The Future of Personality Research and Applications: Some Latest Findings

Human personality, although highly complex, is crucial to understand because it is the strongest predictor of our physical, mental, and social health as well as the actual cause of most mortality and chronic disease. However, despite the fact that earlier twin studies have found that the differences between people in personality are about 50% heritable, until recently only about 1% of this heritability has been explained by specific genes. Here we briefly outline current notions about the genetics of personality and also describe recent research that used novel and innovative person-centered methods to identify nearly all the genes for human personality. This international collaboration among 27 investigators at multiple sites comprised data from the Young Finns Study in Finland with independent replications in Germany and Korea (Zwir et al., Mol Psychiatry, 2018a, 2018b). In short, these results now make it possible to understand the basic mechanisms that influence our emotions as well as the way we can self-regulate our feelings, goals, and values in order to live healthy and satisfying lives. What is even more, these results provide a foundation for a thorough understanding of the complex molecular and brain processes that regulate human health and well-being. In this line, we also present preliminary results of a recent pilot study, in which interventions targeting character development among Swedish young adults suggest improvements in well-being after 6 months of well-being coaching. Importantly, it is argued that character regulates the expression of temperament predispositions, so character is the regulator of well-being regardless of underlying temperament. That is, since we are body, mind, and psyche at once (i.e., biopsychosocial in nature), the person needs to learn to both know and understand her temperament and her character to integrate them in order to adapt intelligently to who she is and the changing circumstances in the world around her.