Comparing themselves to the person they were two years ago, few subjects reported a different identity. But after an interval of eight years, approximately one third of Lampinen's subjects felt they were no longer the same person. In addition, the studies revealed that individuals who experience DD share certain characteristics. They tend to dissociate themselves from feelings of trauma or guilt more readily than other people and report a lower overall satisfaction with their lives. Furthermore, subjects who experienced DD showed a reduced tolerance for ambiguity.
Ambiguity is troublesome.
People who experience DD are more sensitive to that kind of cognitive conflict, and it may lead them to reduce the ambiguity by distancing themselves psychologically from the person who committed those actions. Other differences became obvious when Lampinen and Odegard reviewed their third study. Therefore, changes to these components were more likely to impact the way people viewed their identities. However, subjects who had experienced DD also responded to changes in their social context and material possessions as though these were significant determinants of identity. But this only held true when the components were altered in a negative way, which may indicate that the subjects use diachronic disunity as a coping mechanism, said Lampinen.