@article{dc34c03b15f945c9b6bd0cc5b1aad833,
title = "Becoming More Conscientious or More Open to Experience? Effects of a Two-Week Smartphone-Based Intervention for Personality Change",
abstract = "Research indicates that it might be possible to change personality traits through intervention, but this clinical research has primarily focused on changing neuroticism. To date, there are no established, proven techniques for changing other domains of personality, such as conscientiousness and openness. This research examined the effects of a two-week smartphone-based intervention to either change one facet of conscientiousness (i.e. self-discipline) or one facet of openness to experience (i.e. openness to action). Two intervention studies (total N = 255) with two active intervention groups for mutual comparisons were conducted. Results of self-reports and observer reports showed that people who wanted to become more self-disciplined were less self-disciplined at pretest. Similarly, people who wanted to become more open to action were less open to action at pretest. The results showed that people who chose the self-discipline intervention showed greater increases in self-discipline, and people who chose the openness to action intervention showed greater increases in openness to action compared with the other group. Changes were maintained until follow-up two and six weeks after the end of the intervention. Future work is needed to examine whether these personality changes are enduring or reflect temporary accentuation as a result of participation in the intervention.",
keywords = "common change factors, conscientiousness, openness to experience, personality change, smartphone-based intervention",
author = "Mirjam Stieger and Sandro Wepfer and Dominik R{\"u}egger and Tobias Kowatsch and Roberts, {Brent W.} and Mathias Allemand",
note = "Funding Information: Work on this manuscript was partially supported by a grant from the Swiss National Science Foundation (No. 162724) and by a grant from the UZH Digital Society Initiative. Sandro Wepfer was affiliated with the University of Zurich, Switzerland student during data collection of Study 1. We thank Kathrin Baur, Haris Mehmed, and Christoph Steiner for their help with data collection in Study 2. We also thank our research assistants Lara Keller and Sara Aeschlimann for their help in rating participants' implementation intentions. Funding Information: The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article: Work on this manuscript was partially supported by a grant from the Swiss National Science Foundation (no. 46712, PI: Allemand) and by a grant from the UZH Digital Society Initiative (PI: Allemand). Work on this manuscript was partially supported by a grant from the Swiss National Science Foundation (No. 162724) and by a grant from the UZH Digital Society Initiative. Sandro Wepfer was affiliated with the University of Zurich, Switzerland student during data collection of Study 1. We thank Kathrin Baur, Haris Mehmed, and Christoph Steiner for their help with data collection in Study 2. We also thank our research assistants Lara Keller and Sara Aeschlimann for their help in rating participants' implementation intentions. Data and R-codes are available on the Open Science Framework (OSF; https://osf.io/an5dj/). Parts of the results were presented at the 5th Biennial Meeting of the Association of Research in Personality (ARP), Sacramento, USA (2017), the Conference of the Swiss Pychological Society, Lausanne, Switzerland (2017), and at the 51st Conference of the German Association for Psychology (DGPs), Frankfurt, Germany (2018). Funding Information: The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article: Work on this manuscript was partially supported by a grant from the Swiss National Science Foundation (no. 46712, PI: Allemand) and by a grant from the UZH Digital Society Initiative (PI: Allemand). Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2020 European Association of Personality Psychology",
year = "2020",
month = may,
doi = "10.1002/per.2267",
language = "English (US)",
volume = "34",
pages = "345--366",
journal = "European Journal of Personality",
issn = "0890-2070",
publisher = "John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.",
number = "3",
}