The Role of Personality Dimensions
Defining Your Own Success
Success Redefined
Most people’s parents push them to be mediocre because most parents want safety for their children, not excellence. Safe choices have become synonymous with success, even if we don't find happiness or fulfillment in them.
This course, in part, is focused on obtaining excellence. This means we’ll be thinking of things differently & independently.
Excellence requires unconventional choices and risk.
If you have a few critical stable pillars in life then you CAN afford to take bigger risks.
These pillars are:
gainful employment
stable relationships
a good home
“I think people who do what they have an aptitude to do are much happier than unfortunately a very large amount of people who are stuck in occupations they don't like.” - Conrad M. Black
There is a deeper satisfaction and happiness found in careers that match our natural talents. Unfortunately, most people experience discontent in jobs they don't enjoy.
Success comes from defining it on our terms, rather than adhering to societal expectations. By understanding and embracing individual strengths and passions, people can forge a path to a fulfilling and authentically successful life.
We can start uncovering what success means to each of us by learning about personality.
Personality and Trajectory
“The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are.” - Carl Jung (1875 – 1961)
Personality has always been an interesting subject for me. I’ve always been interested in what makes people tick and what separates an individual from the rest of the crowd.
Personality is one of the many factors which determine individuality.
Personality can be thought of as a collection of qualities that make up our overall character.
Over the years, there has been much debate over what those qualities are and how they are present in human behavior. Today, multiple theories have been widely accepted by the public and are used in business practices.
Learning personality is a fantastic way to connect with and understand more people than we otherwise would, but I don’t just stop there, I like to use it to help determine a complimentary life trajectory.
Learning about our personality gives us an insight into what kind of life we would enjoy.
It’s too easy to get caught up in building our lives for other people or chasing romanticized ideals. This is how people get stuck with jobs and relationships that they hate. People think they want certain things because someone else told them it was worth having or because they saw it in the media. I see this with my students all the time, they stress out over which career pays the most, is the most “secure,” or looks the most glamorous.
I see people intentionally repress themselves to fit into a mold that they will never truly accept.
The trick to avoiding this pitfall is learning about what makes up our personalities and tailoring our trajectories to fulfill ourselves.
If we know what we would like to do, then we can pick a role within society that is complementary to that.
Sounds simple enough, but people don’t act this way. We live in a complex society and some roles need to be filled by people of a certain temperament. It’s better to fill these roles with people who naturally fit into them, rather than waste resources trying to fit a square peg in a round hole.
Our personality is something to take into account when we are designing the trajectory of our lives. It’s something we need to grapple with. It’s much easier to put ourselves in an environment that compliments our strengths and preferences, rather than reject or ignore parts of ourselves that cannot be easily changed.
Myers-Briggs Personality Types
This is a popular theory of personality. It’s slightly outdated and not entirely scientifically inaccurate, but it is widely accepted and used in many institutions so it’s useful to “be in the know” with this information. Plus it’s fun party talk.
Myers-Briggs Personality Type Indicator (MBTI) is a method of categorizing people through a questionnaire that outlines the differences in how people perceive the world and make decisions. It was created by American mother-daughter duo, Katharine Cook Briggs and Isabel Briggs Myers.
MBTI is widely accepted throughout the business world as well as socially, especially in the United States.
Contrary to popular belief, MBTI does have significant scientific deficiencies, poor reliability, and is not entirely comprehensive of human personality.
However, MBTI is useful to know because it gives us a common language with people who accept it.
MBTI is popular in the corporate world because it does an excellent job of categorizing people without hurting anyone’s feelings. This theory of personality has a way of making everyone seem like they have no downfalls and can always contribute, which is powerful in business environments. Businesses tend to do better when the people in it feel better. In the business world, empirical personality data isn’t as relevant to performance as we would expect.
MBTI is also fantastic at providing a basic structure for understanding personality, but it’s crucial to know that it does not supply us with the whole picture.
MBTI is based on the assumption that people have specific preferences for interpreting experiences and pursuing their desires.
It draws from Carl Jung’s typology theories which suggest people have four modes of cognitive functions (Thinking, Feeling, Sensation, and Intuition) as well as one of two polar orientations (Extraversion or Introversion).
Even though Jung’s theory of psychological types was not based on empirical scientific studies, they were based on clinical observation, introspection, and anecdotes. Since the conclusions did not originate from controlled scientific studies, they are not accepted by the scientific community. However, Carl Jung was an amazing thinker and I do believe he was one of the few operating with precision at the edge of our collective understanding. His conclusions, from his observations or otherwise, were always made to bring man closer to a truth that we all can accept.
