Subscribe here: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube | Overcast | Pocket Casts
The guest on this episode of Radio Atlantic would not describe herself as “fun at parties,” but at least she knows it. “I’ve never really liked my personality,” wrote Olga Khazan in 2022, “and other people don’t like it either.” A few years ago, Khazan set out to change her personality, a task many people think is impossible. As Khazan explains, in the late 1800s, William James, who is considered the father of modern psychology, developed a theory that a person’s personality is set in plaster around age 30. James himself was depressive and neurotic, and he suffered from what he called “soul-sickness.” Thankfully, he was also incorrect. Later research showed that people can, in fact, shift even core parts of their personality, if they work at it systematically.
After consulting with the experts on personality plasticity and then setting a deadline, Khazan put herself through an intense experiment intended to make herself more likeable, to herself and others. Her evaluations were not soft and subjective but numerical; Khazan tested and scored herself on a range of key personality traits at the beginning and end of the experiment. In this episode, Khazan and I talk about two of those traits: extroversion and neuroticism. Khazan shares how for her book Me, But Better, she dragged herself to improv classes and meditation lessons, and how having a baby threw a kink in her experiment.
The following is a transcript of the episode:
Hanna Rosin: There is one thing I really don’t like about myself. I mean, there are several, but I’m only going to tell you about this one right now. It can be the most beautiful day—like springtime, cherry blossoms every direction you look—and immediately, instinctively, my mind will scan for the one thing wrong. Like, Gross! There’s pollen all over that car.
I have definitely tried over the years to do this or that to counteract it, like cultivate a more positive mindset or start my day by saying three things I’m grateful for. But I think there’s just a part of me that thinks, Well, that’s just how Hanna is, like there’s some core of Hanna Rosin, whether it’s genetic or epigenetic or learned, that will always scan for the negative.
I’m Hanna Rosin. This is Radio Atlantic, and today we’re talking about personality—what it is and whether it’s something you can actually change.
Olga Khazan: So, many decades ago, William James did come up with this theory that personality is sort of set like plaster at age 30, and it never softens again after age 30.
Rosin: That’s staff writer Olga Khazan. And the William James she’s talking about is considered the father of American psychology. But his view of personality doesn’t hold up to modern scrutiny.
Khazan: There wasn’t a whole lot of research on personality or psychology. It just wasn’t really a developed science. So when researchers started doing more modern studies about this, what they found, after following the same group of people for decades and decades, is that most people actually do change, and if they do stuff to try to change, they kind of change even faster.
Rosin: Like me, Olga had things about her personality that she wished she could change. And when she learned that it’s not so set in stone, she thought she’d give it a try. She made it a monthslong project, an experiment. And she wrote about it in a new book called Me, But Better.
[Music]
Rosin: So I love this idea. I find it very inspiring, as I’m sure a lot of people do. Why did you start it? Like, obviously, there were things about yourself that you didn’t like—which there are things about all of us that we don’t like, but what was it in your case?
Khazan: Yeah, so on top of not liking certain things about myself, something that I noticed is that I just wasn’t very happy, and I wasn’t enjoying my life to the extent that I thought that I could.
So what started this was I had just a really rough day. I was in Miami in December, so definitely nothing to complain about environment-wise. I had to go get professional photos taken for our job, and I had to get a haircut before the photos were taken. And so I go; I book a hair appointment. This haircut is terrible. It’s probably one of the worst haircuts I’ve ever gotten in my life.
Rosin: Details. Details. Was it a bang problem?
Khazan: It wasn’t a bang problem. Okay, I try to emphasize every time I get my hair cut that my hair does not take layers well. And they always do layers, despite what I explicitly said. And maybe I need to just be more straightforward about it. But anyway—so there was like a mushrooming effect because of the attempt at layers.
Rosin: (Laughs.) I’m sorry. I’m sorry, yeah.
Khazan: (Laughs.) Anyway, so I’m leaving the hairstylist’s. I’m like, Oh my God. I look terrible. I had to go directly to the photo session, where I got professional photos taken that looked really bad, in my opinion, and then I had to, right away, drive on to the grocery store to get a bunch of groceries for dinner that night.
