Kim and I find ourselves talking about our toy poodle, Buddy, with people who have come over for the first time and just met him, invoking a somewhat apologetic manner since Buddy can be a bit of a handful. We find ourselves saying that when we got him two years ago he was much worse and that he has really mellowed out over that time. Clearly, Buddy is getting more mature and is now a calmer dog with a degree of comfort with his surroundings. All that comfort, however, also makes him a bit protective of what he has been lucky enough to get. He is never entirely sure that it isn’t all getting taken away, so he can act out in less than mellow form to be sure. Watching Buddy and being his apologist has made me realize that being mellow is an admirable trait and one to which I naturally aspire. Lucky for me, we all mellow out with age to a certain extent.
When I think about my life in the context of my mellowness, I see a wave pattern and I’m not altogether sure why. There is always a backdrop of debate about whether people change over time or not. Some would say yes and some would say, not so much. I’m pretty sure people do change significantly over the course of their lifetimes, though the nature and extent of change varies greatly between individuals and across different aspects of personality and behavior. Research shows that while some core aspects of personality tend to remain relatively stable, many characteristics do shift over time. For example, people generally become more conscientious, agreeable, and emotionally stable as they age – a pattern psychologists call “personality maturation.” Young adults often become less neurotic and more self-controlled as they move through their twenties and thirties. Life experiences play a major role in driving change. Major events like marriage, parenthood, career changes, loss of loved ones, or health challenges can fundamentally alter how someone sees themselves and the world. People often develop new values, priorities, and coping strategies in response to these experiences.
Brain development also contributes to change, particularly during adolescence and early adulthood when areas responsible for decision-making and impulse control are still developing. One of my favorite digs about certain people is to say that they are a case of arrested development. We have a cultural habit of thinking everything is about hormones. Hormones, in particular, significantly influence personality and behavior, but they don’t completely “drive” personality in a deterministic way. The relationship is more nuanced. Hormones interact with genetics, brain structure, experiences, and environment to shape how we think, feel, and act. Hormones have clear effects on certain personality traits and behaviors. Testosterone is associated with increased dominance, risk-taking, and competitiveness, while also potentially reducing empathy in some contexts. Estrogen can influence mood regulation and social bonding. Cortisol affects stress responses and can impact anxiety levels and emotional stability when chronically elevated. The timing of hormonal influences matters enormously. During puberty, surging sex hormones reshape not just physical development but also social behavior, emotional intensity, and risk-taking tendencies. Many of the personality changes we see in adolescence – increased sensation-seeking, emotional volatility, and social sensitivity – are partly driven by hormonal shifts affecting brain development. I, for one, remember those post-pubescent days very well, knocking around Europe on my motorcycle, almost completely unsupervised since my mother was off saving the world.
One of my personal quandaries over the years has been been about hormonally driven gender bias. I am the product of a dominant female role model. My mother led a life that had more male attributes to it than female attributes. While its true that she grew up “farm-strong”, as they say, I cannot point to anything about her life environment that produced that outcome, so I am left to think that her hormonal composition was simply less female than most women. I have often said that she must have been 49.9% male, simply because of the life choices she made. That is dangerous thought territory in a world that is becoming increasingly female driven.
During my college days, I feel I was very mellow. I shed my motorcycling shortly after arrival at Cornell, thanks mostly to weather, but I was also more interested in socialization rather than any version of dominance. While I was still strongly sexually driven, it was not as wild and crazy as it had been in high school, when doing stupid and dangerous things seemed mandatory. I was all about blending in rather than sticking out and I think that made me more mellow than most. I’m sure that being more around women than during my all-male high school days had something to do with it.
I want to say that women are more mellow than men and that men are more intense. The research on gender differences in personality traits shows a more complex picture than simply women being more mellow than men. Some consistent patterns do emerge from psychological studies. Women, on average, tend to score higher on measures of agreeableness and emotional sensitivity. They’re also more likely to report experiencing anxiety and are generally better at recognizing and responding to others’ emotions. These traits might contribute to perceptions of being “more mellow” in certain contexts. However, women also tend to score higher on neuroticism measures, meaning they may experience negative emotions more intensely than men. This doesn’t align with a straightforward “more mellow” characterization. Men, on average, tend to show higher levels of assertiveness and are less likely to report emotional distress, which might appear as being more even-keeled. But they also tend to display more physical aggression and risk-taking behavior. Naturally, these are statistical averages across large populations, and individual variation is enormous. Many women are highly assertive and emotionally stable, while many men are gentle and emotionally expressive. Personality traits exist on spectrums, and gender explains only a small portion of the variation between individuals. Cultural factors also play a major role. Socialization practices often encourage different emotional expressions in boys and girls, which can shape how “mellow” or assertive people learn to be. What appears as a natural gender difference might actually reflect learned behaviors and social expectations.
Hormonal fluctuations throughout life continue to influence personality expression. Men experience gradual testosterone decline with age, which can affect energy, mood, and assertiveness. After I had my children, I suspect that nature made me less hormonally driven. I’m not sure that happens with all men, but I think it was the case for me. However, hormones aren’t destiny. People can learn to recognize and manage hormonal influences through awareness and lifestyle choices. Cultural norms, personal values, and conscious decision-making all moderate how hormonal impulses translate into actual behavior. Being on Wall Street was certainly a testosterone booster, but then again, being in management and being responsible for people tended to make me more mellow by necessity. The hormonal relationship also works in reverse. Our behaviors and experiences can influence hormone levels. I have little doubt that my being with Kim over the last twenty years has greatly benefited my mellowness quotient. Kim is, by nature, very mellow and I see her ways as mostly admirable and worthy of emulation. She is my mellowness guru.
They say that cultural and historical context matters too. Someone who lived through the Great Depression, for instance, might develop different attitudes about money and security than someone who grew up during an economic boom. My mother told me the Depression did not affect her family so much. My own experience with financial distress came mostly in 2007/2008. That may have only been a Great Recession, but I was closer to the blast zone on Wall Street, so I suspect it affected me far more than the Depression affected my mother. I am sure I am far mellower for that experience.
That said, there are limits to how much people change. Deep-seated temperamental traits like introversion versus extraversion tend to show remarkable consistency over decades. And while people can consciously work to change certain behaviors or thought patterns, fundamental aspects of personality often remain recognizable throughout life. So, while I want to be and am more mellow these days, know that there is still a motorcycling Wall Street renegade in there somewhere.