A new study published in the journal Individual and Personality Differences<\/a><\/em> indicates that divorce is not a consistent predictor of personality change.<\/p>\n \u201cWe were interested in testing the folk wisdom that experiencing a divorce changes you,\u201d said study author Sascha Spikic, a researcher-lector at the PXL University of Applied Sciences and Arts in Belgium.<\/p>\n The researchers examined data from three large longitudinal studies: the Understanding Society survey in the United Kingdom, the Socio-Economic Panel Study in Germany, and the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia survey. There were 37,199 observations in total.<\/p>\n Although some people did experience changes in their personality after getting divorced, the changes were not significantly different compared to those who remained married.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you interpret being the same person as having the same personality, then separating from your spouse does not seem to change you overall,\u201d Spikic told PsyPost.<\/p>\n The researchers examined the \u201cBig Five\u201d personality traits \u2014 extraversion, neuroticism, openness to experience, agreeableness, and conscientiousness \u2014 \u201cwhich are considered to be the five most important personality traits,\u201d Spikic added.<\/p>\n \u201cMarried individuals in Australia, Germany and the United Kingdom were observed for four to six years. Individuals who separated did not seem to show any differences in personality change than those who remained married.\u201d<\/p>\n The findings mostly rejected \u201cthe folk wisdom that divorce changes you,\u201d Spikic said. But there was one exception.<\/p>\n \u201cDivorcees seemed to become slightly more agreeable in two of the three countries under investigation. This could be a result of divorcees investing in personality traits that help them to rebuild their social network,\u201d Spikic explained.<\/p>\n However, the researchers were only able to examine data from the three countries separately. \u201cDissimilarities among measurement instruments and observation duration made it impossible to directly compare national differences in divorce-induced personality change,\u201d Spikic said.<\/p>\n But the findings are in line with other studies that have found<\/a> that the Big Five personality traits tend to remain fairly stable over the course of a person\u2019s life, even in the face of adverse life events.<\/p>\n
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