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Scientists say you can change your personality + Brains shrink in Antarctica

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Scientists’ brains shrank a bit after an extended stay in Antarctica
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/scie...antarctica

EXCERPT: . . . The crew of eight scientists and researchers and a cook lived and worked at the German research station Neumayer III for 14 months. [...] the crew alone endured the long darkness of the polar winter ... That social isolation and monotonous environment is the closest thing on Earth to what a space explorer on a long mission may experience, says Stahn, who is interested in researching what effect such travel would have on the brain.

[...] On average, an area of the hippocampus in the crew’s brains shrank by 7 percent over the course of the expedition, compared with healthy people matched for age and gender who didn’t stay at the station, the researchers report ... in the New England Journal of Medicine. But there are good reasons to believe that this change is reversible, Stahn says. While the hippocampus is highly vulnerable to stressors like isolation, he says, it is also very responsive to stimulation that comes from a life filled with social interactions and a variety of landscapes to explore... (MORE - details)



Scientists say you can change your personality
https://www.ucdavis.edu/news/can-you-cha...-say-maybe

RELEASE: It has long been believed that people can't change their personalities, which are largely stable and inherited. But a review of recent research in personality science points to the possibility that personality traits can change through persistent intervention and major life events. Personality traits, identified as neuroticism, extraversion, openness to experience, agreeableness and conscientiousness, can predict a wide range of important outcomes such as health, happiness and income. Because of this, these traits might represent an important target for policy interventions designed to improve human welfare.

The research, scheduled to be published in the December issue of American Psychologist, is the product of the Personality Change Consortium, an international group of researchers committed to advancing understanding of personality change. The consortium was initiated by Wiebke Bleidorn and Christopher Hopwood, University of California, Davis, professors of psychology who are also co-authors of the latest paper, "The Policy Relevance of Personality Traits." The paper has 13 other co-authors.

"In this paper, we present the case that traits can serve both as relatively stable predictors of success and actionable targets for policy changes and interventions," Bleidorn said. "Parents, teachers, employers and others have been trying to change personality forever because of their implicit awareness that it is good to make people better people," Hopwood added.

But now, he said, strong evidence suggests that personality traits are broad enough to account for a wide range of socially important behaviors at levels that surpass known predictors, and that they can change, especially if you catch people at the right age and exert sustained effort. However, these traits also remain relatively stable; thus while they can change, they are not easy to change.

Resources are often invested in costly interventions that are unlikely to work because they are not informed by evidence about personality traits. "For that reason, it would be helpful for public policymakers to think more explicitly about what it takes to change personality to improve personal and public welfare, the costs and benefits of such interventions, and the resources needed to achieve the best outcomes by both being informed by evidence about personality traits and investing more sustained resources and attention toward better understanding personality change," researchers said.

Research has found that a relatively small number of personality traits can account for most of the ways in which people differ from one another. Thus, they are related to a wide range of important life outcomes. These traits are also relatively stable, but changeable with effort and good timing. This combination -- broad and enduring, yet changeable -- makes them particularly promising targets for large-scale interventions. Both neuroticism and conscientiousness, for example, may represent good intervention targets in young adulthood. And certain interventions -- especially those that require persistence and long-term commitment -- may be more effective among conscientious, emotionally stable people. It is also important to consider motivational factors, as success is more likely if people are motivated and think change is feasible, researchers said.

Bleidorn and Hopwood said examples of important questions that could be more informed by personality science include: What is the long-term impact of social media and video games? How do we get children to be kinder and work harder at school? How do we help people acculturate to new environments? And, what is the best way to help people age with grace and dignity?
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