An Anonymous Coward writes:
The study begins with data from a 1950 survey of 1,208 14-year-olds in Scotland. Teachers were asked to use six questionnaires to rate the teenagers on six personality traits: self-confidence, perseverance, stability of moods, conscientiousness, originality, and desire to learn. Together, the results from these questionnaires were amalgamated into a rating for one trait, which was defined as "dependability." More than six decades later, researchers tracked down 635 of the participants, and 174 agreed to repeat testing.
In previous studies covering a decade or two, personalities could be recognized as roughly similar. Not this time!
Full paper here, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5144810/ and a longer review here https://digest.bps.org.uk/2017/02/07/longest-ever-personality-study-finds-no-correlation-between-measures-taken-at-age-14-and-age-77/
Next (tongue in cheek) question, is this result unique to Scots, or does it apply to non-miserly groups as well?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by nobu_the_bard on Thursday March 09 2017, @06:53PM
I mean, I would expect that to be true. I'd expect there to be a big difference between 17 and 30, even.
But at this scale, the world itself has changed. Society has changed. Maybe not like, incredibly radically, but significantly. How do you know it was the people that changed and not everything but the questions themselves that changed?
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Thursday March 09 2017, @07:13PM
Yes change, I can change
I can change, I can change
And I'm here with my malt
I am here with my scotch
And I'm a million different people
From one day to the next
I can change my malt
Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes
For the worse... [youtube.com]
compiling...
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Thursday March 09 2017, @07:19PM (4 children)
It would be interesting to see how personalities change between 21 and 77, ostensibly after completion of the rapid physical changes associated with adolescence.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Thursday March 09 2017, @08:51PM (3 children)
I'd rather see a study that does both: tracks personalty starting in early adolescence, checking again in late adolescence and then again at college-age, then again around 30, then fast-forward to late adulthood.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Thursday March 09 2017, @11:26PM (2 children)
There are a lot of firsts contained in those periods -- entering school, high school, college, first professional job. I bet personality changes a lot through all of those.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Ethanol-fueled on Thursday March 09 2017, @11:51PM
First exposure to real minorities outside of watching TV shows. First series of realizations that liberalism is bullshit.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 10 2017, @03:12AM
You would lose that bet. The other studies referenced by the summary looked at those ages and determined personalities didn't change much, then they projected that to your entire life. Now this 'new' study is saying that projection is bogus.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 09 2017, @07:30PM
To one degree or another we all change. Maybe there are specific traits that are highly visible that do not change dramatically enough, but other things do. Also, a lot of those changes are probably more internal so your friends and family won't see the change directly until some random circumstance comes up.
Some change more than others, and some don't change much at all, for better or for worse.
Beware the person who doesn't think people change, most likely that person has a ton of problems they aren't ready to address. Also, they are probably projecting their issues outwards and blaming others for their own problems.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 09 2017, @08:21PM
...than the personalities.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 09 2017, @08:23PM
I wonder if this will change.
I feel lucky in many ways that I grew up just prior to advent of mass scale social media (back in my day we walked to school barefoot AND had to have an ivy league university address to sign up for facebook). Like everybody, when I was younger I said, did, and thought lots and lots of entirely idiotic things that I was 100% completely and absolutely convinced of the merit and validity of. The same thing is true for young people now a days except all their silly views are being recorded permanently thanks to the internet and social media which they're naturally all too happy to share all of their enlightened views on.
It's not so easy to brush these things off. People are influenced by comments from politicians decades past. Many employers are already digging through peoples' social media archives before hiring. Whether people change or not they're going to have all the things they said and did when they were in their teens onto twenties haunt them for the rest of their life. I wonder if this might end up encouraging people to stay at that mentality for the rest of their lives? I mean I assume it wouldn't, but at the same time I am all but certain that there will be some sort of unexpected social adjustments taking place as a consequence of this. I don't know. I think the long term effect of social media is going to be interesting.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by inertnet on Thursday March 09 2017, @09:25PM (9 children)
When I was young I was convinced that the world would be a better place once the old people in charge would be gone.
Now that I'm that old guy, I'm convinced that most young people don't have a clue.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by dyingtolive on Thursday March 09 2017, @10:59PM (4 children)
Indeed. I went from "don't trust anyone over 30" to "don't trust anyone under 35" a year or two ago. I'm 33. I'm hoping to make it to 35 before that shifts again.
Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 09 2017, @11:34PM (1 child)
re-evaluate everything you've learned since your youth. give away your posessions. don't be a selfish twit and see what comes of it.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday March 10 2017, @01:39PM
Yeah, and give them to me. Plenty of cult leaders make a living out of that pyramid scheme.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 10 2017, @03:16AM (1 child)
You're missing the bigger picture: Don't trust anybody. The younger people don't have the experience to see all the edge cases and the older folks have been corrupted by power.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Friday March 10 2017, @09:40AM
Those whose greed was successful get power easily.
