Personality reflects a series of long-term goals that people aim to achieve. The characteristics we think of as personality are those that describe differences between people. The goals that every person wants to achieve are the ones that we consider part of human nature. For example, the core dimension of Openness to Experience reflects the general goal to try new things and to engage in new experiences. Some people engage this goal often, and so they are high in Openness to Experience. Others have the goal to remain in familiar environments, and so they are low in Openness to Experience.
Like every other facet of human psychology, personality reflects a combination of biological/genetic factors as well as experiences that influence these goals. Studying the experiences that influence personality is difficult, though, because it requires identifying the kinds of experiences that are likely to affect personality as well as studying individuals over time in order to explore how those experiences lead to changes in personality.
A fascinating paper by Julia Zimmermann and Franz Neyer in the September, 2013 issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology examined how extended travel influenced personality development in a large sample of German college students. Some of the students in their sample studied in another country for an extended period of time (one or two semesters), while the control group was in college, but did not study abroad. The researchers were interested in how this period of extended travel influenced personality as well as how the new social network people developed influenced any observed personality changes.
via Extended Travel Affects Personality | Psychology Today.
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Extended Travel Affects Personality | Psychology Today
