How can I change my personality?

Want to become more confident, extroverted or assertive? Science shows that with a few simple changes, you can unlock your best self

- DR CHRISTIAN JARRETT

It's a new year and - as a few thousand vaguely patronising Instagram posts will tell you - it's the perfect time to turn over a new leaf. Start afresh, be better. But where to start? Well, you could adopt a new hobby or make a meagre New Year's resolution. Or maybe you could get much more radical and change your personality.

In scientific terms, personality is simply a set of traits that reflect how you tend to think, feel and behave. It might sound harsh or confronting to suggest changing your personality, but many surveys suggest that most people wish to alter at least some of their traits.

Psychologists largely recognise there are five key personality traits: openness to experience (your willingness to try new things); conscientiousness (your self-discipline, ambition and orderliness); extroversion (how much you're drawn to fun); agreeableness (how warm, friendly and trusting you are); and neuroticism (how much you experience negative emotions, such as worry and doubt).

Unlike moods or emotions, personality traits are relatively stable. If you don't see your friend for a few years, you still recognise them as essentially the same person when you finally do meet up. It might sound far-fetched, then, to change such a fundamental aspect of ourselves.

But psychologists have been stress-testing personality, and their findings suggest that not only is personality change possible, it's actually a jolly sensible idea.

For instance, through a series of studies published in 2023 and 2024, a research team based across various European universities showed that an app was able to help people change their personalities in the ways they wanted. Because of its international inception, PEACH (PErsonality coACH) was only available to download in German - but an English version will soon be on its way.