How to be less difficult, according to personality-change research

Can you actually change a difficult trait?

Personality is more changeable than its reputation. A review of 207 studies found that personality measures shifted during interventions — by about a third of a standard deviation over an average of 24 weeks — mostly in emotional stability, then extraversion (Roberts et al., 2017). Those were mostly clinical treatments, and agreeableness was not the main trait that moved, so this is encouraging rather than a promise for the seven antagonism traits specifically.

More direct evidence comes from studies where people chose to change:

• In two 16-week randomized experiments, people’s goals to increase a trait predicted later increases in their self-reported trait and in related daily behavior. Training people to write concrete if-then plans helped (Hudson & Fraley, 2015).
• In a randomized trial with 1,523 participants, a three-month smartphone coaching program produced self-reported change in the desired direction, and changes held three months after it ended (Stieger et al., 2021).
• In a 16-week study, interventions targeting agreeableness also reduced participants’ Machiavellianism, narcissism and psychopathy scores (Hudson, 2023).

Why doesn’t wanting to change work?

In a 15-week study, participants could accept weekly “challenges” — small behaviors that matched the trait they wanted. Accepting challenges didn’t predict change. Completing them did (Hudson et al., 2019).

People high in difficult traits also report specific barriers. In an online survey of 497 people, those with higher personality-disorder traits were more interested in changing than others, but common reasons for not changing were that it felt too hard, they lacked motivation, or they didn’t know how (Sleep et al., 2022). The plan below targets the last of those.

A practical plan

This plan is our editorial synthesis of the findings above; it hasn’t been tested as a package.

1. Pick one trait, not seven. Use your highest score from the test — or better, the trait where a second opinion rated you highest.
2. Turn it into behaviors. Read the statements for that trait on its trait page. Each “very true” answer suggests a behavior to do less often, and each reversed item one to do more often (for example, “Care about others” for callousness).
3. Write if-then plans. “If someone disagrees with me in a meeting, then I’ll ask one question before answering.” Implementation intentions were the part of the intervention that helped in the 2015 experiments (Hudson & Fraley, 2015).
4. Do one small challenge a week, and log whether you did it. Completion, not intention, predicted change (Hudson et al., 2019).
5. Check back with someone after a couple of months. In the app trial, friends and family confirmed increases in desired traits but didn’t detect decreases significantly (Stieger et al., 2021). Expect others to lag behind your own sense of progress, and focus on adding good behaviors, not only suppressing bad ones.

When should you get professional help?

If a trait has led to violence or threats, legal trouble, or repeated loss of jobs and relationships, self-help isn’t enough. A licensed therapist can help with patterns like these. If anyone is in immediate danger, call 911. If you’re in crisis, you can call or text 988 (the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline) in the U.S.

Is it ever them, not you?

Sometimes. In a large survey of personal networks, about 15% of the people respondents listed were named as sometimes demanding or difficult, and close relatives and coworkers were more likely to be named than friends (Offer & Fischer, 2018). Difficulty is often about a relationship people can’t easily leave, not one person’s character. If that sounds familiar, see dealing with a difficult person.