• Question: Can people change people or do we stay the same and just get different dimensions to our personality?

    Asked by Hana to Nikki, Jess, Harriet, Chris, Andy on 11 Mar 2016.
    • Photo: Christopher Blanford

      Christopher Blanford answered on 11 Mar 2016:

      Hi Hana

      Hope our chat today wasn’t too mental. I couldn’t keep up!

      I hope there’s some debate on this with the others, because it’s a deep question.

      I think you can change people.

      Habits are a good start: other peoples’ influences can help us break bad habit and make good ones. Sometimes the other way around too.

      You can undergo therapy and conditioning where you can gain or lose fears. That’s how some people get over fears of spiders or heights.

      My personality has changed over time. I’m more extroverted now.

      I think we have biochemical and nerve pathways that define our personality. Some of these are easier to change than others. Do we get new dimensions: yeah, it’s probably that to a certain extent. It’s hard to completely erase certain things. But these new dimension can become the dominant ones.

      Chris

    • Photo: Nikki D'Arcy

      Nikki D'Arcy answered on 12 Mar 2016:

      Hi Hana

      that’s a really interesting question and as Chris said very deep!! I think you do change people with every interaction you have with them. We constantly learn from others around us and what we do influences the thoughts and actions of others. I don’t know about you but I sometimes notice that when I spend a lot of time with someone, I might start to unconsciously copy some of the things they say or do. It’s fun to notice little things like that.

      As Chris said too, there are therapies out there which can change the way you think. One is called cognitive behavioural therapy. It teaches you to think in a different and more positive way, so you can change people like that.

      That might be a different dimension to our personality though and maybe we haven’t actually changed on a biological level…. wow, now this IS getting deep!!!

    • Photo: Jessica Groppi

      Jessica Groppi answered on 13 Mar 2016:

      Hi!

      I think people can change people. A person’s personality and ideas are continually evolving especially when one is young.

      Jess.

    • Photo: andy chapman

      andy chapman answered on 13 Mar 2016:

      I think we get different dimensions to our personality and that is changing. I see the world pretty differently to the way I did when I was younger for sure and that affects my personality.

    • Photo: Harriet Reid

      Harriet Reid answered on 14 Mar 2016:

      I think that people do change each other. We are also changed by the experiences that we have.

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