Motivational Paper

Can Personality Be Changed? The Role of Beliefs in Personality and Change Carol S. Dweck

Stanford University

ABSTRACT—Using recent research, Iargue that beliefs lie at

the heart of personality and adaptive functioning and that

they give us unique insight into how personality and

functioning can be changed. I focus on two classes of be-

liefs—beliefs about the malleability of self-attributes and

expectations of social acceptance versus rejection—and

show how modest interventions have brought about im-

portant real-world changes. I conclude by suggesting that

beliefs are central to the way in which people package their

experiences and carry them forward, and that beliefs

should play a more central role in the study of personality.

KEYWORDS—personality; personality theories; change;

self-beliefs; interventions

James Springer and James Lewis were identical twins separated

shortly after birth and reared apart. Yet both married and divorced

women names Linda, and then married women named Betty. They

had similar interests. James #1 enjoyed carpentry and James #2

enjoyed mechanical drawing, and both showed similar levels of

sociability, flexibility, and self-control on personality tests.

When Barbara Herbert and Daphne Goodship, also identical

twins, were reunited at age 39, each arrived wearing a beige dress

andabrownvelvetjacket.Eachhadtheeccentrichabitofpushing

up her nose and each giggled more than anyone else she knew.

These dramatic examples might lead people to believe that

personality is encoded in our genes and impossible to change. If

such specific things as the velvet jacket or such broad things as

sociability are programmed in, it might imply that everything in

between is too. However, more and more research is suggesting

that this is not the case. Far from being simply encoded in the

genes, much of personality is a flexible and dynamic thing

(Mischel & Shoda, 1995) that changes over the life span and is

shaped by experience (Roberts, Walton, & Viechtbauer, 2006).

What is more, we are beginning to understand how to change it.

Studies of twins often highlight (a) specific preferences and

habits and (b) broad traits of personality and temperament (but

see Roberts et al., 2006, for data on how much even these broad

aspects of personality change over time). However, they often

neglect the levels in between, and yet these are arguably the

most important part of who we are.

What is this ‘‘in-between’’ part of personality? Several

prominent theorists of personality propose that all (Mischel &

Shoda, 1995) or much (McAdams, 1995) of the action takes

place below the level of broad traits. Mischel and Shoda place

such things as goals and construals at this level, and McAdams

places such things as personal strivings and coping strategies

there. In this paper, I focus on core beliefs or belief systems that,

I will show, can organize and shape people’s goals and strivings,

as well as their construals of and reactions to the environment, to

create consistent patterns of experience and actions. Indeed,

Allport (1964) defined personality in terms of consistent patterns

of experience and action that are evident across multiple situ-

ations or life contexts. As such, beliefs, with their power to mold

experience and action, are central to this definition of person-

ality. Moreover, showing that belief interventions do, in fact,

change such consistent patterns of experience and action will

be central to the case that personality can be changed.

People’s beliefs include their mental representations of the

nature and workings of the self, of their relationships, and of their

world. From infancy, humans develop these beliefs and repre-

sentations, and many prominent personality theorists of different

persuasions acknowledge that they are a fundamental part of

personality. For example, Mary Rothbart, the eminent temper-

ament researcher, argues that personality contains much more

than temperament and patterns of habitual behavior; impor-

tantly, it also includes the way one perceives self, others, and

events (Rothbart & Ahadi, 1994). Jack Block, often seen as a

trait theorist, proposes that models of the self and the self’s re-

lationship to the world create the ‘‘organizing, motivating, and

life-defining contexts within which the individual acts,’’ and

suggests that a central part of personality development is the

encoding of internal models, schemas, and premise systems from

socialization experiences (Block, 1993).

Address correspondence to Carol Dweck, Department of Psychology, Jordan Hall, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305; e-mail: [email protected].