And as I was driving, I went the wrong way and got stuck on this island that cruise ships launch from. Then, once I recovered from that, I got to the grocery store, and as I was leaving, my shopping cart locked. And I had to drag the shopping cart across the parking lot to my car. And while this all was happening, my boss was Slacking me edits on a story. So I do these edits sitting in this hot car. I drive on, I get back to the Airbnb, and I just freak out.
Like, I honestly just had a meltdown—not a panic attack, but crying, chugging wine, just screaming, like, I hate everyone. And I settled down, eventually, and I was sort of like, Why do I react so badly to things that are kind of minor? Honestly, just even recounting that day as a new parent, I’m kind of like, Eh, so. That’s bad, but that’s not that bad.
And I kind of realized that it was my personality that was making days like that worse than they had to be, that was undermining my happiness in those moments.
Rosin: Okay, I just wanna question that for one second: First of all, I’m sorry you had that day. It sucks, and I understand you just want to be frustrated. Like, you don’t wanna be screaming and crying. You don’t want to have a breakdown. You just wanna be casually frustrated. I think a lot of people, when they are sad or they feel unhappy, the traditional route is: See a shrink. Get on meds. You know—whatever—journal.
I don’t think that I would have thought, Okay, it’s my actual personality. Like, to look at yourself, break your personality down, I mean, it’s interesting. It was an interesting response you had, and I’m wondering how you even knew in that moment to look at yourself and think, Oh, it’s my personality.
Khazan: Yeah, so, actually, seeing a shrink and taking medication do change your personality, also.
Rosin: Interesting!
Khazan: And that is to say that personality change is kind of the root of a lot of different types of personal growth and self-improvement. So what I was kind of describing just now is a high level of neuroticism, which I did have.
And so bringing that down is personality change. And one way to do that is through therapy and medications. But I think kind of beyond just neuroticism, I was also just kind of unhappy with other parts of my life. Like, I honestly just didn’t socialize much. I kind of reflexively didn’t socialize.
I didn’t have a lot of friends, which to me was a different thing than neuroticism. And then I kind of just was really snippy with my boyfriend at the time—my husband now—and honestly, would get in a lot of fights with my friends, which is, like, this other trait called “agreeableness.”
So I don’t know. It felt more, like, all-encompassing than just the I need to handle my stress better.
Rosin: Right. Okay. So you’ve been mentioning some of the main traits that you outline in your book. Can you just lay out the different components so we can follow you through this experiment?
Khazan: So there’s five traits that make up personality, and we all have these five traits inside of us. And they can be remembered with the acronym OCEAN.
So it’s o for “openness to experiences,” which is like creativity and imaginativeness; c for “conscientiousness,” which is like being on time, being super organized, being really diligent; e for “extroversion,” so being sociable, cheerful, active; c for “agreeableness,” which is being warm and empathetic and trusting; and n for “neuroticism,” which is being neurotic, being anxious and depressed.
Rosin: Okay. So that’s how you started to break your own problems down. Like, there’s this bucket, that bucket, that bucket. We won’t do the whole OCEAN of personality, but I really want to talk about a few that interest me the most. Maybe we’ll start with extroversion, because being outgoing is a common goal.
Lots of people say, Oh, I want to have more friends, particularly post-pandemic. How extroverted were you at the start of this process?
Khazan: Let me look up my exact score.
Rosin: Oh, there were scores?
Khazan: Yes!
Rosin: Okay, so you actually get a number.
Khazan: Yeah, when you take the personality test I was taking, you do get a number.
Rosin: That’s a little brutal.
Khazan: Yeah. Oh, okay—I scored in the 23rd percentile, which is very low, especially when it came to being friendly or cheerful.
Rosin: Uh-huh. Interesting. Okay. (Laughs.) When you first got that number, how did that feel?
Khazan: I was like, That checks out.
Rosin: (Laughs.) Uh-huh. You weren’t surprised. Okay. So how did you go about this? Like, that’s the kind of thing where someone would say, Okay, well, I’m just not that extroverted, and one road would be acceptance: I’m just not that extroverted. I’m going to stay home and watch TV a lot.
