Addiction is a good example: Although beset by selection problems, it looks like many (possibly most) substance-dependent people will eventually recover, despite poor evidence for any specific intervention (relative to just encouraging someone to quit), and the low odds of recovery for a single attempt. But you wouldn’t say that these recoveries were somehow accidental or not self-directed! Slatestarcodex had an interesting review of this for alcoholism here.
Also note that several of the other areas will tend to change regardless of a specific intervention:
Many (major) depressive episodes will resolve themselves over time. So a positive effect due to treatment could mean several different things: Faster recovery; increased odds of recovery; greater magnitude of recovery; less chance of relapse; or even something like less functional impairment despite no subjective relief. I’ve read less about other conditions.
Weight tends to flatten out and later decrease in mid-life.
Absolute personality trait measures drift with aggregate predictability over time. (Relatives measures are more stable, but it’s not shocking to see large a large percentile change in an individual.)
Finally: When people talk about weight-loss, they’re usually talking about dieting. But bariatric surgery has good evidence for large, long-term weight loss, and is not a rare procedure, (~100,000 a year: link)
I agree with your points but I’m don’t think they address the same time horizon. Whats common among your points is that they show that personality traits change (slowly) over time. They do. There are thorough longitudinal studies that analyse and support this (e.g. the Grant Study). An inspirational read about this is Aging Well. But are these ‘Intended’ treatments or planned change? I don’t think so.
I agree that the time frame for personality change is probably quite long, outside of pathological causes. And at least sometimes, social problems, depression, and anxiety can occur in more stable, quasi-personality forms. That said, sometimes a specific issue will present itself as a more personality trait (e.g. social phobia or shame presenting as introversion), with the possibility of more rapid adjustment.
The time frame for resolving addiction without third party intervention seems more mixed. I suspect selection effects cause us to greatly overestimate the odds that an addiction will usually “burn itself out” to whatever ends, but I’m not too confident.
Weight loss in older age is probably not the sole result of psychological change. Older people are more conscientious and have lower time preference, so that might play a role. But for elderly people, it’s almost certainly mostly a non-physiological effect of aging.
Are long-term personality changes that occur in the absence of a discrete intervention unplanned or accidental? Unclear. People normally recognize their own problems and seek their own solutions, albeit somewhat imprecisely, and these could be the cause of the long-term, (often positive), changes we see in personality. I used addiction as an example, because some of the corrective actions are easy to identity. To take anger as an example: Anger management probably improves over time as a combination of biological changes (lower hormones), social changes (taking on a social role less compatible with displays of anger), as well as self-directed psychosocial changes (learning how to relax, how to stay calm, how to maintain perspective, learning more skilled and effective ways to bring about some desired effect). If you can resolve a change into these types of parts, there’s no longer much use in asking about general intentionality.
Be careful about interpreting these estimates.
Addiction is a good example: Although beset by selection problems, it looks like many (possibly most) substance-dependent people will eventually recover, despite poor evidence for any specific intervention (relative to just encouraging someone to quit), and the low odds of recovery for a single attempt. But you wouldn’t say that these recoveries were somehow accidental or not self-directed! Slatestarcodex had an interesting review of this for alcoholism here.
Also note that several of the other areas will tend to change regardless of a specific intervention:
Many (major) depressive episodes will resolve themselves over time. So a positive effect due to treatment could mean several different things: Faster recovery; increased odds of recovery; greater magnitude of recovery; less chance of relapse; or even something like less functional impairment despite no subjective relief. I’ve read less about other conditions.
Weight tends to flatten out and later decrease in mid-life.
Absolute personality trait measures drift with aggregate predictability over time. (Relatives measures are more stable, but it’s not shocking to see large a large percentile change in an individual.)
Finally: When people talk about weight-loss, they’re usually talking about dieting. But bariatric surgery has good evidence for large, long-term weight loss, and is not a rare procedure, (~100,000 a year: link)
I agree with your points but I’m don’t think they address the same time horizon. Whats common among your points is that they show that personality traits change (slowly) over time. They do. There are thorough longitudinal studies that analyse and support this (e.g. the Grant Study). An inspirational read about this is Aging Well. But are these ‘Intended’ treatments or planned change? I don’t think so.
I agree that the time frame for personality change is probably quite long, outside of pathological causes. And at least sometimes, social problems, depression, and anxiety can occur in more stable, quasi-personality forms. That said, sometimes a specific issue will present itself as a more personality trait (e.g. social phobia or shame presenting as introversion), with the possibility of more rapid adjustment.
The time frame for resolving addiction without third party intervention seems more mixed. I suspect selection effects cause us to greatly overestimate the odds that an addiction will usually “burn itself out” to whatever ends, but I’m not too confident.
Weight loss in older age is probably not the sole result of psychological change. Older people are more conscientious and have lower time preference, so that might play a role. But for elderly people, it’s almost certainly mostly a non-physiological effect of aging.
Are long-term personality changes that occur in the absence of a discrete intervention unplanned or accidental? Unclear. People normally recognize their own problems and seek their own solutions, albeit somewhat imprecisely, and these could be the cause of the long-term, (often positive), changes we see in personality. I used addiction as an example, because some of the corrective actions are easy to identity. To take anger as an example: Anger management probably improves over time as a combination of biological changes (lower hormones), social changes (taking on a social role less compatible with displays of anger), as well as self-directed psychosocial changes (learning how to relax, how to stay calm, how to maintain perspective, learning more skilled and effective ways to bring about some desired effect). If you can resolve a change into these types of parts, there’s no longer much use in asking about general intentionality.