Comments on: Can You Change Your Personality? Lord of the Rings vs. Schindler’s List

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 00:52:00 +0000

I think personality changes with experience. We go though alot of tough things in ours lives (or so they seem at the time) but I think we learn from the bad situations and change accordingly.

For example I always used to choose the wrong type of men and they would always hurt me (but after getting hurt a few times i realised what my mistakes were, now i have totally differet tastes in men.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 20:07:00 +0000

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By: Jeremy (PsyBlog author)

Jeremy (PsyBlog author) — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 12:17:00 +0000

Petit, thanks for your comment, very interesting.

Wilberforce, it's pretty clear this post is just my opinion. Also, I'm not saying people can't change, but that it's more difficult than movies and other media often imply.

By: Wilberforce

Wilberforce — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 07:37:00 +0000

What a load of tosh. That is probably the least researched piece masquerading as fact I have read.
I completely agree with Romeo above, our self changes to meet the environment. Also, if we can't or don't fundementally change then what do you think psychotherapy is about? Maybe the important questions are 'what is personality?' and 'what is fundemental change?'.

By: petit

petit — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 20:37:00 +0000

Yes I beleave so, I'm a victim of such. Do we forgot our history and those days where mithology ruled. What can we say about false profects? at least.
In my childwood, and after, now-a-days, I'm socially what other made apon my words, and not what I trully beleave! Even my emotions and thoughts are not the same. I'm a really excluded one, with no good feelings or chance to prove myself unless if accepting their willing, or became that self strange person with those self alergic feelings and thoughts.
A hiper-active person, with no contacts with the inner or him self, just accepting what ever is sent and living according to that.
That's the result of no really friends that really understand all created mistified reality around us!

By: Chui Tey

Chui Tey — Mon, 04 Jun 2007 01:42:00 +0000

Personality is like a river. Constant, yet, fleeting.

By: Jeremy (PsyBlog author)

Jeremy (PsyBlog author) — Sat, 02 Jun 2007 10:24:00 +0000

Cole, thanks for the interesting comment. One minor clarification: in this post I'm trying to separate what culture, through film, tells us is possible about change from the reality of how much change we actually undergo. It would be interesting - but sadly next to impossible - to know how much of this process of internalisation actually occurs. I would argue these socialisation processes do not rule us to the extent that Foucault and others (social constructionists) think.

Jack, I like the alternative analysis, although I can't agree with your last point!

By: Jack Boss

Jack Boss — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 13:03:00 +0000

I've been impressed by Schindler's List for a different reason. Its portrait of Schindler reveals a frequently ignored truth: the personality of many heroes includes a healthy dose of risk-taking, self-importance, narcissism, feeling above-the-rules, thrill-seeking, etc. Schindler's pre-WW II lifestyle of womanizing, conniving and amassing wealth *and* his wartime heroics are consistent with these traits. When history demands great risk, I think an argument can be made that there are more important traits than a good moral compass and ethical vision.

By: Cole

Cole — Thu, 31 May 2007 23:29:00 +0000

Clearly "some fundamental human decency" does not exist. The dearth of historical and experiential evidence attests to this.

As for personality transformations, I personally have undergone several and witnessed others do the same. I also disagree completely that [American] culture views the self structure as highly changable. "Be yourself," veritably the mantra driven into every child through tv, media and role models everywhere presumes the existence of an inherent self. AA shows a reasonable success rate for a system of major personality change based on psychological technology that remains at least 150 years behind the times. The structure of the nuclear family, the Western legal structure, the commercial and economic systems all work together to produce highly predicatable individuals who remain unlikely to change their behaviors significantly after the age of 25. Look at what population management consultants have to use as their sample base. Nietzsche's Geneology of Morals, Foucault's Disicpline and Punish and Freud's Civilization and Its Discontents all describe various aspects of the social environment acting to limit variation in the individual; Freud and Nietzsche have more interest in how the individual internalizes the expectations of society while Foucault looks more at how society expedites the process.

Anecdotally I understand that family therapists see preliminary improvements in an individual member dissolve as the stress within the family grows in response. The system attempts to restore homeostasis as the individual's troubles appear only as the visible symptoms of the family's collective illness.

"If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life—he cannot be my disciple."(Luke 14:26)

By: Jeremy (PsyBlog author)

Jeremy (PsyBlog author) — Wed, 30 May 2007 08:27:00 +0000

Romeo, you're right, it's rare that we stay exactly the same - but it's also rare that we change out of all recognition. It's a matter of degree isn't it? I would say it's much more common for us to only change somewhat than to undergo huge transformations.

Greg, in a way you're arguing Schindler didn't change during the film but repressed his real self. That's an interesting intepretation of the film. The point I would make is that Schindler also could have taken an intermediate path. He could have taken his money and left Germany to set up business elsewhere. To go from exploiting Jews to saving their lives was a complete about face.