For a long time, people thought, the personality mature in childhood and adolescence, and the way you were around 20 years old, you stay until death. "However, we have known for several years that fortunately," says personality psychologist Eva Asselmann from Health and Medical University in Potsdam. "We are not victims of our genes or early childhood experiences." Her book is exactly what we grow. What life events our personality shape and what really brings us «. In the interview, she talks about what makes us more resistant, where healthy learning stops and where problematic self -optimization begins.
As a personality psychologist, you have a lot to do with people. One imagines psychologists to be empathetic and sociable. Have you always been like this or is it developing over time?
Eva Asselmann: This is of course difficult to say because you perceive yourself continuously. But I was sensitive as a child, I think, I am only sociable sometimes. Overall, I would actually describe myself as introverted.
Have you ever tried to change your own personality?
Not with targeted personality intervention. But sometimes I get upset about little things in everyday life. I try to be a little cooler and more relaxed to deal with me a little more generously and also with others. That works more and sometimes less well. However, I have already wondered at school why people differ from each other at all. How can it be that other children find sport so fascinating and I burn for math?
And why is that?
Our psyche is complex, accordingly, our personality is also complex. But a significant proportion of differences between people can be explained by five personality traits. These are the so-called big five: openness to experiences, conscientiousness, extraversion, compatibility and emotional stability.
And that is how?
Open people are those who are very interested in new things. They like to deal with art, travel to foreign countries, like to try exotic food. Conscientious people have their seven things meticulously put together, are very neat, punctual, reliable, hardworking – just like you imagine the perfect employee of the month. Extraverted people are sociable, talk a lot, are talkative, like to be among people, cheerful and active. Introverted people, to whom I belong, on the other hand, are rather reserved and calm. Compatible people get along well with others, attach importance to good, harmonious relationships. And emotionally stable people are good at coping with stress and challenges. But of course we always move on a scale: for example, there are not the extraverts on one side and the introverts on the other, but most people are somewhere in between.
How much can we influence these properties? So can we consciously change?
Our whole being is determined by both our genes and the environment. This is an interplay. One can roughly say that at least a third is genetically conditioned. But you cannot tighten this to an exact value. The exciting thing is that for a long time you thought that the personality matures in childhood and adolescence, and from about 20 it was with personal development. So we stay until we die. But we have known for several years that fortunately it is not the case that our personality changes for a lifetime. Astonishingly happens in early adulthood and then again at a very old age. Incaltering life events play an important role. Which we experience and how we process them also depends on our personality. It follows that we can actively change - for a lifetime. We are not victims of our genes or what may have gone wrong in childhood.
So when I say now: I'm basically open to new experiences, but maybe I'm not always the employee of the month and more of the introverted type, and some of it doesn't suit me now. How can I actively influence it and change something?
You can try to gradually do things in your everyday life that characterize people who are very extraverted or particularly conscientious. However, I recommend thinking about why they want to change at all. Why do you want to become more extraverted or more conscientious? There is no better or worse with the personality. Yes, we know that higher forms in the Big Five are related to many positive properties. For example, conscientious people are healthier on average because they eat more varied, do more sports and go to the doctor more often. However, less conscientious people may be better in situations with extremely large number of tasks: because they are not so perfectionist and less risk of taking over. Before you start wanting to turn your own personality into the blue, for example because you want to be as successful and popular as your best friend, I advise you to critically question it first.
So what would be better?
It would probably be more expedient to consider how to get along better with one's own personality. How can I design my everyday life in such a way that it suits me and my nature? In some areas, of course, I can still try to adapt my own behavior in a targeted manner. For example, for me it is the case that I give a lot of lectures, lectures and seminars for professional reasons. Of course, if I didn't dare to go forward and it was extremely difficult for me to talk freely, then that would be problematic.
But there can be moments when I retire, although I like to be the focus of other way to be as an extraverted person. How does this situation -dependent behavior differ from personality?
Personality is the totality of all the qualities that a person shows over a long period of time and in different situations, in which he systematically differs from other people. The behavior is a part of it, as is the thinking or the feelings. On average, if you are very extraverted, you would be more of a sociable, talkative guy – even if you don't feel like talking sometimes. Of course, there can be exceptional situations here and there.
They said earlier that we are primarily growing on drastic life experiences. Which are these, for example?
I have looked at the extent to which the birth of the first child is important for personality development or a job change or the loss of a loved one. And surprisingly, it turned out that you hardly change after having a child, but quite strongly when you entered the professional life.
This is actually amazing. One might think that it is the other way around, since it is, so to speak, an invention of the modern person to practice a profession, but is evolutionary to get children. Why is one psychologically more profound than the other?
There is one important assumption for personality development: the social investment principle. This assumes that we change at drastic events because we take on new social roles. When I get into the job, I am suddenly an employee. And this new social role is accompanied by very specific role requirements. I have to behave conscientiously, have to appear on time, dress reasonably properly, act professionally. Of course, there are also new requirements when I have a child. I have to take care of the offspring carefully. But one hypothesis is that the requirements in professional life are clearer. If we do not behave adequately at home, then there is usually no one who gives us feedback as clearly and clearly as at work.
What factors do our psychological resilience depend on? How do we make it so that a stroke of fate does not drag us so deep into a hole that we can not find out more?
In principle, as so often in psychology, this depends on many factors. For example, if we have experienced violence or abuse in the early childhood, this can lead to our brain developing differently and we later react much more sensitive to stress later in life. However, we can still do a lot in adulthood in order to be resistant. It is crucial to focus on available resources. What strengths do I have? What can I take from strength in everyday life? What makes me happy? We know from resilience research that social relationships are extremely important after severe strokes of fate. Gratitude is also an important aspect. It can be useful to reflect from time to time that you live in the here and now and to enjoy it consciously. In addition, questions like: What have I achieved? What challenges have I mastered? What am I proud of?
You have just written a book about all of this: »What we are growing. Which life events shape our personality and what really brings us on «. What surprised you at work?
I have been researching this for many years and have written the book primarily about my own findings. That's why, of course, I knew most of it before and didn't have to do any research from scratch. From my point of view, a very exciting field is that of targeted personality development. How can I actively change? There is an insane popular science interest in this. This is a huge market with a lot of commercial offers. I'm just saying change management, coaching, workshops. This usually means a positive further development of one's own self.
What does science say?
From personality psychology in the narrower sense, there is only little knowledge about this so far. From some studies, we can conclude that concrete goals help if you want to change your own behavior. For example, it is not enough to just say to yourself: "I am becoming more extraverted now." It is more promising to do concrete things for yourself, such as: "Next week I will go on a date with friends three times in the evening, and I will speak in class once every day." Whether such changes are really anchored in the personality in the long term, however, more research needs to be done on this.
The whole topic of self -optimization concerns a lot of people. We want to constantly improve, change, grow to ourselves. But if the field has actually not yet been properly researched: What does that mean for coaching courses and change management? Is that all nonsense from a scientific point of view?
The crux of the matter is: Where does personal learn to get there and where does problematic self -optimization start? The whole thing can be very excessive - so strong that people completely reject themselves as they are. They then try to press themselves in some template. I think we need more debates about this question of how much self -optimization is desirable and healthy. An important goal of my book is also to show the diversity of personality, to make it clear what people can differentiate between and what added value this has. Our world would be totally boring and our society would not be sustainable if we were all equally extraverted or everyone is equally conscientious. If you take all people in their diversity, it is like a puzzle - it fits together.
