More than just changeability: Specific factors are used to explain the changeability of personality traits

Abstract

Implicit theories and psychological essentialism are valuable frameworks used to model how changeable many traits are perceived to be. These frameworks, however, characterise changeability as a broad and generalised construct and do not fully capture the nuance and specificity involved in personality changeability. We therefore sought to deconstruct implicit theories about changeability into underlying more specific aspects of changeability. We measured how changeable people theorise personality traits to be according to three underlying specific factors: volitional control, context and age. We investigated how specific implicit theories about changeability vary across different personality traits. We show that two personality traits (agreeableness and conscientiousness) are linked to dissociable patterns of specific factors used to explain how changeable they are. These findings yield new insight into the way people explain why personality traits are changeable and demonstrate that different types of reasons are used to explain the changeability of agreeableness and conscientiousness.