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I took an OCEAN quiz recently and scored low on agreeableness. This was bit shocking to me because as a child and young adult I was always very agreeable, sometimes almost a doormat. After reflecting a bit I concluded that the quiz was right and I really have become a less agreeable person. I think that the weight of responsibility and the limited amount of time I have now has just reduced my patience for pleasantries and circumlocution. I'm not an "asshole" (I think), I'm just direct and to the point.
My neuroticism also dropped from moderate to low. But everything else stayed the same.
How has your personality changed over your life?
Don't think my personality has changed at all or if it has, hardly so. People aren't very good when it comes to their own self-conceptualization and how they imagine themselves to be. Circumstance and local conditions modulate how the different aspects of your psychology express themselves so where you place the emphasis on the spectrum is never going to seem completely accurate because it's always shifting around a bit before you run into regression to the mean.
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I would say my disagreeableness has reduced ever since I was a young adult in a somewhat complex way, but at my core I have always been a curmudgeonly contrarian fuck with a massive chip on my shoulder that has only matured as I age. This hasn't changed - my best quality is that I hate a lot and hate intensely. What has changed though is my reaction to this cynicism. Earlier in life I would attempt to try and reason or argue with people in an attempt to debate, both online and off in an attempt at dealing with conflict or disagreement, basically "I can fix them" epitomised, lately I have been finding it to be a Sisyphean task. Increasingly I find my reaction to be this muted thought process of "well the thing you said or did is bloody stupid" and then I move on.
(It's part of why I've been losing interest in the CW threads here too and just increasingly declining to read them - as distinct as this forum's discussion norms are, many of the comments on topics I can actually give input on cover ground that's ancient to me, and too many compulsively make posts along the lines of "I found [single case study] here is my extrapolation" or "here is my vibes-based diatribe/just-so story/anecdote" and I have zero interest in dragging out a hundred and one sources I've posted previously to rehash a discussion I've had for what seems like the thousandth time when someone is directionally incorrect enough to ruffle my feathers. I increasingly understand why effortposters seemingly go into flame-outs out of nowhere.)
In my case, I think this is also partially down to increased responsibility and being time-poor that makes the cost-benefit of being argumentative look awful. My takes themselves have barely changed, but my position regarding argumentativeness has shifted from "Someone is wrong" to "What does it matter, it's not like anything will change much anyway, it's like pissing in the ocean". I guess this means I've become less disagreeable, at least outwardly, though it also reflects an increasing jadedness and hopelessness. There's a longstanding esteemed Chinese tradition of the "virtuous hermit" that persists to this day, where disillusioned individuals retreated from society to live alone, and increasingly I find myself identifying with that approach.
Regarding neuroticism, I'm not sure. If anything, that has increased overtime from when I was a kid. In the intervening period I experienced what I would have previously considered as a worst-case scenario for a good few long years, and this has hammered an attitude into me where I'm constantly mindful that things can always get worse, even when they get better. That one probably isn't too healthy.
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