Khazan: Yeah, and I did that road for a long time. So one kind of interesting twist here is that when psychologists take a bunch of introverts and they tell them, Go out and act like extroverts for a few minutes. Go socialize. Go hang out. And then they come back and they’re like, How do you feel? They actually say they feel happier. And they also say they feel more like themselves.
Rosin: Something about your saying that makes me nervous. I think it’s just because of the Susan Cain book Quiet, where we’ve come to appreciate the power of introverts, you know? What do you say about that?
Khazan: So yeah, I really, really liked the book Quiet, and I really like Susan Cain personally. I just think that there are benefits for introverts to occasionally act like extroverts. I think it’s okay to still identify as an introvert and to appreciate all of the perks that come with that, but to also occasionally be able to at least try on this more outgoing personality trait.
Rosin: So when you set out to try and change this part of yourself, you know, raise your score—we’ll just put it that way, concretely—were you saying to yourself, I want to change Olga and make Olga not an introvert? Or, I want to try on extraversion sometimes, like a costume? Or, I want to change my score? Like, what was your goal?
Khazan: My goal was to change my score, so to be more extroverted. I didn’t think it would work well enough to make me an extrovert. In the end, I think my latest test that I took did put me technically in the extrovert category. But I didn’t think that it would work that well.
Rosin: Okay. So how did you do it?
Khazan: I signed up for a bunch of activities and went to them. I signed up for improv comedy, a sailing club, a bunch of meetups. And I threw a party at my house for the first time.
Rosin: Wow. And all the while, just so people understand what this kind of experiment is like, in case they want to try it, are you uncomfortable? Like, surely, you’re going against your, what you initially called, natural inclinations.
Khazan: So I ended up doing improv for about eight months or so. And probably for the first six months, every time I went, I felt this overwhelming sense of dread. Like, you almost wish that you could get in a car accident on the way there so that you wouldn’t have to go.
Rosin: That is extreme. I totally sympathize. I understand. Yeah.
Khazan: Like, is there any way to get out of this? Any way? Like, Please, God, don’t make me go. Like, I have extreme stage fright. And so you get there, and you’re all sitting in a circle, and then at some point you get up, and you just start doing improv with the other people who are there.
Rosin: And the reason it helps you become extroverted is because it’s relational. Like, you have to be deeply attuned to this total stranger. You have to be on the stage. You have to perform. Like, it just forces you into actions that are extroverted.
Khazan: Oh, yes, and it makes you become way more comfortable with chaos because everyday conversation is chaotic, but improv is even more chaotic than that.
Rosin: Right. And then, so let’s say the 20th time you’re going to improv class, does the initial dread fade, or it’s always that cycle?
Khazan: I think, over time, it did fade, but even before it completely went away naturally, I would start to feel it, and I would kind of tell myself, like, No, you’re gonna be fine. It’s just improv. It’s okay—you’re gonna feel good after. You know, it’s very similar to how I talk to my son now. It’s like, No, you like this formula. This is the good kind. (Laughs.)
Rosin: That’s so funny. So this is tricky to understand. So by the end, you’re doing it with a little bit less dread. You’re still talking yourself into it. You’re able to do it, so you’re not avoiding it; you’re doing it. You’re, at times, enjoying it, but it’s still not your natural inclination.
Khazan: So I would say it’s not to do improv, but it’s to connect with other people when I’m feeling down. Like, if I’m feeling isolated and withdrawn, I don’t feel like the solution is just to spend more time by myself. I feel like it’s to connect with others and sort of get out of my head a little.
Rosin: But that actually seems revolutionary. Like, if you think of one of our largest problems now, which is lack of connection, the idea that you can actually work at it, you know, approach it like a project and change it slowly, such that what you got—okay, maybe you’re not going to be on SNL, so that’s not your destiny—but what does change is that you don’t go deeper into yourself when you are feeling whatever you’re feeling. Like, you seek some kind of connection. And research does show that that’s healthy.