MBTI sorts what personality is in 4 major continuums.
Each person leans more towards one pole of each pair similar to right-handedness or left-handedness. When a person determines which side of each continuum they express, they are assigned a type.
There are a total of 16 different types, 1 for each combination of the letters.
Let me give an example using my letters:
I’m more introverted than extroverted.
I’m more intuitive than sensory.
I’m more of a thinker than a feeler.
Usually, I’m more perceiver than judger, but recently I have been more judger than perceiver.
This gives me the letters INTJ. (Some days I’m an INTP) The letters come from the capitalized letter in each word: Introverted, iNtuitive, Thinking, and Judger.
Extroversion vs. Introversion
MBTI and Jung use introversion and extroversion in similar ways. Introversion means inward-turning and extroversion means outward-turning. These both are often referred to as attitudes that one uses to function in the external world.
Simply put, extroverts are recharged by people while introverts are recharged by alone time.
Each type is usually drained by the opposite activity, extroverts are drained by alone time and introverts are drained by social interaction. However, there are other notable differences between them.
Extroverts direct their energy towards people and objects while introverts direct theirs towards concepts and ideas.
We can find out which attitude people take by paying attention to the topics of their conversation or asking them what their ideal weekend would look like. If someone is frequently talking about people and things they’re most likely extroverted. If someone is frequently talking about concepts and ideas they’re most likely introverted. An extrovert’s ideal weekend is probably spent going out and seeing a bunch of people, celebrating at the club, or another type of high-energy ordeal. An introvert’s ideal weekend would probably be spent inside with a good book or TV show along with ample time for reflection.
This is not to say that extroverts can never be alone, or that introverts hate being with people. Everyone needs some amount of social interaction and alone time.
Our attitudes merely reflect our preferences and how we choose to interact with the world around us.
Neither attitude is more advantageous or otherwise, they are simply two sides of the same coin.
The following statements may apply to you if you are more extroverted:
I am seen as “outgoing” or as a “people person.”
I feel comfortable in groups and like working in them.
I have a wide range of friends and know lots of people.
I sometimes jump too quickly into an activity and don’t allow enough time to think it over.
Before I start a project, I sometimes forget to stop and get clear on what I want to do and why.
The following statements may apply to you if you are more introverted:
I am seen as “reflective” or “reserved.”
I feel comfortable being alone and like things, I can do on my own.
I prefer to know just a few people well.
I sometimes spend too much time reflecting and don’t move into action quickly enough.
I sometimes forget to check with the outside world to see if my ideas fit the experience.
Sensing vs. Intuition
This dichotomy is based on how we psychologically perceive the external world. These are both functions of gathering information.
Sensing individuals tend to trust information that is tangible, concrete, and understood by the five senses.
They’re less likely to trust “gut feelings” or other “hunches” that come out of nowhere. For them, meaning lies in the data, what is in front of them.
Individuals driven by intuition tend to trust information that is remembered or discovered through analyzing patterns.
Since they trust information that doesn’t have to fit within the five senses, they tend to be more excited by what the future has in store. For them, meaning is not in the data but in the principles and theories which underlie the data.
The following statements may apply to you if you perceive through sensing:
I remember events as snapshots of what happened.
I solve problems by working through facts until I understand the problem.
I am pragmatic and look to the “bottom line.”
I start with facts and then form a big picture.
I trust experience first and trust words and symbols less.
Sometimes I pay so much attention to facts, either present or past, that I miss new possibilities.
The following statements may apply to you if you perceive through intuition:
I remember events by what I read “between the lines” about their meaning.
I solve problems by leaping between different ideas and possibilities.
I am interested in doing things that are new and different.
I like to see the big picture, and then find out the facts.
I trust impressions, symbols, and metaphors more than what I experienced.
Sometimes I think so much about new possibilities that I never look at how to make them a reality.
Thinking vs. Feeling
Thinking and feeling are based on how we prefer to make choices in the external world. Both thinkers and feelers make rational choices based on certain kinds of information that were gathered from their senses or intuition.
Thinkers tend to make their decisions based on objective measures while aiming to be reasonable, logical, or causal.
They are usually personally detached from their decisions and try to match their choices to a given set of rules. Thinkers also tend to have a low tolerance for those who are inconsistent or illogical. Thinkers give direct (and sometimes harsh) feedback and view the truth as more important than feelings.
This is not to say that thinkers never make emotional decisions, MBTI simply lets us know one’s preference in decision-making and is not a predictor of behavior. They also don’t “think better” than their feeling counterparts. MBTI doesn’t measure cognitive ability, just preferences.
Feelings types tend to make their choices based on empathy, balance, harmony, and consideration for others’ needs.
