h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

If you wanted to change some part of your personality, how might you go about doing it?

I always thought personality was the part you can't change. The bit you can is behaviour.

>>I always thought personality was the part you can't change.

You persist in thinking that because of your personality. Maybe we could change that?

Well, isn't it by definition? You might just as well say you want to change your person.

You CAN change it, but it's enormously difficult.

What aspect is it that is casuing difficulties and needs changing?

>>You might just as well say you want to change your person.

OK. It seems there's no agreement about the definition, but regardless of that, I'm interested in how you'd go about changing more than just your behaviour; I'd like to know how you'd go about changing whatever it is that tends to make you naturally behave in a certain way. I called it personality, but maybe there's a better word for it we could agree on.

>>What aspect is it that is casuing difficulties and needs changing?

I'm more interested in the methods people use in general to try to effect such a change. For example, presumably, if you deliberately behave in a certain way, despite your natural inclinations, you might start to change what I called your personality. Or hanging out with a different group of people might be a way to do it.

But isn't, say, psychology or psychiatry exactly that: conditioning yourself to behave in a different way?

Clearly there are medical methods (drugs, surgery) for correcting/managing those conditions we consider to be disorders and threats to society.

I like to challenge my core beliefs.

That's what you think.

>>But isn't, say, psychology or psychiatry exactly that: conditioning yourself to behave in a different way?

...I don't get your point, sorry.

I think Icy is right - you can change your behaviour but personality is something of an illusion; our identity is made up of many strands glued together by memory. Having worked with dementia sufferers for 20 years I can say that the effect of memory loss is the gradual disintegration of the personality as the strands lose their coherence. This is only apparent to the observer from the changes in the person's behaviour, the sufferer is unaware of this from a very early stage generally.

Say I have real self-doubts. I don't believe I can achieve anything, and this is hindering my ability to hold down a job or a relationship.

I decide that this personality trait is causing me difficulties, so I see a shrink to enable me to deal with it. They help me to identify when I'm experiencing those feelings, and to come up with a way of coping (rememebring a time when I was successful at something, say). I can then practice that (I think Anthony Robbins called it a flick-up flick-back technique) of recalling a good feeling, to enable me to cope better with the negative feelings.

The more often I do this, the more it becaomes a habit, or a conditioned response.

Its kind of the same for altering 'natural', or 'instinctive' behaviours, one might pick up over the years, just force of habbit, to not* do the 'behavior', or I guess in the case of 'personality', not 'think', in a certain way, You just do the 'behavior', or 'thinking' you want, to replace the 'bad' version of the same, and then do it again, and again, each time the old behavior' or 'thinking' occurs, and eventually, the new one will take over as the default... Works for eating habbits, which is probably a bit of a mix of personality and behavior, though probably more behavior maybe I guess

That takes for ages though, if your not too worried over what you change the personality too, a lot of people have had great success in entirely changing their personality with hard-core drug or alcohol use...

Phineas Gage did it by inserting a metal rod into his brain. Though knowing the exact place to put it would be difficult.

It's pretty much what cognitive behavioural therapy's all about - training yourself out of certain emotions, or patterns of thought, or reactions, that are having a negative impact on your life in some way.

I understand it can be very effective.

They say clothes maketh the man.
Nothing like a new suit and shoe shine
to give a man a fresh start in life.

Women usually go for a new hairdo, and
a new frock with matching shoes and other
accessories.

Oh don't laugh; it works.
Look at what happened when the Beatles
stopped visiting the barbers'.


~jwf~

There's a little more to it than that.

I've done this to myself several times.

The first thing you need to realise is that the traffic between your personality ("who you are") and your behaviour ("what you do") is not one way. We operate, most of the time, under the delusion that we do things because of who we are. He watches rugby because he's a moron, she reads romantic fiction because she's frustrated, he goes trainspotting because he's boring, he can't get the girl he wants because he's bookish and unconfident.

Except... it doesn't really work like that, or at least, it doesn't NEED to work like that. You may find that if you switch off the rugby and read a book, or watch a documentary or the news, your understanding of the world will increase and people might stop considering you stupid. If you stop reading romantic fiction and start operating in the real world, your frustration might be alleviated. If you did something other than trainspotting for hours on end, your social awareness could improve. And if you model the behaviour of the "cool" people the girl you want likes, and pretend to confidence, eventually you won't be pretending, and you'll get her. (She'll turn out to be a vapid slut, but since that's exactly what you were hoping, it's win-win).

You must decide what you want to become, identify the things that person does and doesn't do, and start or stop doing those things. Write it down, stick it on your fridge. Tell your bestest friend your plan. Set up as many incentives as necessary to ensure that you stick to your plan. Don't beat yourself up too hard when you have lapses, but with each lapse resolve to try harder next time, and come up with an additional incentive to prevent relapse.

An important part, I think, is you need, early on, to fully inhabit the new you. The comment about changing clothes may seem trivial, but it's more important than you might think. In new clothes, you stand differently. In new clothes you *walk* differently. Make the new stance and the new walk part of the new you - it's perfectly possible. Get a haircut. If you have a beard, shave it off. If you don't, and a beard is consistent with the new you, grow one. Change your glasses. Lower the tone of your voice or change your accent somewhat.

At first, change will be something you need to focus on constantly, checking yourself in the mirror, listening to yourself speak, making sure you're standing the right way and walking the right way (oops, my hand is not hanging from my pocket by the thumb... that's better). The funny thing is, sooner than you might imagine possible, these changes will require less and less checking, to the point they become a part of you.

In summary: your personality is really the sum of your habits, and you can change your habits if you really want to.

Bette Midler has said that her most effective weapon against weight gain is a full-length mirror. I've been treated with cognitive therapy. I think it's been helpful. It wasn't enough by itself, though. Prescriptions were necessary,too.

I stand by my comment:
>> Clothes maketh the man!
In spite of:
>> There's a little more to it than that <<
And I thank Hoo for his support:
>> The comment about changing clothes may seem trivial,
but it's more important than you might think. <<

Indeed!

Have we forgotten the lessons to be learned in
The Pauper and the Prince.

Appearances are famously the most influential
aspect of being a social being.

Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day,
but give him some hip-waders, a straw hat and a
long pole and he'll spend all his time dawdling
down by the river.


~jwf~


>> 'Trivial' <<