Judy2

okay. i mean a certain degree of change (i.e., development) is to be expected.

would you mind describing these changes? just out of curiosity.

i'm also an INFJ. i had expected it to change, but when i ask ChatGPT to type me based on our conversations, it says i'm still the same as i was when i first took the official test on the 16 personalities website.

i am surprised to find that i feel so much better, overall, now that the new term has started. the lectures give me something meaningful to do - more than i had hoped for, actually? - and, of course, it is also nice to see my friends again. yesterday was an incredibly stressful day, though, because i had to coordinate so many appointments and set up my new schedule, but now that everything is figured out, i can settle into it and actually start to enjoy the lectures and seminars. i know that in the weeks leading up to this, i have spent so much time thinking that it is a big problem that i don't have a proper job yet, even though i am already 24, and i sometimes regret having started over with a whole new undergraduate degree...but at the moment, it does feel right and meaningful. and again, i feel taken care of when i'm just sat in front of somebody and i have to do as i am told, and that's it. what a beautiful life. i can keep looking for a second (or third) job, though, while i am at it. one of my two jobs pays really well, but the problem is that my hours are limited and very irregular....so i have been hoping to expand in that area.

even if you are not hiding and are being authentic, some very distinct personal patterns can show up, though, right?

ok:) i get that a lot, too...very annoying.

@Carl-Richard i have had several ego deaths (sober and not) and it hasn't really helped with the neuroticism, since they tend to be isolated, temporally condensed experiences. a lot of the work i have had to do to stabilise has felt quite unspiritual. OBEs are so previous:) have you experienced them again after your trip?

@LastThursday okay, cool:) because of the decrease in conscientiousness, i am guessing you don't have children? sorry if i'm wrong😅 it's funny that you mention a decrease in neuroticism because this is consistent with the literature, but i'm not sure how that actually works. are you just coping differently, or are the emotions themselves less intense/pervasive? in my experience, there can be some changes in my openness/neuroticism, if i really push myself, but eventually i will come back to my baseline. maybe with 80 i'll be more chill:)

@oOo interesting, so you are basically saying that personality is the psychological equivalent of genetic diversification (don't know what the proper term for this is but you know what i mean). personality is genetically determined by about 50%, and then there are also epigenetic and environmental influences.

i agree with the first part, but then if you compare certain individuals, across situations some act vastly different than others. sure, as individuals we deviate from our patterns every now and then, but there are patterns.

i would say interpersonal differences that persist over time....but you are right that this is tricky...and i suppose it is the time frame that makes the definition so tricky. maybe i can tell you more 15 weeks from now after i'll have taken the course.

same:)

This winter term, one of the lecture courses I am looking forward to the most is personality psychology. I read up on it a little and one of the central questions - that also happens to be one of the key reasons for why I am interested in psychology - is if personality is consistent/ unchangeable throughout someone's life. From what I gather so far, it is, for the most part, although neuroticism may decrease with age while conscientiousness will increase. However, your "peer ranking" will stay the same...so if you meet with some old friends 60 years from now, chances are that despite a general increase in conscientiousness, the most conscientious one of you at age 20 will still be the most conscientious one at 80, and so forth... Now, as this is a community with the specific goal of personal development, I wonder if any of you would be interested in sharing how you believe your personality has or hasn't changed throughout the years (the exact period of time this commentary may cover depends on your age, but technically, from childhood until the present). I believe changes in introversion/extraversion are probably going to be the most obvious ones, but the other dimensions you could comment on are conscientiousness, openness to experience, neuroticism and agreeableness (or anything else you may have to add). I also wonder what the implications are for someone like me who ranks high on the neuroticism (=negative affect) dimension if personality is not as fluid or changeable as we may think....in my experience, I can put a lot of effort into therapising and changing this aspect of my personality, I can make efforts to be mentally healthy...but the predisposition to negative affect very much stays the same. ...anyway, i'd love to hear your thoughts on all this:)

i feel dizzy from wearing headphones all the time...but it's not exactly safe when i take them off - not even in my own apartment, not even when i go to sleep, because i hear my neighbour stomping on the ground. when i fall asleep in the evening, i usually wake up again because i hear his steps...despite the fact that i started double-stacking noise cancelling headphones. i hate this, it makes me so uncomfortable and i feel so unsafe.