Feeling types try to see what works best for everyone involved and are willing to sacrifice logic and truth for the good of the majority.
Thinking types will have a hard time leading a healthy and productive life if they make their choices based on their feelings while feeling types will have a harder time leading a healthy and productive life if they make their choices based on their logical reasoning.
Both types tend to lack the opposite senses necessary to make well-informed choices.
Similar to our attitudes toward the external world (extraversion vs. introversion), one isn’t better than the other, they are both different sides of the same coin.
The following statements may apply to you if you decide through thinking:
I enjoy technical and scientific fields where logic is important.
I notice inconsistencies.
I look for logical explanations or solutions to almost everything.
I make decisions with my head and want to be fair.
I believe telling the truth is more important than being tactful.
Sometimes I miss or don’t value the “people” part of a situation.
I can be seen as too task-oriented, uncaring, or indifferent.
The following statements may apply to you if you decide through feeling:
I have a people or communications orientation.
I am concerned with harmony and nervous when it is missing.
I look for what is important to others and express concern for others.
I make decisions with my heart and want to be compassionate.
I believe being tactful is more important than telling the “cold” truth.
Sometimes I miss seeing or communicating the “hard truth” of situations.
I am sometimes experienced by others as too idealistic, mushy, or indirect.
Judging vs. Perceiving
This dichotomy is based on how we relate to our perceptions of the external world. This continuum is heavily influenced by our sensing and/or intuitive natures because we are either judging or perceiving the information obtained through those perceptions.
Judging types take in information to use later and, in the words of Myers, like to “have matters settled.” They usually have a plan in mind and are only interested in information if it’s related to their goal in some way. They tend to be more comfortable once decisions have been made and the environment around them is under control.
Perceiving types take in information for the sake of learning. They love knowing things just to know them. Perceiving types learn about and adapt to the world around them rather than structure it themselves.
The following statements may apply to you if you perceive your information through judging:
I like to have things decided.
I appear to be task-oriented.
I like to make lists of things to do.
I like to get my work done before playing.
I plan to work to avoid rushing just before a deadline.
Sometimes I focus so much on the goal that I miss new information.
The following statements may apply to you if you perceive your information through perceiving:
I like to stay open to respond to whatever happens.
I appear to be loose and casual. I like to keep plans to a minimum.
I like to approach work as play or mix work and play.
I work in bursts of energy.
I am stimulated by an approaching deadline.
Sometimes I stay open to new information so long that I miss making decisions when they are needed.
For more information on each of the MBTI traits, I suggest going to myersbriggs.org. It’s the place to go for more thorough explanations of everything MBTI and where I got most of this information, like the relevant statements for each type.
Like I said earlier, personality changes throughout our lives, and these letters are just letting us know our proclivities, not defining who we are as people. However, knowing my MBTI can give me an insight into what kind of life trajectory I would be the most satisfied with with the least friction.
According to my MBTI, I would most enjoy a trajectory that:
provides me with ample alone time (I)
opportunities to discover new information (N)
puts me in environments where the culture values reason, logic, and causality (T)
allows me to make decisions on my own time at my own pace (J)
By understanding our personality, we can create paths for ourselves which complement our proclivities. For example, if I were extroverted, I would probably best enjoy myself in an environment surrounded by others.
While MBTI can give us delightful insight into what life trajectories would best complement our nature, some criticisms are important to consider:
These types are generalizations that do not accurately describe an individual.
Some people do not fit nicely into these 16 groups.
MBTI suggests that there are no negative personality traits.
MBTI is widely accepted in the workplace, even though no evidence supports MBTI is predictive of performance.
There are others, but these are the ones I’ve encountered to be the most substantial.
All these criticisms bring up the question:
Why still use MBTI?
It can give us a rough idea of what kind of life trajectory we would fit well with and as I’ve talked about in my other posts, we do things badly before we can do them well. If we want to design a beautiful life trajectory, we need a rough starting point. MBTI is great for that. Plus it’s a fun party conversation if you ever run into an MBTI nerd. Additionally, since MBTI is commonly accepted in the workplace, it’s useful to be in the know when people try to use its coded language.
Find your letters and start discovering which paths most align with you.
In the modern world, we have choices, why not choose what fits us?
The Big 5
“No matter who you are, The Man does occasionally bend his ear to you even if his eyes are looking elsewhere, he does now and then condescend to listen to your demands and let you appear at his side. But you never think to listen to yourself, to bend your own ear to what you yourself have to say.”- Seneca (On the Shortness of Life)
The Big 5 Model, also known as the five-factor model (FFM) or the OCEAN model, provides descriptions of each dimension of personality according to the FFM, as well as what success would look like for people who score high or low in each particular dimension. I will also discuss how we can use The Big 5 Model to add on to and polish our pre-existing trajectory framework based on MBTI.