CURRENT DIRECTIONS IN PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE

Volume 17—Number 6 391Copyright r 2008 Association for Psychological Science

Focusing on people’s beliefs, as opposed to their simple

preferences and habits or broad personality traits, helps us an-

swer in more precise ways questions like: What personality

factors allow people to function well in their lives—that is, to

grow and learn, sustain satisfying relationships, achieve well in

school and careers, be caring toward others, or recover from

setbacks? This is because beliefs can typically be defined very

precisely, measured very simply, and altered through interven-

tions to reveal their direct impact. In contrast, broad personality

traits can be assessed, but they contain no implications for how

you might change them. Beliefs are not necessarily easy to

change, but they tell you where to begin.

To illustrate these points, I will use recent research that ex-

amines two very basic beliefs: people’s beliefs about whether

their attributes can be developed or not and people’s beliefs

about whether others will accept them or not. In describing this

research, I will underscore the idea that beliefs and their impact

are part of personality, that they underlie important aspects of

adaptive functioning, and that they have unique implications for

interventions.

SELF-THEORIES: BELIEFS ABOUT THE

MALLEABILITY OF PERSONAL ATTRIBUTES

My research shows that acquired beliefs play a critical role in how

well people function. These are people’s self-theories. Some

people have a fixed (or ‘‘entity’’) theory, believing that their

qualities, such as their intelligence, are simply fixed traits. Others

have a malleable (or incremental) theory, believing that their most

basic qualities can be developed through their efforts and edu-

cation. Research shows that people with a malleable theory are

more open to learning, willing to confront challenges, able to stick

to difficult tasks, and capable of bouncing back from failures

(Dweck, 1999). These qualities lead to better performance in the

face of challenges such as difficult school transitions (Blackwell,

Trzesniewski, & Dweck, 2007), demanding business tasks (e.g.,

negotiations; Kray, 2007), and difficulties in relationships (e.g.,

dealing with conflict; Kammrath & Dweck, 2006). All of us would

agree that these are a key part of how people function.

However, a malleable theory can be taught. When it is, people

show increased motivation to learn and they perform better on

challenging tasks. How is the malleable theory taught? In a study

by Aronson, Fried, and Good (2002) with college students at a

rigorous university, students in the experimental group were

shown a film that highlighted how the brain is capable of making

new connections throughout life and how it grows in response to

intellectual challenge. They also wrote a letter to a struggling

younger student emphasizing that the brain is malleable and that

intelligence expands with hard work. At the end of that semester,

the college students who had learned about malleable intelli-

gence (compared to two control groups that did not) showed

greater valuing of academics, enhanced enjoyment of their

academic work, and higher grade-point averages.

Blackwell, Trzesniewski, and Dweck (2007) conducted a

malleable-intelligence intervention with students making the

difficult transition to junior high school (see also Good, Aronson,

& Inzlicht, 2003). Both the experimental and control groups

received an 8-session workshop built around study skills, but the

malleable-intelligence group also learned that the brain is like a

muscle that gets stronger with use and that the brain forms new

connections every time learning occurs. The students in the

control group, despite the excellent tutoring in study skills,

showed little improvement in motivation and no improvement in

grades. Those in the malleable-intelligence group, however,

showed significant improvement in grades and significantly

greater changes in their motivation (e.g., showing greater con-

scientiousness in their homework and studying, and putting

more effort into their classroom learning).

More recently, we have been developing and testing a com-

puter-based version of this workshop (called ‘‘Brainology’’).

After a pilot study in 20 New York City schools, virtually every

student (anonymously) reported important changes in such

things as their study habits and persistence in the face of

obstacles. Many reported picturing their neurons forming new

connections as they studied and learned.

People can also learn these self-theories from the kind of

praise they receive (Mueller & Dweck, 1998). Ironically, when

students are praised for their intelligence, they move toward a

fixed theory. Far from raising their self-esteem, this praise makes

them challenge-avoidant and vulnerable, such that when they

hit obstacles their confidence, enjoyment, and performance

decline. When students are praised for their effort or strategies

(their process), they instead take on a more malleable theory—

they are eager to learn and highly resilient in the face of diffi-

culty.

