Category: Personality

The goals people aim for in life change with their personality.

The most common changes in personality between 18 and 40-years-old are to become more agreeable and more conscientious.

Agreeable people tend to be friendly, warm and tactful — always taking into account other people’s feelings.

More conscientious people, meanwhile, tend to be self-disciplined and aim for achievement.

Now, research finds that the goals people aim for in life change with their personality.

For example, people who became more agreeable over the years focus more on relationship and family goals.

People who became more self-controlled and organised tend to value family and economic goals.

Dr Olivia E. Atherton, the study’s first author, said:

“This study was a unique opportunity to examine how individuals’ personalities and major life goals were related to each other across two decades of life.

We found that, in many ways, one’s personality shapes the types of life goals that are valued, and as a result of pursuing those goals, personality changes.”

The study included over 500 people who tracked over more than 20 years.

They were asked about their goals for their careers, for being wealthy, for having a family and for being active in politics or religion.

The researchers then looked at these goals and compared them with people’s personalities.

One famous figure who promoted the benefits of goal-seeking was Albert Einstein, who said:

“If you want to live a happy life, tie it to a goal, not to people or things.”

The study’s authors write:

“Einstein’s tendency to be creative, curious, and intellectual likely fuelled his scientific goals, as well as his more aesthetic goals, such as his passion for playing the violin.”

The results of the study revealed that people’s personalities change in reliable ways:

“We found that, on average, individuals increased in agreeableness and conscientiousness, decreased in neuroticism, and showed little change in openness to experience and extraversion from age 18 to 40.”

People place less importance on goals as they got older, the research also found:

“By identifying their own personal strengths and limitations, middle-aged adults may place less importance on certain major life goals because some goals may no longer be viewed as self-relevant.”

The study was published in the journal Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin (Atherton et al., 2020).

People with this personality trait tend to have better health habits and more stable jobs and marriages.

People who are conscientious and careful live the longest lives, research finds.

Conscientious people tend to be self-disciplined and they aim for achievement.

Two aspects of conscientiousness have the strongest link to a long life:

1. A preference for order,
2. and an orientation towards achievement.

Careful people are also less likely to smoke or drink and experience lower levels of stress.

In more bad news for people trying to enjoy their lives, happiness seems to have little connection with a long life.

The reason is that cheerful, laid-back people tend to be more careless about their health.

Persistent and conscientious people, though, get that check-up.

The conclusions come from an analysis of 20 different studies which included over 8,900 people in many countries.

Being more conscientious was consistently linked to living a longer life.

It is probably because conscientious people tend to have better health habits and more stable jobs and marriages.

Conscientiousness is one of the five major aspects of personality, along with agreeableness, extraversion, openness to experience and neuroticism.

Professor Howard S. Friedman, the study’s co-author, said:

“The major finding is that this conscientiousness aspect of personality is indeed reliably predictive of mortality risk across studies.

This seems to be as important as most commonly assessed medical risk factors, few of which are psychological.”

If you are not that conscientious, there is still hope, said Dr Margaret L. Kern, study co-author:

“There is some evidence that people can become more conscientious, especially as they enter stable jobs or good marriages.

We think our findings can challenge people to think about their lives and what may result from the actions they do.

Even though conscientiousness cannot be changed in the short term, improvements can emerge over the long run as individuals enter responsible relationships, careers and associations.”

The study was published in the Journal of Personality (Kern & Friedman, 2008).

This personality trait can be boosted using simple exercises.

People who are optimistic tend to live longer, research finds.

In fact, being optimistic — a trait that can be boosted — can increase the odds of reaching 85-years-old by up to 70 percent.

Optimism has also been linked to better memory, psychological resilience and higher quality of life.

Optimistic people tend to expect positive outcomes in the future.

Critically, optimists believe they can control their lives and make improvements.

So, optimistic people may live longer partly because they develop healthier behaviours.

Psychological resilience is also a factor, said Dr Eric Kim, the study’s first author:

“While most medical and public health efforts today focus on reducing risk factors for diseases, evidence has been mounting that enhancing psychological resilience may also make a difference.

Our new findings suggest that we should make efforts to boost optimism, which has been shown to be associated with healthier behaviors and healthier ways of coping with life challenges.”

The study included 70,021 nurses, whose health was tracked over six years.

The results showed that the most optimistic women had a 30 percent lower risk of dying than the least optimistic women.

Among the reduced risks linked to optimism were:

• 38 percent lower chance of dying from heart disease,
• 52 percent lower chance of dying from infection,
• 16 percent lower chance of dying from cancer.

Optimism can be learned

The good news is that optimism is not fixed in stone.

Exercises such as visualising your ‘best possible self‘ have been shown to increase optimism.

Here is how I’ve previously explained the exercise:

Visualising your best possible self may sound like an exercise in fantasy but, crucially, it does have to be realistic.

Carrying out this exercise typically involves imagining your life in the future, but a future where everything that could go well, has gone well.

You have reached those realistic goals that you have set for yourself.

Then, to help cement your visualisation, you commit your best possible self to paper.

This exercise draws on the proven benefits of expressive writing.

The study was published in the American Journal of Epidemiology (Kim et al., 2016).