How Work and College Change Your Personality

Is personality stable or malleable? What major life experiences can change our personalities?

Although personality tends to be relatively stable across the lifespan, certain life events can change our personalities. A recent study by a team of German psychologists suggest that the decision to go directly to work, or to go to college, following the shared, secondary school years [German students choose either a vocational or college track after 10th grade], altered these young adults’ personalities in predictable ways.

Students who chose the vocational track had higher scores on conscientiousness. Years later, they reported working harder and more thoroughly than students who chose the academic-college track. The vocational track students also scored lower on being enterprising and investigative. In other words, those who went to work immediately after schooling were less interested in analyzing and investigating things than were students who chose the college track.

This all makes sense because students who pursue higher education are taught the scientific method and are reinforced for being enterprising and inquisitive. Being taught critical thinking in college seems to change individuals to have a more analytical type of personality.

For the most part, the personality changes were relatively small, but significant. There is better evidence that pursuing higher education has a bigger effect on attitudes, rather than on personality—which is a more deeply-seated construct.

How does college tend to change people? Well, there are economic benefits (i.e., higher income), health benefits (college graduates tend to have better healthcare and take a more active role in maintaining a healthy lifestyle), and a greater concern for the environment. See more on this here.

So, is personality stable or malleable? In general, personality is quite stable across the lifespan. For life events to change personality in significant ways, those events must be important and impactful—likely taking place over many years and involving experiences that affect how an individual views the world, such as pursuing higher education or being more work-focused as a young adult.

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