What is it about?
When people lose their job, it does much more than just affect their finances—it can actually change who they are. In this study, we wanted to understand how unemployment impacts an individual's personality over time, and whether a partner losing their job triggers a similar shift. We followed 1,110 predominantly first-generation Mexican-origin adults up to eight times over a 16-year period. By looking at the "Big Five" personality traits, we found that losing a job disrupts the natural process of growing up and maturing. People who experienced unemployment became less conscientious and less agreeable, and the usual decline in neuroticism that comes with age was stalled. Even more strikingly, this is the first study to show a "spillover effect" between partners: when someone's spouse loses their job, their own personality shifts too. In some cases, partners also experienced gradual drops in agreeableness and openness. In other cases, they stepped up to the plate—showing an immediate increase in conscientiousness as a compensatory effort to support their household through a tough transition.
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Why is it important?
For a long time, findings on how job loss affects personality were mixed and inconclusive. Our research brings much-needed clarity using robust, pre-registered longitudinal data over nearly two decades. This study matters for a few key reasons: Personality isn't set in stone: It shows that major life stressors during adulthood can interrupt typical personality development, proving that our traits remain malleable in response to real-world environments. Life events affect relationships as a system: By identifying the spillover effect, we show that job loss isn't just an individual hardship—it resonates throughout the whole household, shaping how partners relate to one another and adapt together. Expanding representation: Most psychological studies rely on wealthy, Western populations. By focusing on Mexican-origin adults in the US, this study brings valuable insights into how major life transitions play out in understudied and culturally diverse communities.
Perspectives
As researchers, our goal was to highlight that human personality is deeply interconnected with both socio-economic conditions and close relationships. You cannot fully understand an individual's psychological resilience or change without looking at their home environment and family context. Moving forward, we hope these insights encourage researchers, practitioners, and policymakers to view job loss as a systemic event that touches the mental well-being and personality dynamics of entire families—and to design support systems that account for both the individual and their partner.
Dr Guido Alessandri
Department of Pychology, Sapienza, University of Rome
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Does losing your job change your personality? Findings from a 16-year longitudinal study of Mexican-origin adults., Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, July 2026, American Psychological Association (APA),
DOI: 10.1037/pspp0000609.
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