Khazan: Yeah, and that’s kind of the science behind why extroverts tend to show up as happier. They kind of just spend a lot of time around other people, and other people tend to make us happy, even though we can all think of times when other people have not made us happy.
But, you know, I’m really glad I did that before having a baby, because I think that my approach to new motherhood would have been totally different otherwise and much more isolating if I hadn’t done this experiment to see, Okay, actually, being around others and connecting socially, and even in a way that’s silly and doesn’t totally make sense is, like, still a good thing.
Rosin: Oh, that’s amazing. What’s your extroversion score now?
Khazan: Right now, my extroversion—it says it’s very high.
Rosin: Very high. So it went from very low to very high.
Khazan: Yes, it’s not in the top 10 percent. I would say it’s probably, like—I don’t know—60th percentile now.
Rosin: I know, but you’re getting all ambitious now. Like, you want to be in the top ten percent.
Khazan: I didn’t get into the Harvard of extroversion. (Laughs.)
Rosin: Exactly. (Laughs.)
Khazan: But yeah.
Rosin: That’s amazing. Okay. Very, very impressed. And I feel like people should try it.
[Music]
Rosin: So that was extroversion—the e in OCEAN. After the break, Olga takes us through another section of her book: the n—the negative, nervous, capital-n “Neurotics.”
[Break]
Rosin: Okay. Let’s move on to the second trait that I want to talk about, which is neuroticism, the n of OCEAN. That is one that I think many people would like to change about themselves, myself included. What did your starting point there look like?
Khazan: I think I scored higher than, like, literally everyone else on earth.
Rosin: (Laughs.)
Khazan: Oh, I was in the 94th percentile.
Rosin: So you did get into the Harvard of neuroticism.
Khazan: Yes. Yeah. Yeah, I’m graduating.
Rosin: Excellent. And we’re laughing, but the feeling—I mean, everyone’s version of neurotic is different, but can you talk a little bit about your own version? Like, what is it that bothered you about your neuroticism?
Khazan: So I was basically always anxious. Like, there just wasn’t a time when I wasn’t anxious. I was constantly thinking about stuff in the future that could go wrong, or stuff in the past that did go wrong, and, like, Why did I allow it to go wrong? When good things would happen, there was no living in the moment or appreciating the good thing.
It was, like, onto the next thing that could go wrong. Or like, Oh, this sunset is great, but the one yesterday was better. You know, like on vacation, we would get to some beautiful attraction or landmark of some kind, and I’d be like, Okay, what’s next?
Rosin: Right.
Khazan: That kind of thing. Yeah.
Rosin: So you started out with Harvard-level, high-baseline neuroticism. This one is hard to face, I will say, so what was your process of trying to change it?
Khazan: So I followed this one study that’s been done on personality change, but a lot of those suggestions were, like, a lot of gratitude journaling—and I did do that—but a lot of it was also meditation.
Rosin: Ugh.
Khazan: —which, I know.
Rosin: Is there anything else?
Khazan: I know. I was, like, Seriously? I was diving so deep into the psychology. Is there something where I can, like, walk backwards for a mile and be cured?
Rosin: You know how there are headlines sometimes that are like: “This is the One Thing You Need to Do.” It’s always meditation. So I’m like, You’re not surprising me in this headline.
Khazan: Yes, yes. Yeah, it’s always meditation. It was indeed meditation. So it was a meditation class that I took. It was, like, kind of like Buddhism for Dummies—like, during the day, we would all gather and they would do this PowerPoint with kind of very basic Buddhist ideas.
And then, we had to meditate for 45 minutes a day.
[Music]
Rosin: As beginners?
Khazan: Yes.
Rosin: That’s an intimidating amount of time.
Khazan: It was really, really, really hard. I honestly don’t think I could do it with a kid now. I don’t really have 45 minutes anymore. But I think if people are trying this at home, I think they should start with way less, because it can feel so daunting that you’re like, Why even bother? You know? And there’s a lot of meditations out there that I also found effective that are much shorter, like 10 or 15 minutes.
