Can You Really Change Your Personality? w/ Olga Khazan

The Psychology Podcast

iHeartPodcasts

Social Sciences, Science

4.4 • 2K Ratings

🗓️ 31 July 2025

⏱️ 60 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

This week Scott speaks with journalist and Atlantic staff writer Olga Khazan about her latest book, Me, But Better: The Science and Promise of Personality Change.

Olga shares her personal journey experimenting with ways to reshape her own personality—armed with insights from the latest psychological research. Together, she and Scott explore whether personality traits like introversion, neuroticism, and even antagonism can truly change over time, and what science says about how we can become better versions of ourselves.

This episode dives into the surprising plasticity of personality, why certain traits are harder to shift than others, and the real-life tools that can help spark meaningful, lasting transformation.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is an IHeart podcast.
0:04.4	The Stuff You Should Know guys have made their own summer playlist of their must listen podcasts on movies.
0:10.2	It's me, Josh, and I'd like to welcome you to the Stuff You Should Know summer movie playlist.
0:15.1	What Screams Summer?
0:16.1	More than a nice, darkened, air-conditioned theater, and a great movie playing right in front of you.
0:20.8	Episodes on James Bond, special effects, stunt men and women, disaster films. darkened, air-conditioned theater and a great movie playing right in front of you.
0:22.1	Episodes on James Bond,
0:23.9	special effects, stunt men and women,
0:26.6	disaster films, even movies that change filmmaking,
0:27.5	and many more.
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1:04.3	will make you laugh, cry, and add way too many books to your TBR pile.
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	...

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