There is no doubt that over time, under the pressure of circumstances and environment, we all change: we acquire new habits and hobbies, but hardly any of us can say that our personality, say, a decade ago and now, are completely different people. And as stated by Medical Xpress, researchers at the University of Edinburgh decided to test what happens to our personality over time. And this research took over 60 years!
Such a large-scale study started in 1950 in Scotland, and 1208 14-year-olds took part in it. Each participant in the experiment was given a questionnaire, during which 6 main types of personal characteristics were determined. In addition, in a similar way, it was proposed to assess the teachers of these children.
63 years later, scientists from the University of Edinburgh contacted 653 people in this group, of whom only 174 agreed. The participants in the experiment completed the same questionnaires again, and instead of the teachers, the assessment "from the outside" was given by close relatives.
The results of the experiment were extremely surprising to scientists. Comparing the data obtained from the questionnaires of the same people with each other, experts did not find anything in common in them, as if they were filled in by different people. Moreover, it would be wrong to call it an accident, since a certain pattern was traced in all this. For example, people who were emotionally stable in childhood, as evidenced by both the test data and the data of an “outside observer,” after 63 years showed data on emotional instability, which was confirmed by close relatives. Moreover, the participants in the experiment themselves did not believe that they had somehow changed over the years.
As the researchers suggest, this happened because all the changes that occur to us affect us gradually, accumulating over time, and if this test is passed every year, then between the conditional "year 1" and "year 2" there will be minimal insignificant differences as between "year 59" and "year 60". But if we take and compare the first and the last result, the minimal insignificant differences can accumulate and give radically opposite data.
VLADIMIR KUZNETSOV