Change Your Personality

Radio Atlantic

The Atlantic

Politics, News, Society & Culture

4.4 • 1.9K Ratings

🗓️ 19 June 2025

⏱️ 31 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

A few years ago, Olga Khazan, author of Me, But Better, set out to change her personality, which even she found unpleasant. After consulting with experts on personality plasticity and then setting a deadline, Khazan put herself through an intense experiment intended to make herself more likeable, to herself and others. Khazan tested and scored herself on a range of key personality traits at the beginning and end of the experiment. In this episode, Khazan and I talk about two of those traits: extroversion and neuroticism. Khazan shares how she dragged herself to improv classes and meditation lessons, and how having a baby threw a kink in her experiment.-- Get more from your favorite Atlantic voices when you subscribe. You’ll enjoy unlimited access to Pulitzer-winning journalism, from clear-eyed analysis and insight on breaking news to fascinating explorations of our world. Subscribe today at TheAtlantic.com/listener. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:59.5	There is one thing I really don't like about myself.
1:03.7	I mean, there are several, but I'm only going to tell you about this one right now.
1:06.5	It can be the most beautiful day. Like springtime, cherry blossoms, every direction you look, and immediately, instinctively, my mind will scan for the one thing wrong.
1:16.7	Like, gross, there's pollen all over that car.
1:20.6	I have definitely tried over the years to do this or that counteract it, like cultivate a more positive mindset or start my day by saying
1:29.4	three things I'm grateful for. But I think there's just a part of me that thinks, well, that's
1:35.8	just how Hana is. Like, there's some core of Hannah Rosen, whether it's genetic or epigenetic
1:42.9	or learned, that will always scan for the negative.
1:47.2	I'm Hannah Rosen. This is Radio Atlantic. And today, we're talking about personality, what it is,
1:54.7	and whether it's something you can actually change. So many decades ago, William James did come up with this theory that personality is sort of
	...

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