Are We the Same Person Throughout Our Lives? In Essence, Yes

Summary: The continuity of self remains stable throughout our lifetimes, while other components of the “self”, including physical appearance, attitudes, beliefs, and physiological processes change.

Source: Psychophysiology.

The researchers at Complutense University of Madrid carried a study on personal identity and its modification over time along with the changes that individuals experience. The study revealed that the essence of our being remains largely stable over the years.

The ‘continuity of the self’- the scope for self-awareness and self-recognition- remains stable whereas other components such as physical aspects, physiological processes and even attitudes, beliefs and values are more likely to change.

Even components such as personality traits tend to change slightly over the years, but the sense of being oneself is maintained, improving our understanding of human nature.

To carry out this study, the brain activity and event-related brain potentials of twenty participants were recorded by electroencephalography (EEG) when introduced to stimuli and performing identity and age recognition tasks.

In the study, the researchers tried to answer the question of whether we are the same person throughout our lives. In conjunction with the previous literature, the study findings indicate that there is a component that remains stable while another part is more susceptible to change over time

According to the UCM researcher, changes in the perception of the self may underlie several personality disorders such as bipolar disorder and narcissistic personality, and even other mental illnesses such as schizophrenia and depression.

The study also determined the duration our brain takes to recognize our own personal identity as distinctive compared to others: around 250 milliseconds.