event, or if it makes the difference to you accepting an invitation one day that you might not have done if you hadn't been working on your personality development. I think the consequences could be meaningful, even with quite subtle shifts, as you put it, in that kind of distribution of your behavior profile in life. Okay, maybe that's a good place to end this episode today.

What do you think? Did that feel? That felt good? Christian? I really appreciate you writing this book and just shining a spotlight on the fact that personality change is possible, not unwimited, unlimited, like some self help gurus claim, but within the realm of science scientific parameters, it's still shining an important spotlight on this topic. And I wish you all the best in this book tour. Well. Thank you

very much, Scott. And you know my book it's you know, I'm standing on the shoulders of giants in the sense that you know, I'm drawing on the work of personality psychologists and researchers like yourself, and you're one of them. And so I'm really grateful for all the work you've done and I'm really grateful to talk to you today. Thanks Christian M.