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Brian Laird on WNYC.

So who at some point or another has wanted to be more outgoing than you are, more generous than you are,

maybe a little less neurotic, however you define that?

Changing these aspects can feel insurmountable, right?

It's just who you are.

But in her new book, Olga Hazan, staff writer at the

Atlantic, went on a year-long quest to fine-tune her personality, or at least to try. Turns out,

she discovered there are five key traits that are on a sliding scale, and they're measurable. Through her research, she discovered

that you can alter these traits, yes you can, by consistently behaving in ways that align with the

kind of person you'd like to be. This new book is called Me But Better, the Science and Promise

of Personality Change.

Hi, Olga, welcome back to WNYC.

Hi, thanks so much for having me.

And I'm just going to list these five factors so listeners know what they are that you say

personality consists of scientifically, extroversion, conscientiousness, agreeableness, openness, and neuroticism. Do you want to talk about any

one of those as an example of how you think they can be measured? Yeah, so extroversion is one that

might resonate with people. I think we all know what an extrovert is versus an introvert. And for me, I really

wanted to increase my levels of extroversion because really even acting in an extroverted way

occasionally can actually make you happier. So when I took this science-based personality test,

it showed me that my levels of extroversion

were very, very low.

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