Can leopards change
their spots?
The PEACH app and its components.
Changing Personality Traits: Testing the Efficacy of a Mobile Technology-Based Intervention Project Objectives
MobileCoach platform
Evidence suggests that personality traits change and evolve throughout adulthood, but is it possible to modify those traits over relatively short time periods? Could this open up avenues to help improve public health? Professor Mathias Allemand tells us about his work in testing a digital coaching intervention to modify personality traits. A child’s personality often becomes evident quite early in life, and continues to develop over time as they begin to socialise with their peers and progress through formal education. While some aspects of our personalities are thought to be formed relatively early and remain relatively stable over the entire lifespan, evidence suggests that personality traits can evolve during adulthood. A personality trait in this sense is distinct from an individual’s personal habits, or the different emotional states that they may experience in their daily life. Personality traits can be broadly thought of as relatively enduring patterns of thoughts, feelings and behaviours, in contrast to emotional states, which are typically more transient and emerge in response to specific situations. There is huge scope for individual variation in these traits, which are typically organised within the framework of the ‘Big 5’ personality traits: neuroticism, extraversion, openness to experience, agreeableness and conscientiousness. Each of us has a different profile in terms of these traits, and they go a long way to informing our personalities and how we react to different situations. These traits have a significant influence on our professional and personal lives, and also how we perceive ourselves. An individual who is prone to neuroticism may be more likely to experience anxiety and depression for example, while those with a higher degree of 48
extraversion during adolescence may be more successful in forming intimate relationships. An individual with particularly marked traits or a personality disorder of some kind may require clinical interventions. While the majority of the population do not need this kind of treatment, some people may nevertheless want to modify certain personality traits, whether for personal, professional or health reasons.
such as excessive drinking or smoking. These are patterns of thoughts, feelings and behaviours that many people find particularly hard to shake, even though it is well-established that they are detrimental to our physical health. While these types of behaviours and experiences may be deeply entrenched, recent studies suggest that it is possible to intervene and change them, a topic that Professor Allemand and his colleagues
While some aspects of our personalities are thought to be formed relatively early and remain stable over the entire lifespan, evidence suggests that personality traits can change. Intentional personality change This is a topic central to the research by Professor Mathias Allemand and Mirjam Stieger (PhD student in the project and now postdoc at Brandeis University). Based at the University of Zurich in Switzerland, Professor Allemand is the Principal Investigator of an interdisciplinary research project looking to assess the effectiveness of a digital coaching intervention which aims to help change certain personality traits in a desired direction. The study took place over a three-month period, in which the effectiveness of this nonclinical coaching intervention was assessed. The participants in Professor Allemand’s study are people who have expressed a desire to change a personality trait that may be linked to a specific aspect of their behaviour,
are now exploring in greater depth. This is not a well-established area of research and there is no clear precedent on which to build, so it is essential to first identify a conceptual framework on which such interventions could be based. Together with his colleague Professor Christoph Flückiger from the University of Zurich, Professor Allemand has put forward a heuristic framework for intentional personality change interventions. A key part of this is discrepancy awareness, enabling people to see the difference between what they are now and what they want to be. Alongside reflecting on their own outlook, it’s also important that people who want to change certain personality traits have the opportunity to put new ideas into practice, to embed them in their daily habits and behaviours.
EU Research
The digital coaching intervention was developed in collaboration with Professor Tobias Kowatsch from the University of St. Gallen and Dominik Rüegger (PhD student in the project) from ETH Zurich. The MobileCoach platform was central to these collaborative efforts. An open source behavioural intervention platform, MobileCoach provides the foundations for fully automated digital interventions, tailored to the needs of the individual and their own outlook. In the case of the intentional personality change project, a smartphone application called PEACH (PErsonality coACH) was developed. This application is designed to intervene at points when the individual involved in the study needs support, such as when they’re on the verge of displaying a particular trait that they’re trying to control. A conversational agent engages with participants and encourages them to change their behaviour in the direction they desire. The effectiveness of these different interventions may depend to a degree on the participant’s outlook, so the aim is to build on the available data to provide individualised messages that motivate that individual to stay the course. Specific micro-interventions help individuals to modify or change trait-related experiences and behaviors in real-life situations by suggesting behavioural and self-reflection tasks, or by providing psychoeducative videoclips and individualized feedback. This could help participants to sustain personality trait changes over the longerterm, even to a point where they become part of their everyday life, in the process reducing the chance of reverting to their old ways. The impact of this is potentially profound, as positive personality changes can help people achieve greater success at work, and to lead more healthy and fulfilling lives.
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A smartphone-based approach to personality trait change is technically scalable and the threshold for its wider application is quite low, so should it prove effective then it could be used more widely. Such an approach could reach large numbers of people outside clinical settings, leading to wider social, health and economic benefits. This is not the immediate priority in the project however, and the focus for now is on assessing the efficacy of the digital coaching intervention with PEACH in terms of its impact on the group of about 1,500 individuals who downloaded the app and completed the initial assessment. Of this group, more than 500 stayed until the end of the three-month period, which is remarkable for a digital intervention without face-to-face interactions. The participants in the study completed a follow-up assessment three months after the end of the study, from which Professor Allemand and his colleagues hope to draw deeper insights. Researchers will both examine the effectiveness of the approach at the conclusion of the study, then also follow up on that initial work three months later. This could help lay the foundations for more tailored personality trait interventions in future, yet there is still much to learn in the field of psychology and Professor Allemand maintains a deep interest in the foundations of personality traits, including their formation, development, and the mechanisms by which they can be changed or modified. One strand of his research involves looking at the development of self-control during adolescence, and its importance to later professional success and emotional fulfilment, and there are many other research avenues to explore. This type of exploratory work will remain an important part of Professor Allemand’s research agenda, alongside building on earlier findings.
The primary objective in the research project is to assess the effectiveness of a mobile technologybased intervention called MobileCoach in helping people to change certain personality traits. These traits could be related to certain habits that people have expressed a desire to shed, such as excessive drinking or smoking, whether for health or professional reasons. This research challenges the idea that certain aspects of our personality become more fixed as we grow older and cannot be changed through technological interventions. A group of around 500 people have been assessed over the course of the project, giving researchers a solid foundation on which to draw wider insights. The intervention approach itself is scalable, so could be applied more widely if it proves to be effective, potentially opening up new means of managing public health.
Project Funding
Funding agency: Swiss National Science Foundation (No. 162724)
Project Partners
• E TH Zurich, Center for Digital Health Interventions, Chair of Information Management, • University of Zurich, Psychological Interventions and Psychotherapy, •U niversity of St. Gallen, Center for Digital Health Interventions, Institute of Technology Management
Contact Details
Prof. Dr. Mathias Allemand, Assistant Professor Differenzielle Gesundheitsforschung des Alterns Universität Zürich, Psychologisches Institut & UFSP „Dynamik Gesunden Alterns“ Andreasstrasse 15 CH-8050 Zurich Schweiz T: +41 44 635 34 12 E: m.allemand@psychologie.uzh.ch W: www.psychologie.uzh.ch/de/diffges W: www.dynage.uzh.ch W: www.personalitycoach.ch W: https://youtu.be/l9ab7etQYPg Prof. Dr. Mathias Allemand
Dr. Mathias Allemand is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Zurich, where he heads a research group investigating differential healthy aging. His main research interests lie in personality dynamics, development and assessment, as well as in personality-informed interventions.
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