Those whose greed is unsuccessful help empower the greedy who are gaining power. (e.g. voting for "a man of the people" (where "people" means "people like me").)
Of course, the greed may be fueled by jealousy.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by coolgopher on Friday March 10 2017, @04:51AM (2 children)
As someone approaching the likely half-way mark of life, I'd like to state that I still believe the world would be a better place if the old people in charge would be gone. Even if the young people don't have a clue, they're not steeped in the self-entitled elite-rich-mass-assery screw-the-planet-it's-not-my-problem mindset that the current people in charge seem to be rusted on with.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 10 2017, @07:15AM
Up until the day a charismatic and clever individual walks into their office giving them a nice shiny presentation suggesting that no matter the legislation they pass, it won't have any real effect. And that the science is at least somewhat debatable. Of course our young idealist will naturally be critical. That's until the lobbyist then assures them they'll receive millions of dollars in "donations" and a lifelong "consulting" job after their political term is over with a nice salary - you know, just because the company values their expertise and leadership so much... And suddenly all those critiques and doubts give way.
And this is the problem. It's not that the old people are idiotic or aloof. "Donors" make sure they instill just enough room for cognitive dissonance to break down any sort of ethical idealism they have. I'm increasingly wondering if the solution might not be a clear separation between corporation and state the same way we had a separation between church and state. It wouldn't be easy since corporations do genuinely also have some of the most genuinely qualified people for various political positions, but something needs to be done. Corruption, nepotism, cronyism. These sort of things are what really bring down all great civilizations. And we all think we're immune to such until we face it. Lincoln said it best, "Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power."
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Friday March 10 2017, @09:49AM
However, I'd rather Corbyn be leading britain, and Sanders be leading the US, than anyone else at the moment, and they're no spring chickens. There's good and bad in every alas a fair chunk of the bad tends to congretate towards entering politics.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday March 10 2017, @01:34PM
Both are true.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 09 2017, @10:33PM (2 children)
I'm in one of the rare personality categories.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 10 2017, @01:51AM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/INTJ [wikipedia.org]
INTJ (introversion, intuition, thinking, judgment) is an abbreviation used in the publications of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator ...
.
.
So what are you doing here on SN?
(Score: 2) by linkdude64 on Friday March 10 2017, @03:52PM
Try being an INFJ.
"We're the rarest!" I wager you might be inclined to say, but really what that means is that we're the least successful...
(Score: 2) by Refugee from beyond on Friday March 10 2017, @09:09AM (2 children)
My personality “stabilized” around 25, as far as I can tell. At least that’s what it looks like now, a decade later. Who knows what future will bring.
Instantly better soylentnews: replace background on article and comment titles with #973131.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday March 10 2017, @01:14PM (1 child)
Just wait until you have a life destabilizing event, then your personality has the opportunity to shift again. I've been married twice, and I can clearly see three different pictures of "me" based on who, if anyone, I'm married to.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Refugee from beyond on Friday March 10 2017, @02:18PM
Instantly better soylentnews: replace background on article and comment titles with #973131.
(Score: 1) by MiserlyScot on Friday March 10 2017, @11:48AM (2 children)
"Next (tongue in cheek) question, is this result unique to Scots, or does it apply to non-miserly groups as well?"
Well this may be tongue in cheek but it really needs answering!
Funny how cliches have an eternal life even when they are no longer true (or were untrue in the first place).
The UK is consistently in the top 10 giving nations (see World Giving Index) and Scotland is consistently the most giving of the four UK nations.
Just google "how generous are the Scots?".
Maybe we should apply the statement to the Lithuanians or the Chinese who are at the bottom of the list.
So for everyone who agreed with or laughed at the statement on first reading, does this mean that your personality has remained static over the decades
or are you one of those people who question everything and are therefore a completely different person from when you were 14?
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday March 10 2017, @12:53PM
I wonder what the correlation is between personality type and willingness to be retested, or ability to be found after all the years in the first place?
They could run a followup and offer a significant incentive for retesting, at least some of those who declined for the voluntary retest would accept, and the fact that they did those two things (decline, then accept with incentive) is probably a stronger, more reliable datapoint than any answers they may give to questions in the test itself.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by shrewdsheep on Friday March 10 2017, @03:07PM
Funny how cliches have an eternal life even when they are no longer true (or were untrue in the first place).
Which would provoke the question what your username was meant to communicate in relation with the group of scots?
The UK is consistently in the top 10 giving nations (see World Giving Index) and Scotland is consistently the most giving of the four UK nations. Just google "how generous are the Scots?".
The world giving index might not be a good indication of generousness. Some countries factor out their social security into charities (US, UK, ...). The (relative) comparison within the UK should stand though.
(Score: 2) by linkdude64 on Friday March 10 2017, @04:00PM
Could've sworn we generally go through stages of growth (i.e., change) from birth to death.
Is there a peak where I am "100% me" and then it's downhill from there? If so, why on earth would that determining point be smack in the awkward early stages of puberty at 14?!