Rosin: So you, starting out as the person with high neuroticism, face meditation as a person who sees meditation all over the culture, so there’s already a barrier to entry. So how do you slide into that one? Because I actually understand the benefits of meditation; I just also understand the cultural ubiquity of meditation and, thus, the resistance to it, you know? So how do you sneak your way in so that it’s helpful?
Khazan: Yeah, so I basically was, like, dragged kicking and screaming. And unlike with improv, I didn’t enjoy it at any point. So we would have these phone calls with our meditation teacher to see how things were going, and basically all my phone calls were all about how much I hated meditation.
Rosin: Which is maybe neurotic, like—
Khazan: I’m not doing it right. I was like, Can I listen to music? Can I listen to a podcast? Can I wash the dishes? She’s like, No, you need to be there and, like, sit with whatever comes up. And whatever stuff she said, I was like, That doesn’t make any sense.
We had an all-day meditation retreat, where all we did was meditate all day. It was, like, the worst day of my life. I hated it so much, like—oh my God. And they were—at one point I think they got frustrated with me, because they’re like: You sound like you’re striving, and you’re not supposed to strive in meditation.
And I was like, Yeah, of course I’m striving. So, yeah, it was just so hard and so painful. And it worked.
Rosin: Whoa! Okay, so can you describe how the turn happened? I think many people would want to know.
Khazan: So I don’t think there ever was a turn. I sort of hated it all the way through the retreat. And then I took the test not long after the retreat. And my neuroticism had actually fallen so much that it was considered low. It was in the 39th percentile.
Rosin: Wait—you went from 97 percent to low?
Khazan: Yeah, I no longer scored, like, extremely high or whatever it was. But I will say, it was mostly because of a change in my depression score. Like, so I have really, really high anxiety, and I also had high depression, and my depression went down by a lot, and my anxiety also went down a little but not by as much.
Rosin: And what do you attribute that to? I mean, that’s amazing. Like, you know, going down on depression or anxiety is fantastic. So what do you attribute it to? Do you attribute it to the meditation or to the act of focusing on yourself for some amount of time so that you’re taking your depression seriously, or what was it?
Khazan: So two-part answer here. One is that—so this class that I took called MBSR has gone head-to-head with the antidepressant Lexapro, and it actually works, allegedly, as well as Lexapro. So there is kind of precedent for it bringing down anxiety and depression.
And I think the answer—maybe it was the meditation just working in the background, like sweeping away the cobwebs or whatever without me noticing. You know, because you’re supposed to just let your thoughts pass like clouds or whatever. But I think the more kind of immediately efficacious thing was that these Buddhism for Dummies lessons were very helpful for me.
Even though I thought they were kind of stupid, I found them really helpful. And in particular, my meditation teacher would always say, Things happen that we don’t like. And I realized that I was someone who was very filled with self-blame for things not going the way they were, quote-unquote, “supposed” to go.
Like getting stuck in traffic—I would get this overwhelming rage at myself whenever I was stuck in traffic. And it was—it’s traffic. Like, you know, there’s nothing you can do about it. But I realized that I had this, I don’t know, wrong image of other people’s lives as perfect because they manage them perfectly, and that I’m the only one who can’t.
And for some reason, this, like, PowerPoint-focused Buddhism class helped me get rid of some of that.
Rosin: I believe everything the Buddhists say. I have never found any of it unhelpful. It’s always incredibly helpful if I can just get myself to sit down and pay attention.
Khazan: Yes.
Rosin: Okay, so basically, this experiment was successful for you.
Khazan: Yes, yes.
Rosin: And when did you do it?
Khazan: I did this right before I got pregnant.
Rosin: All right. So that’s an important marker. So that would be, like, two years ago you did this experiment. Now what has stayed with you about it?
Khazan: S I will say that right after I had Evan, my scores got all—like, I’m looking at my graphs of my scores, and there’s like a huge dip on all of them right after the baby came, because postpartum depression can affect all these things. Also, you’re not socializing, you’re not being nice, you’re not being conscientious, you’re not showering in that immediate postpartum period.
So they all crashed and burned right after the baby came. But I actually just recently took the tests again. You know, he’s 1-year-old now, and I just took them again, like, a month ago. And they actually went back up—not quite to the level as they were when I was doing the book, but back up for the most part, I would say, across all the traits.
