Personality and change

Aditi Mishra 

Remedial for Quiz 6

             An article in ‘Psychology Today’ instigated not only the teens but the older people too. The article, ‘Change Artists’ by Abby Ellin which was published on 1^st January 2018 and focuses on several aspects and causes that give way to change or transformation in the patterns of working or chain of thoughts that drives or motivates oneself to achieve their goals.

            The article starts with a case study where Beverly Rice, the patient, had a big career as a painter and had a successful life with many friends and followers. Unfortunately, this successful life came to an abrupt pause when she went through a bad marriage in her 30s. Since then she had spent few years and most of her time in being attracted to “liars and psychopaths” which indicated the wrong choices in men and relationships.  She had been to therapists and the treatments which had given her a shift in the past like quitting bingeing but the problem of not finding love made her feel deprived and alone.

            While Beverly was trying to balance her life, she clicked with a therapist who she described as ‘tough’ and his guidance helped her know the exact problem, that of fear. She had the fear of losing her independence and hence this fear reflected in her relationships. The only solution to this was to balance her desire for love and she want to be independent. Not just this, but Beverly had more stressors in life that triggered some complexities in the way she thought of herself and her relationships. After some sessions with the therapist, changes dawned upon her life and she settled with a man who she met over the internet. The article then quotes Beverly, “Change is not magic” and goes on to explain the relationship between procrastination, dedication and change.

            Each individual has one or the other trait to change and bring about a change in the way they function. According to a study that had people ranging from 18 to 70 years old wanted to change some fundamental aspect about themselves. They mainly wanted to move towards the positive end of the big five personality traits- open, extraverted, and mainly agreeableness. Most of the people wanted to be conscientious and motivated. The personality traits as the article says, ‘are defined as patterns of feeling, thinking and behaving’.

            The article also provides a contradictory stance where it states Art Markman’s a Psychology professor at the Texas University, statement saying, “change sucks”. He continues to talk about the brain and its relation to change, “The brain is a prediction engine. It wants to be able to predict what's happening in the future and then act accordingly, even with things that are bad for you. As soon as you make significant changes in how you do things, you no longer know how to predict what the outcome will be.” Change can happen over different spectrums of life. Socio-economical, psychological, etc. Change is mainly a struggle within oneself.

            Cognition plays an important part in bringing about change in oneself. “I don’t think there’s more to this”, “I am definitely going to be disappointed”, “this is definitely not going to work out”, etc. prove to disrupt the whole process of the change as the mere motivation of a reward at the end diminishes and doesn’t let the person carry on with the thought. Angel Wilson, 36, who works with autistic children, surprisingly had a negative outlook towards life. She always expected the worst to come to her. "Shifting my thinking equaled being vulnerable in my eyes," she said in the article. If one compromises with shifts and changes, one is bound to lose out on happiness and give in to negativity.

            Several aspects of personality have to be catered to, to understand the whole process and acceptance of change. The article gives ways to boost oneself and how to not give in to negativity. It talks about openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism. This article does seem a bit non- backed up by strong statistical evidence yet gives some strong points for teens and adults both to incorporate and be open to changes in life.