(2025-04-14) I'm Disagreeable And Its Backed By Science; Can I Change My Personality?

Elle Hunt: I’m disagreeable – and it’s backed by science. Can I change my personality?

she struck at an insecurity I have: that I’m unacceptably, intolerably negative.

My first instinct is to stress-test ideas for potential flaws. This critical tendency serves me well professionally, and feels true to who I am

But I sometimes worry that it’s not much fun to be around, and may be working against me in my personal life. What I experience as an even, nuanced discussion about the new Bridget Jones film, or the works of Joan Didion, friends will sometimes remember as a heated debate.

I wanted to know if I could objectively measure this “grumpiness”

the so-called “big five” test is considered the most robust

When I took a free big five test online, the results were as I’d suspected. My highest ranking was 81 points for openness; by contrast, I scored just 33 for agreeableness.

Does that mean I’m doomed to be disagreeable? Or can I change who I am?

Journalist Olga Khazan has bad news for me. “Agreeableness is the toughest one to change,” she says.
Khazan, a staff writer at the Atlantic magazine, should know. She spent an entire year trying to change her personality – documented in her new book Me, But Better.

Having recently decided to start a family, Khazan recognised that her flinty, lonerish tendencies might not serve her well in motherhood

In the process, she discovered that personality was not a consistent, immutable truth. “You have certain proclivities, but it is flexible – you do evolve over time, and if you want to change, you can change even faster,” she says.

Two factors seem particularly pertinent to tweaking your personality, Khazan goes on. “One is mindset: ‘I would like to be like this, and I believe I can change.’” The other is follow-through – “you have to actually do the behaviours associated with the new personality trait”.

To some extent, personality change is about faking it ’til you make it, Khazan says: there’s no bigger secret than “go out and do it, for the rest of your life”.

When I voice all the flaws I identified in a film, for example, it may come from a desire to express myself authentically or prove that I was engaged.

Cultivating curiosity for what my friends thought could be a small step towards developing agreeableness, suggests Khazan. “You could still hang on to those thoughts, and that skill of analyzing things really closely, but you could also start to mention some things you did like, or get interested in why the other person liked it.”

People who rank high in agreeableness are happier, less likely to get divorced, have a high quality of life and are more resilient to adversity. People who rank lowest are generally psychopaths

Khazan quotes the writer Gretchen Rubin: “‘Accept yourself, but also expect better of yourself’ – I think that’s a good philosophy.”

Trying to become just a bit more agreeable feels forced at first, just as Khazan warned. But with time and attention, I start to better attune to social interactions. In conversations I try to catch myself before launching into my opinion, to assess whether it was really solicited, and look for opportunities to ask questions instead of making yet another comment.

After two weeks of gentle effort, I realise that when I start being negative for no real reason, I’m probably feeling over-tired, socially awkward or both. It’s strange to notice that I ramp up my views in hopes of generating energy or engaging my conversational partner.

This feels productive: I might not have changed my personality, but I’ve gained more grasp on its expression.