Study Says Your Personality Doesn't Change After 1st Grade

A study authored by Christopher Nave, a doctoral candidate at the University of California, says that our personalities stay pretty much the same from early childhood all the way through old age. From the article: "Using data from a 1960s study of approximately 2,400 ethnically diverse schoolchildren (grades 1 - 6) in Hawaii, researchers compared teacher personality ratings of the students with videotaped interviews of 144 of those individuals 40 years later. They examined four personality attributes - talkativeness (called verbal fluency), adaptability (cope well with new situations), impulsiveness and self-minimizing behavior (essentially being humble to the point of minimizing one's importance)." This must explain my overriding need to be first captain when we pick kickball teams at the office.

Comments

Re:How many of those kids ..

[Abreu]

Or how many suffered a deeply traumatic experience later...?

Re:Not true

[oldspewey]

I spent over a decade and almost $70,000 of my own money on personal growth.

I'm trying really hard not to be cynical here, but how does somebody spend $70K on personal growth? I've had the occasional habit throughout my life of being a bit of a rube, and spending money on "experts." My observations so far have been:

1. People who claim to be able to help other people are generally very good at helping themselves, and not really very good at helping others
2. Unless you are committed to change, there are no people, systems, books, or retreats that are going to do a damned thing no matter how expensive they may be
3. Numerous people in my life who care about me would have had me stripped naked and publicly flogged - for my own good of course - before I got anywhere close to spending $70K on "personal development"

Re:How many of those kids ..

[Steauengeglase]

Namely Middle School for boys and High School for girls.

Re:Not true

[jockeys]

I spent over a decade and almost $70,000 of my own money on personal growth.

I'm trying really hard not to be cynical here, but how does somebody spend $70K on personal growth?

college?

Re:Not true

[Belial6]

The question of whether people are shaped by nature or nurture is easy. The answer is "yes".

Re:Not true

[INT_QRK]

Having raised a significant number of children to adulthood and through college, I feel qualified to contribute the following anecdotal observations to such a debate: (1) each child arrives shrink-wrapped with his/her own unique personality from birth, with high-order traits ranging from fussy to content, alert to no-so, timid to adventurous, more verbal to more physical, etc.; (2) that basic personality evolves through childhood and is shaped by experiences and interactions with parents, siblings, and childhood friends; (3) in retrospect one can see (or at least rationalize) the evolution, but such evolution seems by no means so smooth or constraining as portrayed by such studies; and, most significant, (4) such studies appear every bit as absolutely worthless in any practical sense as nearly all books on child rearing. Yes, as a new parent I went to classes, read books and even "coached" ridiculously with "he-he-hoo-hoo's" with the best of them. I rushed the first baby to the doctor at every sniffle or fervor, and fretted every "percentile" comparison chart entry by every "peeds" nurse. By the 3rd, 4th and 5th kid, one progressively realizes that most of the anxiety is worthless. As a parent, one can only do what one can do and hope for the best. Any experienced parent will eventually throw away all parenting books and ignore most psychological studies unless medical in nature and directly relevant to a specific issue. But then again, even social scientists need to eat, I guess...