Changing personality traits with the help of a digital personality change intervention
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Abstract
Personality traits predict important life outcomes such as success in love and work life, wellbeing, health, and longevity. Given these positive relations to important outcomes, economists, policy-makers, and scientists have proposed intervening to change personality traits to promote positive life outcomes. However, non-clinical interventions to change personality traits are lacking so far in large-scale naturalistic populations. This study (N = 1,523) examined the effects of a 3- month digital personality change intervention using a randomized controlled trial (RCT) and the smartphone application PEACH (PErsonality coACH). Participants who received the intervention showed greater self-reported changes compared to participants in the waitlist control group who had to wait one month before receiving the intervention. Self-reported changes aligned with intended goals for change and were significant for those desiring to increase on a trait (d = 0.52) and for those desiring to decrease on a trait (d = -0.58). Observers such as friends, family members or intimate partners also detected significant personality changes in the desired direction for those desiring to increase on a trait (d = 0.35). Observer-reported changes for those desiring to decrease on a trait were not significant (d = -0.22). Moreover, self- and observer reported changes persisted until three months after the end of the intervention. This work provides the strongest evidence to date that normal personality traits can be changed through intervention in non-clinical samples.
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“An effect size of 0.4 was selected based on previous digital intervention studies that reported moderate to large effects [27,28].”
Influential
- Authors
- Stieger, M., Flückiger, C., Rüegger, D., Kowatsch, T., Roberts, B. W., & Allemand, M.
- Affiliations
- Brandeis University (US)
- University of Zurich (CH)
- ETH Zurich (CH)
- University of St.Gallen (CH)
- University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (US)
- Corresponding author
- Stieger, Mirjam
- Allemand, Mathias
- ORCID
- Venue
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
- Publisher
- National Academy of Sciences
- Published
- 2021-02-08
- Volume
- 118
- Issue
- 8
- ISSN
- 0027-8424 (ISSN-L)
- 1091-6490
- PMC
- PMC7923371
- OpenAlex
- W3127383144
- Cited by
- 273
- References
- 71
- Citations by year
- 2026: 40 · 2025: 44 · 2024: 65 · 2023: 55 · 2022: 42 · 2021: 26 · 2018: 1
- FWCI
- 32.06
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Locations
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Zurich Open Repository and Archive (University of Zurich) (acceptedVersion)
- Alexandria (UniSG) (University of St.Gallen) (submittedVersion)
- OSF Preprints (OSF Preprints) (submittedVersion)
- PsyArXiv (OSF Preprints) (submittedVersion)
- PsyArXiv (OSF Preprints) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Zurich Open Repository and Archive (University of Zurich) (submittedVersion)
- Zurich Open Repository and Archive (University of Zurich) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- Zurich Open Repository and Archive (University of Zurich)
- Funders
- Schweizerischer Nationalfonds zur Förderung der Wissenschaftlichen Forschung (162724)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Personality Traits and Psychology
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Personality Disorders and Psychopathology
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Applied Psychology › Digital Mental Health Interventions
- Keywords
- personality change, digital interventions, personality traits, non-clinical sample, viewer perception
- MeSH terms
- Smartphone, Female, Humans, Male, Personality, Psychotherapy, Self Report
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