How can personality traits be changed in adulthood? Is it possible, for instance, to become more extroverted, and less neurotic? Outside of clinical settings such as psychotherapy, what role can mobile applications play in helping shift patterns of behaviour? These were some of the questions which were explored in the PEACH project.

We would like to congratulate the authors on the publication of their research article “Changing Personality Traits with the Help of a Digital Personality Change Intervention” in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS).

In their study, Dr. Mirjam Stieger (Brandeis University), Prof. Dr. Christoph Flückiger (UZH), Dominik Rüegger (ETH Zurich), Prof. Dr. Tobias Kowatsch (ETH Zurich & HSG), Prof. Dr. Brent W. Roberts (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) and Prof. Dr. Mathias Allemand (UZH) used the PEACH app, developed with the MobileCoach platform, as the active ingredient of treatment. The authors were able to show that intentional changes to personality traits are achievable with the help of a tailored app, and that these changes could be maintained even after the study ended.

For further details, please refer to the published article and the PEACH Personality Coach Website.

Reference:
Stieger M, Flückiger C, Rüegger D, Kowatsch T, Roberts BW, Allemand M (2021) Changing personality traits with the help of a digital personality change intervention Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Feb 2021, 118 (8) e2017548118; https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2017548118