For those who enjoy traveling extensively, to view the world from a strangers eyes, to witness and vision unique cultures and food, are distinctively different from those who’d rather stay close to home. Going abroad on vacations, this for extended periods of time can alter one’s personality.
The definition of personality, is it reflects a series of goals, usually long-term, that sets individuals apart. It’s the distinct characteristics of a person, which describes their unique differences when comparing them to others.
These are the goals which defines their personality that every person has, wants, plans, and are aiming to achieve in their lives. The ones which they consider to be a part of their human nature.
For instance, once someone is wanting to become open to different experiences, what that reflects is the goal of radical adventure, the need to engage in new experiences, to seek a thrill.
Some will constantly engage in these goals often, so their threshold to experiences is high. Then there are those who are more comfortable to just remain in familiar territory, environments, so they’re low in this need for new experiences.
The Extents Of A Personality
What the culmination of our personality reflects is a stored combination of various biological as well as genetic factors, this along with the life experiences which influences these goals.
But revealing the experiences which influences personality is a difficult thing to pinpoint. This since what it requires is to identify the different kinds of experiences that are most likely to affect one’s personality, and over time, how these experiences lead towards changes in personality.
Stay At Home Or Become A Vagabond Traveler
So what’s been examined is how travel, specifically extended travel can influence personality development. Someone who has spent or lived in another country for a period of time, compared to someone with limited travel experience.
So what’s been researched is how travel can alter personality, along with how the different social networks that they’re forced to develop, influenced how they are.
The Personality Of A Traveler
So prior to the travel, the participants were given a personality assessment test, this to measure what’s known as the “Big Five,” this when it comes to personality dimensions.
They are extraversion, emotional stability, agreeableness, open to new experiences, and conscientiousness. The participants also supplied a list of their current social networks. After returning from the travel, the same personality measurement tests were given.
What the researchers were looking for was to distinguish the factors which correlated with choosing to live in another country, the specific personality changes which arises from traveling.
Traveling For Extended Periods
Participants who chose to travel extensively or live abroad in foreign lands, were generally higher in extraversion. What extraversion reflects is the need to engage in social interactions, along with wanting to be the center of attention.
Those who traveled for months on end, also tended to be higher in conscientiousness, which reveals a need to follow rules as well as to complete set out tasks, than those who didn’t travel.
Those who decided to go traveling for up to a year or longer, living in a different country, were all generally higher in being open to new experiences, this much more than the homebodies.
Once returning from their extended trips, the majority of those who traveled also tended to display agreeableness, which is the need of wanting to get along with others, while displaying higher emotional stability.
A Change In Personality
These changes which occurred in their personalities also corresponded to their social networks, this as a result of travel. As expected, for those who didn’t travel, what they maintained was a similar social network of friends over the same period of time.
In contrast, for those who traveled extensively, what they tended to do was meet a lot of new and different variety of people from the host country, while losing touch with those from their home country.
These changes when it came to the shifting of their social network strongly aligned to the observed changes, which coincided to emotional stability and being open to new experiences.
You Only Live Once So Live Life Big
What living abroad, or extended travel to faraway foreign lands does is it removes one from their immediate comfort zones. What these travelers needed to do was adapt quickly to new food, strange people, and at times abstract cultural practices.
Even for those who may be just traveling across the border, still needs to adapt, to shift to the subtle differences in language, dialect, food, and social economic outlook.
The more that these adventurous travelers engaged with new and different unique people from different lands, the more that they promoted goals which were related to being open.
It also helped these travelers to gain a better perspective on life, which as a result made them less emotionally reactive to daily changes, increasing their emotional stability.
The experiences when it comes to meeting new people, also helps when it comes to agreeableness, although it’s not directly related to their new social networks.
For All Those Who Travel
What was determined on these findings, was the results which were specific to younger individuals, and not necessarily towards the older individuals who frequently traveled as well.
The distinctions aren’t entirely clear, this since younger people who are in their college years or are studying abroad, for instance, are still in an intense period of self discovery and evolution.
On the other hand, it becomes difficult to find enough samples sizes of older adults who extensively travel, to determine whether these same experiences has any change in their personalities.