Thus self-theories play an important (and causal role) in

challenge seeking, self-regulation, and resilience, and changing

self-theories appears to result in important real-world changes in

how people function.

RELATIONSHIP BELIEFS: EXPECTATIONS OF

ACCEPTANCE OR REJECTION

Fifty years ago, John Bowlby proposed that infants form internal

working models of how relationships work and that these internal

working models serve as prototypes for subsequent relation-

ships. An important implication was that ‘‘insecure’’ models

might not allow children to recognize consistent, available, and

affectionate caretakers should they come on the scene.

Infant-attachment researchers have long been able to measure

the quality of parent–infant relationships and have assumed

that internal working models accompany them, but they had

not measured working models in infants. In new research,

Susan Johnson, Frances Chen, and I (Johnson, Dweck, & Chen,

2007) have provided the first evidence for internal working

models of relationships in infants. We began by assessing 12- to

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Personality Change

16-month-old infants’ relationships with their mothers. That is,

using the standard ‘‘strange situation’’ paradigm (in which the

infant and mother are separated and reunited to see whether the

infant uses the mother as a secure base in times of stress), infants

were classified as securely or insecurely attached. Later, in an

infant-habituation paradigm, these same infants were shown a

film in which a large ‘‘mother’’ ball and a small ‘‘baby’’ ball were

headed up a series of steps. Although the mother climbed easily,

the baby was unable to follow her and began to cry. Infants were

shown this film repeatedly until their interest waned. On the test

trials, they were then shown two different endings, one in which

the mother returns to the crying baby and another in which she

continues up the steps on her own leaving the baby at the bottom.

Which ending ‘‘surprised’’ them and caused them to look

longer? Infant-cognition researchers have long used recovery of

looking time as evidence that infants see the new stimulus as a

violation of their expectations. In this study, the securely at-

tached infants looked longer when the mother kept going, but the

insecurely attached infants made no such discrimination and, if

anything, were slightly more ‘‘surprised’’ when the mother came

back. Thus infants with secure and insecure attachment rela-

tionships had formed different expectations about whether a

caretaker would be responsive to a child’s needs.

These expectations of positive or negative responses from

others have been shown to lie at the heart of adult relationships

as well. Geraldine Downey and her colleagues, for example, have

demonstrated that people who anxiously expect negative re-

sponses from others have more fragile relationships, perceive

rejection in ordinary behavior, respond to conflict and rejection

in ways that undermine their relationships, and become less

engaged with and do less well in their academic institutions over

time (e.g, Pietrzak, Downey, & Ayduk, 2005). Adult-relationship

researchers have shown not only that these expectations con-

sistently predict how well people function in relationships and

interpersonal settings, but also that these beliefs are malleable

(Baldwin & Dandeneau, 2005; Mikulincer & Shaver, 2007).

Expectations of rejection can be particularly harmful for

minority students as they try to fit into historically White

institutions. Thus, Walton and Cohen (2007) developed an

experimental intervention aimed at African American students

and designed to increase their expectations of acceptance.

Participants, first-year college students, were taught that doubts

about belonging in college are common at first but short-lived.

They were presented with survey statistics, as well as personal

testimonies from upperclassmen, and they wrote a speech (de-

livered to a video camera) explaining why people’s perceptions

of acceptance might change over time. Students in the control

group engaged in similar activities but with respect to their

political beliefs.

Changing Black students’ expectations of acceptance had

dramatic effects. First, compared to the control group, Black

students in the experimental group took many more challenging

courses (57% vs. 36%). Second, students in the experimental

group were more resilient. On days of high adversity, they

showed no change in their motivation, compared to those in the

control group, who showed a substantial drop. Next, students in

the experimental group were much more likely to reach out to

professors (sending 3 times as many e-mails to them and going to

office hours more often), and they studied significantly more

hours per day. Finally, students in the experimental group

showed an increase in grades in the semester following the

intervention, whereas students in the control group showed a

decrease.