And I think that’s just because I’ve been able lately to get back more into some of what I was doing for the book, not all of them.
Rosin: Interesting. Okay. So how you’re using this in your life, this whole experiment that you did, is: First of all, it convinced you that you can change things about elements of your personality. You know that to be true now. And so you have these markers, and they essentially serve as goals.
And if you’re finding yourself to be unhappy, then you can work on one or another of these goals. Like, it just allows you to be more self-aware, notice things about yourself. And it gives you some very concrete tools to fix it.
Khazan: Yeah, that’s how I see it. And that’s—I mean, Nate Hudson, the researcher whose work kind of forms the backbone of the book, he really describes personality traits as tools. Like, they help you get what you want in life. Which is why I kind of shy away from the, like, Don’t change your personality if you like yourself, because, you know, I liked myself before, and I like myself now. But now I feel like I know how to get more out of life.
Rosin: That’s really, really interesting. You wouldn’t have minded yourself if you’d been a somewhat isolated mother who didn’t see that many mothers.
Khazan: Yeah, I don’t think I would’ve. You know, I think I would have had a much lonelier and more stressful postpartum experience. I think I would have just thought that’s what it is like.
Rosin: Like, that’s Olga’s version of parenting, and that’s okay. Like, you wouldn’t have hated yourself for it.
Khazan: Yeah, exactly. But instead what I did is I joined this new-moms group, and in general I just have made more of a point of reaching out to other new moms, and just kind of getting together as much as possible, or even just keeping in touch over WhatsApp or whatever—sharing experiences or just, like, What the hell is this? Is this normal? That type of stuff.
That has honestly made it so much less bad, I think, and less isolating. Like, I wouldn’t say that I have a village, but it’s just nice to not feel like you’re the only person in the world who’s ever had a baby.
Rosin: Yeah. So you have the advantage of going into motherhood with all of this understanding of personality. Have you found yourself talking about your son or thinking about your son with some of this research in mind?
Khazan: Yeah, you know, Evan is very smiley, and he’s just very happy. He smiles very easily. He smiles at people he knows and likes. And my parents tell me that I was not like that. (Laughs.)
Rosin: (Laughs.) Thanks, Mom. Yeah.
Khazan: So the way I talk about it, I’m like, Oh, he gets that from my husband, Rich. And I don’t know. I’m just like, I really—sorry, I’m trying not to choke up.
Rosin: That’s okay.
Khazan: I really, like, want to not mess that up for him. Like, I want to—I don’t know. Sorry.
Rosin: No, that’s okay. You want to keep him happy.
Khazan: Yeah, not keep him happy, but I hope that that continues. I don’t know.
Rosin: Yeah. No, I thought you were going somewhere different. I thought what you were going to say is, I don’t want to think about his personality as fixed. Like, I want to allow him—like, if he wants to be unhappy, or if he wants to be a different way, or throw a temper tantrum, that’s okay. Like, I will keep in mind that we can, you know, move towards a goal later.
But I think what you’re saying is more simple and beautiful, and I appreciate that. I’m sorry that your mom was—it was like when my mom used to tell me how much cuter my brother was than me as a baby, every single time we look at baby pictures.
Khazan: Lovely.
Rosin: Yeah. Well, Olga, thank you so much. I feel like this will inspire a lot of people to try it. So thank you so much for writing it down.
Khazan: Yeah, absolutely. Thanks so much for having me on.
[Music]
Rosin: This episode of Radio Atlantic was produced by Kevin Townsend and edited by Claudine Ebeid. We had engineering support from Rob Smierciak and fact-checking by Genevieve Finn. Claudine Ebeid is the executive producer of Atlantic audio, and Andrea Valdez is our managing editor.
Listeners, if you like what you hear on Radio Atlantic, remember you can support our work and the work of all Atlantic journalists when you subscribe to The Atlantic at TheAtlantic.com/listener.
I’m Hanna Rosin. Thank you for listening.
The post You Can Change Your Personality appeared first on The Atlantic.
