Can you Change your Personality Type?

Personality is such a wide term that goes on to encompass a whole lot of things, you know? Like when we say he has a good personality, or a boring personality, we are referring to the type of behavior he exhibits or the kind of person that he is.

When we notice and observe people, we make certain readings about the kind of people that they are, and then club them to into a particular personality type. For example - an extrovert personality, an introvert personality, a boring or boisterous personality (very generic terms) and then there are the scientific terms like A and B personality types.

In that order, is it possible to change your personality type and, if you can, what are the ways in which this can be achieved? That is exactly what we will be trying to infer and understand. Read for what promises to be an interesting concept.

Before getting to the main question at hand, we need to first understand what makes a particular personality type, and how personalities develop. A personality type consists of certain traits which develop over time, but we are basically born with a particular personality.

Several traits of our personalities develop over time and in accordance with their surroundings and the varied experiences that they experience. Which then drives us to the main question - is it possible to change our personalities?

If there are distinct personality types in this world then, is it possible to change the same? Here is something to think about - You know how someone might have been a recluse or a quiet person when they were young, for example, and then when you meet them after a long gap they have become more confident and open?

Which is how it works. We might be born with a particular personality, but that does not mean that we cannot develop certain traits as we grow. Since our personality traits are influenced by the surroundings and the experiences that we have, it is therefore possible to develop certain sections of our personality which might not have been dominant before.

To cite a simple example, we might exhibit certain personality traits when we are at work and others when we are home. That just goes to show that we are capable of change. But is changing the personality traits equivalent to changing a personality type completely? Most definitely not.

We are born with a particular personality and we stay with the same one. Though it is true that we are in the process of finding ourselves and learning new things about our own selves for a good part till we are middle aged, but we tend to settle into a set of behavior forms and patterns, eventually.

It is not possible to change your complete personality type just like that. It is possible to change certain traits of your personality, though. To cite an example, you know how they say that when two people are with each other for a long period of time, they start to behave like the other, and pick up certain traits of each other's personality?

So, when one wants to, one can change certain sections or forms of their personality that are probably not the dominant traits that they have been exhibiting till that point of time. But to do this, it would require a person to make a conscious effort, and drive that change through with several exercises and experiments.

His/Her personality is not going to change overnight. That is why a shy person can become more confident and open and so on and so forth, but it requires effort and practice.

There are however cases when a person can undergo a complete personality change. This happens in case of child abuse, or certain traumatic incidents, that could change a person from an extrovert personality to an introvert personality and the like. But these are driven by a compelling external or internal stimuli.

At all other times, we retain the traits that make our personality, and are in the process of finding ourselves through a good part of our life. So, if one finds a drastic change in a person, it is because of the fact that he/she has brought out the recessive traits of his/her personality.

You can develop or discard certain traits throughout your life as you grow, but changing an entire personality (unless it is dominated by a traumatic experience) is quite impossible.

Yet, the earlier notion of personality types being set in stone, without ever being able to change at all is now being changed to accept that it is in fact possible to change certain traits in the personality. Many might take this fact to be as a complete personality makeover. But that does not make it true.