Strengthening Conscientiousness by Means of Interventions: A Systematic Review

Conscientiousness has consistent and robust associations with a large set of key student outcomes. Thus, to understand the extent to which conscientiousness could be leveraged to support students’ learning, achievement, and well-being, it is important to ascertain whether conscientiousness could be strengthened by means of interventions. To narrow this important knowledge gap, this research synthesizes the findings of recent studies on the efficacy of interventions designed to increase conscientiousness. To this end, we conducted a systematic review of several online databases to identify relevant articles published after the last major review of personality change interventions (in 2017). The search yielded 11 articles that met our inclusion criteria. These studies used one of three types of interventions: digital coaching, in-person coaching, and behavior activation. Nine of the interventions we reviewed significantly increased conscientiousness at either the trait, facet, or state level. Our review identified several gaps in conscientiousness intervention literature, such as the lack of knowledge about mediating and moderating factors of intervention effects and the relative paucity of studies assessing the maintenance of intervention effects. The article discusses the significance of these findings and, building upon them, delineates important directions for future research and intervention.