A Meta-Analysis on Personality Change Among International Students From the USA, European, and Asian Countries Studying Abroad.

OBJECTIVE

This meta-analysis systematically examines personality development during study abroad. It aims to synthesize previously fragmented longitudinal evidence and explain mixed findings by identifying how personality change varies by students' country of origin, duration of stay, and home-host cultural distance.

METHOD: This pre-registered meta-analysis synthesized 25 studies, including 40 independent samples and 184 effect sizes (N = 5732) among diverse national and cultural contexts. Effect sizes were analyzed using a two-level random-effects model.

RESULTS

Results indicated an overall increase in openness (dE = 0.079), self-evaluations and agency (dE = 0.117), and a decrease in neuroticism (dE = -0.145) while abroad. Baseline comparisons revealed self-selection effects that sojourners differed from control groups before departure in all Big Five traits. Personality changes did not differ between adolescent and young adult sojourners but showed trait-specific temporal dynamics both during and after the sojourn. Regional analyses suggested distinct change patterns across European, US, and Asian samples.

CONCLUSIONS

These findings show that studying abroad robustly predicts personality changes among young adults, depending on time and home-host cultural distance. Future studies are needed to scrutinize the short-term processes of the international experience together with specific domains of cultural distance that explain individual differences in personality change.