Most people want to change some aspects of their personality, but does this phenomenon extend to moral character and to close others? Targets (n = 800) rated their personality traits and reported how much they wanted to change on each trait; well-acquainted informants (n = 958) rated targets’ personality traits and how much they wanted the targets to change on those same traits. Targets and informants reported a lower desire to change more morally relevant traits (e.g., honesty, compassion, fairness) compared with less morally relevant traits (e.g., anxiety, sociability, productiveness)—even after we controlled for current trait levels. Moreover, although targets generally wanted to improve more on traits that they had less desirable levels of, and informants wanted their targets to improve more on those traits as well, targets’ moral change goals were less calibrated to their current trait levels. Finally, informants wanted targets to change in similar ways, but to a lesser extent, than targets themselves did. These findings suggest that moral considerations take a back seat when it comes to self-improvement.

中文翻译：

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人们想要更有道德吗？

大多数人都想改变自己性格的某些方面，但这种现象是否会扩展到道德品格并关闭其他人？目标（n = 800）对他们的性格特征进行评分，并报告他们希望在每个特征上改变多少；熟悉的线人 (n = 958) 对目标的个性特征以及他们希望目标在这些相同特征上改变的程度进行评分。与道德相关性较低的特质（例如，焦虑、社交能力、生产力）相比，目标和线人报告说，即使在我们控制了当前的特质水平之后，他们也更不愿意改变道德相关性更高的特质（例如，诚实、同情心、公平）。此外，虽然目标通常希望在他们不太理想的特征上有更多的改进，而线人也希望他们的目标在这些特征上有更多的改进，目标的道德改变目标不太符合他们当前的特质水平。最后，线人希望目标以类似的方式改变，但程度要小于目标本身。这些发现表明，在自我提升方面，道德考虑处于次要地位。