Before I get into this, I recommend checking out Jordan Peterson’s Personality and its Transformations Lecture Series. It’s free on YouTube and it’s filled with everything you need to know about personality, how it transforms, and much much more. Jordan covers The Big 5 Personality Traits as well as other concepts related to psychology and philosophy.
This model of personality suggests that there are 5 main dimensions to human personality.
Each dimension, or factor, is determined through a factor analysis applied to personality surveys. The factor analysis was applied to the surveys to discern commonalities between descriptive words that people would use to describe themselves. This means that these experiments were based on semantic associations and not quantitative empirical data. However, no personality model is perfect and knowledge of The Big 5 can be extremely valuable for developing an even deeper understanding of our personalities.
Some critics of The Big 5 claim that the 5 dimensions are not complex enough to capture a human being. While it is true that The Big 5 Model probably does not accurately capture a human being in its entirety, 5 dimensions do carry sufficient complexity to describe human behavior. Newtonian physics occurs in 3 dimensions (4 tops) and that’s enough to invite serious complexity. Add 2 more dimensions and we get the complexity of a human…sounds about right to me. 5 dimensions are plenty complicated, especially when we dive into how people’s personalities fit into these groups.
Another thing to keep in mind is, similarly to MBTI, these personality traits can fluctuate over our lifetime and that is okay. Humans are constantly growing and changing and personality goes along for the ride.
Our personality should be one of the biggest factors when we are considering which choices to make when building our lives. If we’re high in extraversion, then we probably won’t want a job that sits us in front of computer screens all day with little social interaction. If we’re lower in conscientiousness, we wouldn’t want to be in a position of high power and authority because people are going to need things from us all the time and that would drive us crazy.
Before I get too ahead of myself, the 5 dimensions of personality are:
Openness
Conscientiousness
Extraversion
Agreeableness
Neuroticism
Percentage vs. Percentile
The FFM is measured by percentiles. This is not to be confused with the percentage.
Let me give an example to make this clear:
If someone were to score 90th percentile in extraversion, this would mean out of 100 people they are more extraverted than 90 of them while being less extraverted than 9 of them.
This does not mean that they are 90% extravert and 10% introverted, although that is a common interpretation.
All the traits are normally distributed, meaning most people are in the 50th percentile range while there are very few who score high or low.
Openness
Or to be more specific, openness to experience. This dimension explores how open to new experiences someone is. Openness can be broken up into six subcategories which are:
Active Imagination
Aesthetic Sensitivity or Artistic Interests
Awareness of Inner Feelings or Emotionality
Preference for Variety or Adventurousness
Intellectual Curiosity
Liberalism
Artistic Interests
Openness can be expressed through any of these six categories but does not have to be in all of them. For example, someone who is high in openness may express it through their heightened preference for variety, but may not have a particular aesthetic sensitivity. However, that same person will most likely have a higher aesthetic sensitivity than one who is less open.
People who are high in openness tend to be more liberal, have more imaginative sexual fantasies, and experiment with drugs or participate in other risky activities. Novelty excites the open person. Open people also need to be creative, if they aren’t they lose their vitality quickly.
Openness has also been found to be positively correlated with intelligence. Right now, it’s unclear whether intelligence may predispose the individual to openness or if openness predisposes to intelligence but they are correlated. (McCrae and Costa, 1987).
People who are low in openness (closed) tend to be more conservative, don’t like trying new things, and enjoy routines. Closed individuals are less flexible than their open counterparts and tend to be more analytical.
Individuals who score low in openness may do well at jobs that don’t require creativity and involve routines.
Individuals who score high in openness may do well at jobs that require creativity and flexibility.
Success to the open person can look like large blocks of time for creative work and exploration while success to the closed person can be predictable and orderly environments.
Conscientiousness
This is one of the biggest predictors of long-term life success.
People who score high in conscientiousness tend to be responsible, organized, hard-working, intentional, goal-oriented, self-disciplined, and serious. These are the types of people who would spend all day chopping down trees to build a cabin if you left them alone in a forest with an axe. Conscientious people tend to be in leadership positions along with earning more and better work relationships. These folks also love to plan things.
Similar to openness, conscientiousness can be broken up into the following six subcategories:
Self-Efficacy
Orderliness
Dutifulness
Achievement-striving
Self-discipline
Cautiousness
Conscientiousness can be expressed through any of these categories, but not all.
