Personality research has recently seen an increasing interest in volitional personality change—whether people can change their personality by their own will if they desire to do so. However, there exists a paucity of research regarding those who do not want to change. Further, evidence suggests the way researchers measure volitional personality change seeking (e.g., asking about desires versus goals) is important in estimation of change endorsement. The current thesis examined these issues further. First, I took an exploratory approach to examine the distribution of change seeking and whether there are individuals who truly do not want to change on any trait. I found that there are indeed individuals who report no change seeking, and the frequency of endorsement for change seeking depends on whether participants are asked about change desires or goals, and at the general or trait level. Second, I investigated the reasons individuals do or do not seek change. Participants largely reported not seeking change due to contentment with themselves, whereas those who did seek change reported doing so given low self-esteem, happiness, and life satisfaction. Third, I tested whether certain characteristics were associated with lack of change seeking, finding an association with higher socially desirable trait levels, self-esteem, unconditional positive self-regard, life satisfaction, perceived change difficulty, and lower vulnerable narcissism and expected success. Fourth, to address shared method bias and integrate an additional measurement approach, I explored these same associations using informant reports of whether targets should and want to change, finding that informant reports made similar predictions as self-reports. This study provides novel insight into reasons individuals seek or do not seek personality change and attributes associated with (lack of) change seeking, and highlights the importance of question framing when asking about volitional personality change.
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