Your personality is constantly changing – can psychedelics have a positive impact?

In the words of Carl Jung, “the shoe that fits one person pinches another; there is no universal recipe for living.”

In other words, everybody is different, and a part of what makes a person unique is their personality – a person’s thoughts, feelings and behaviours that are constantly undergoing development change throughout a lifetime.

The Big Five – a common theory used to characterise personality – proposes five broad categories encompassing various personality traits: extraversion, agreeableness, openness to experience, conscientiousness, and neuroticism.

In a simple sense – while a person can be extroverted and open to new experiences – somebody else can be introverted and less agreeable.

Researching personality can provide fascinating insights into how a person changes and develops over a lifetime and help them learn about their strengths and weaknesses. People can then apply such insights to real-world situations, e.g., what job suits you.

Can psychedelics change your personality for the better? Let’s take a look.

What is the research telling us?

Various tools exist to measure personality – measuring the effects psychedelics have on numerous aspects of personality are standard secondary measures in clinical trials with psychedelics.

Some believe that the positive effects psychedelics have in therapy settings relate to their ability to alter aspects of personality.

Take MDMA-assisted therapy as an example. Researchers at MAPS found that increases in the openness trait – a willingness to try new things – played a moderating role in reducing symptoms of PTSD following MDMA treatment.

In the same study, neuroticism – a tendency to experience more negative effects – was decreased but was not related to the therapeutic effects of MDMA.

Psilocybin produced a similar decrease in neuroticism in a trial with depressed patients at Imperial College London. On the other hand, extraversion and openness increased following psilocybin therapy – similar effects have been seen with regular antidepressants but were more pronounced with psilocybin.

What is the real world telling us?

People use psychedelics outside of the highly controlled clinical environment for various reasons, be it for fun or better their mental wellbeing.

Survey studies help researchers understand these people’s motivations and whether or not they got their desired outcome.  

One study found that participating in an ayahuasca ceremony decreased neuroticism and found this effect to last for three months in some cases.

While the science is still up for debate, many people report that microdosing helps to improve their quality of life – could this be related to changes in their personality?

A small survey study by Hannah Dressler and her colleagues found that microdosing increased conscientiousness and decreased neuroticism.

Overall, psychedelics can positively impact personality, especially if a person is close-minded and introverted. However, it’s too early to tell exactly how these changes occur and if they’re genuinely long-lasting.

Continue learning about psychedelics & personality on our Personality Topic page