How much do people change during their lifetimes?

[Raphael]

It might perhaps be some kind of ancient philosophical question: how much do people change, and how much do they stay the same, over the course of their lives? I got reminded of that question when I recently got to look at my old elementary school report cards. In the written notes, some parts made me cringe, and I hope I've improved in some regards, but some other parts made me think, "Yep, that's me".

So what do you think?

[Torco]

the answer is 6.4

no but really... the problem here is with what does one mean how much or how little. I think i keep some traits from when i was like 9: liking knowledge, fascination with cambrian organisms, skepticism towards conventional wisdom and how things "are" done, a social battery that's easy to exhaust. but of course a fuckton of things have changed, too.

how do we measure one bucket against the other as to be able to say how much people change?

[Flau]

Interesting question! This may not be what you were looking for, but there is a review paper looking into how stable the Big Five personality traits are over time. Basically, its conclusions are that people tend to become more emotionally stable, more agreeable, but also more dominant as they reach middle age. Surprisingly, openness to experience remains stable until the 60's, at a higher level than in the teenage years.

Now, there's good reason to be skeptical of psychological attempts to quantify personality, but I think their findings fit alright with my own limited experience. As far as I can tell, people tend to mellow with age and become more experienced at dealing with their various issues (of course with the huge caveat that life events can create entirely new ones). So some change definitely does happen, although the basics, what people like or dislike, find easy or struggle with probably remain about the same. That has at least been the case for myself.

[Raphael]

Interesting question! This may not be what you were looking for, but there is a review paper looking into how stable the Big Five personality traits are over time. Basically, its conclusions are that people tend to become more emotionally stable, more agreeable, but also more dominant as they reach middle age. Surprisingly, openness to experience remains stable until the 60's, at a higher level than in the teenage years.

Now, there's good reason to be skeptical of psychological attempts to quantify personality, but I think their findings fit alright with my own limited experience. As far as I can tell, people tend to mellow with age and become more experienced at dealing with their various issues (of course with the huge caveat that life events can create entirely new ones). So some change definitely does happen, although the basics, what people like or dislike, find easy or struggle with probably remain about the same. That has at least been the case for myself.

Of course it's clear that children as a group are different from middle-aged people as a group, who, in turn, are different from old people as a group. You usually wouldn't expect a first grade report card to say something like "student acts more like a first grader than like a senior citizen", because that should go without saying. But some of those traits that, at any given moment, distinguish us even within the age group we belong to at that moment might well sometimes stay with us for a lifetime.

[zompist]

I think Torco is right that there is no real answer to this. You can amass anecdotal evidence that people change, or that they remain the same. In fact you could probably make a Forer statement about this— "Some aspects of your personality have remained the same from childhood, but in other ways you are quite different"— which 90% of people would find true and insightful about themselves.

You might recall E.M. Forster's description of literary characters: they go into some experience and are changed by it. That's a literary amplification— such things make affecting stories— but it's also everyday experience. Moving to a new city, going to college, falling in love, getting married, having children, losing a job, losing a loved one, gaining success or failing, getting an addiction, coming out in one way or another, all can change people in dramatic ways.

Borges wrote a short story about meeting his younger self and finding that they had nothing in common.

Some personality traits undoubtedly persist, but I don't think you could predict ahead of time which ones. We're all a psychological ship of Theseus.

[Travis B.]

It depends. In some ways I haven't changed much since I was in elementary school -- my interest in computing is not too different now compared to when I was in third grade. In some ways I haven't changed much since I was in high school -- I am still a definitely a leftist to this day since I became one in high school. If anything, I am more active in computing and more consciously leftist now than I was 15 years ago, when both had temporarily waned some for me. However, at the same time, I feel I am more experienced now, and I feel I am more moderated now, compared to how I was, as a reference point, back in high school. I no longer consider myself an anarchist, but I still consider myself a socialist. On weekdays I now get to bed at a reasonable time rather than spending my late hours hacking away despite having to do things in the morning. I am less apt to get caught up in newfangled things these days, and am in many areas more traditionalist than I used to be (but not in the political conservative sense of the word).

[Raphael]

Perhaps if you see a personality as a product of several factors, you can say that some of the factors change over time, or even get completely replaced, but others stay mostly the same?

Borges wrote a short story about meeting his younger self and finding that they had nothing in common.

Not even an interest in literature?

[Torco]

Borges wrote a short story about meeting his younger self and finding that they had nothing in common.

oh, maaan, that's one of my favourite sotires from my favourite author ever. there's a bit of it that's especially relevant. this is old borges thinking to himself about how difficult is to talk to this young borges.

Medio siglo no pasa en vano. Bajo nuestra conversación de personas de miscelánea lectura y gustos diversos, comprendí que no podíamos entendernos. Éramos demasiado distintos y demasiado parecidos. No podíamos engañarnos, lo cual hace difícil el diálogo. Cada uno de los dos era el remedo caricaturesco del otro. La situación era harto anormal para durar mucho más tiempo. Aconsejar o discutir era inútil, porque su inevitable destino era ser el que soy.

(translation mine) Half a century doesn't pass in vain. beneath our conversation of well-read people of diverse tastes, i understood that we could not understand each other. We were too different and too alike. We could not deceive each other, which makes dialogue difficult. Each one of us was a cartoonish imitation of the other. The situation was far too abnormal to last much more. To offer advice or to argue was pointless, because his inevitable fate was to become who I am now .

there's also a cool little short video adaptation someone made.

Not even an interest in literature?

It's not so much that they don't have anything in common... it's more like... they have far too much in common. read it, it's not even long. ... i wonder if there's a good translation online

eh... it's not amazing, but translating is hard.