SMALL INTERVENTION, LARGE IMPACT

The self-theories interventions and the expectation-of-accep-

tance intervention both yielded surprisingly large changes with

seemingly modest input, and contrast with many large, costly

interventions that yielded little or nothing. They follow in the

footsteps of earlier attribution interventions, which changed

people’s explanations for events and by doing so changed their

reactions to them. These interventions all speak to the effec-

tiveness of targeting beliefs that lie at the heart of important

motivational, self-regulatory, and interpersonal patterns.

What’s more, in these interventions, the changes cut across

many of the broad traits that are often thought to be relatively

stable: openness to experience (e.g., challenge-seeking), con-

scientiousness (e.g., hours studied), sociability (e.g., reaching

out to others), and negative affectivity (e.g., resilient vs. negative

reactions to setbacks). Indeed, feeding up from the in-between

level, this may be one of the mechanisms for change in these

broader traits (Roberts et al., 2006).

IMPACT OF SOCIALIZATION AND EXPERIENCE

Beliefs also have unique implications for understanding the

impact of experience on personality and functioning. As re-

search has shown, experience plays a key role in shaping self-

theories and expectations of positive responsiveness, as well as

attributions. Indeed, many of our experiences may be packaged

and carried forward in the form of these kinds of beliefs or mental

representations.

Several striking examples have emerged from developmental

research on attributions. The effect of domestic violence, abuse,

or maternal depression on the development of subsequent de-

pression in children is significantly influenced by the attribu-

tions children make for those events (e.g., Garber, Keiley, &

Martin, 2002; Grych, Fincham, Jouriles, & McDonald, 2000).

When those events are packaged with negative self-attributions

or self-blame, children later show a greater vulnerability to

depression. Children who are faced with similar negative life

events but who understand or explain them in different ways are

not as vulnerable.

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Carol S. Dweck

CONCLUSION

We have looked at the in-between part of personality by exam-

ining acquired—and changeable—beliefs. We have seen that

they underlie many patterns of adaptive functioning, and that

they have unique implications for understanding personality

development and personality change. The most important next

step for personality researchers is to identify other core beliefs or

belief systems that can vary across individuals (or cultures)—

beliefs about the self, others, relationships, and the world—and

that are responsible for important, consistent patterns of expe-

rience and action. Another key step is to continue to show how

these beliefs feed into broader personality ‘‘traits’’ and con-

tribute to their malleability.

Perhaps it was inevitable that James Springer and James Le-

wis would love carpentry and mechanical drawing or that Bar-

bara Herbert and Daphne Goodship would giggle. It is possible

that some consistent patterns, such as these, are less reliant on

experience. However, it is not inevitable that people will func-

tion poorly in important areas of their lives. Beliefs matter, be-

liefs can be changed, and when they are, so too is personality.

Recommended Reading Aronson, J., Fried, C., & Good, C. (2002). (See References). An ex-

cellent example of research showing how short, targeted inter-

ventions can yield striking changes in patterns of cognition, affect,

and behavior.

Mikulincer, M., & Shaver, P.R. (2007). (See References). A compre-

hensive overview of theory, methods, and findings in the area of

adult attachment, showing the widespread effects of relationship

schemas.

Molden, D.C., & Dweck, C.S. (2006). Finding ‘‘meaning’’ in psychology:

A lay theories approach to self-regulation, social perception, and

social development. American Psychologist, 61, 192–203. A re- view of research on the ways in which implicit theories create

patterns of goals, construals, emotions, and behavior across a

variety of domains.

Pietrzak, J., Downey, G., & Ayduk, O. (2005). (See References). A fine

review of theory and research on how learned expectations of re-

jection lead people to process and react to interpersonal cues in

ways that undermine their interpersonal relationships.

Walton, G.M., & Cohen, G.L. (2007). (See References). A compelling

researcharticleshowinghowinducingexpectationsofinterpersonal

acceptance promotes marked changes in motivation and behavior.

Acknowledgments—This paper is based on a keynote address

delivered at the 2007 Annual Convention of the Association for

Psychological Science, Washington, DC.

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