People high in conscientiousness tend to be great at self-regulation and impulse control. When taken to the extreme, conscientiousness is responsible for the “workaholics” and “perfectionists“. These types rarely miss bill payments, take notes, keep promises, and are punctual. They are less likely to engage in risky behavior. High-scoring conscientious types also tend to keep to-do lists and attend to tasks with little delay.
People who are low in conscientiousness tend to be laid-back, less achievement-driven, and are more likely to commit anti-social or criminal behavior. Especially if they are paired with low agreeableness. Nonconscientious types are also more likely to oversleep, be late, or avoid tasks that demand action.
Success for conscientious people looks like the most conventional sense of the term. They would excel in high-powered positions with clearly defined rules. Their life would be full of routines and order. Clean environments where everything is in its place.
Success for nonconscientious types may look like surrounding themselves with automated actions and little external responsibility. They would probably excel in positions requiring creative work with a fair amount of flexibility, not the types of jobs that require someone to show up and act regularly. They would prefer a little more chaos in their environments and would probably be bothered by too much order. Nonconscientious types would probably love having pets (as long as they are conscientious enough to take adequate care of them!).
Extraversion
This trait is the dimension of positive emotion and an indicator of how outgoing or social someone is. Highly extroverted types love to be around people, go to social gatherings, and work well in groups. They also tend to seek out the company of others and are enthusiastic, energetic, and action-oriented. These people are the life of the party and love being the center of attention.
The six subcategories in which extraversion is expressed are as follows:
Friendliness
Gregariousness
Assertiveness
Activity level
Excitement-seeking
Cheerfulness
Unlike MBTI, there is no introversion dimension. In The Big 5 Model, introversion is just the absence of extraversion. Kind of like cold from the scientific perspective. There is no cold, just the absence of heat.
People who score low in the extraversion dimension are commonly referred to as introverts. Introverts have less enthusiasm and energy than extroverts, are less involved in social activities, and tend to be quiet and keep to themselves.
Matching a job to our level of extraversion is crucial in building a satisfying life trajectory for ourselves. Higher-scoring extroverts may want to go into jobs that need a high level of interaction like teaching, sales, nursing, PR, or other service jobs.
Introverts may want to find jobs that allow them to work independently or don’t require much social interaction. Excellent jobs for that could be authors, librarians, engineers, music or video editors, or computer scientists.
Success to an extrovert would require them to nurture their relationships carefully so they can have people there to celebrate their big wins with them. Success for an introvert would require them to create plenty of opportunities for space for recharging in between their other activities.
We can’t talk about this dimension without talking about Ambiverts. These types are equal parts of extroverted and introverted. They don’t have preferences for working in groups or alone. They are not uncomfortable in social settings, but being around people can tire them out. They love being the center of attention, but only for a short time. Some people think they’re quiet, while others think they are social. They lose themselves in conversation just as easily as they can lose themselves in their thoughts. Ambiverts tend to do extremely well in both personal and professional settings.
Agreeableness
This is the social harmony and cooperation dimension.
High scorers of agreeableness tend to be friendly, self-sacrificing, warm, polite, helpful, considerate, and generous. They usually take the Lockean approach to human nature and believe that people are fundamentally good. Agreeable people see others as decent, honest, and trustworthy much like themselves. Agreeable people are more than willing to put aside their interests for the good of other people or social harmony. In unhealthy doses, agreeable people could end up as pushovers.
Agreeableness can be expressed in these six subcategories:
Trust
Morality
Altruism
Cooperation
Modesty
Sympathy
People who are low in agreeableness are known as disagreeable and tend to put their own needs above those of others. They are also more distant, less friendly, and less cooperative than their agreeable counterparts. Highly disagreeable people tend to gravitate towards anti-social or criminal behavior.
Success to an agreeable person will have a lot of social cohesion. They would love to be surrounded by people who like them and are great at building teams and maintaining relationships. Some great careers for agreeable types include nurses, counselors, teachers, or HR specialists.
Success to a disagreeable person will have a lot to do with how they feel about their desires. Since social harmony is not a big goal of disagreeable folks, their interests will take that place. So a successful disagreeable person would be more satisfied with getting what they want at the cost of social cooperation than being tactful and considerate of others’ needs. Some great careers for disagreeable people include scientists, critics, or soldiers.
Neuroticism
This dimension determines our susceptibility to negative emotions. Negative emotions are anxiety, fear, anger, frustration, envy, jealousy, depression, worry, or loneliness, not negativity.
Highly neurotic individuals tend to respond worse to stressors and interpret them as more severe than they are. People who score highly in neuroticism have a harder time remaining emotionally stable and balanced. People who are high in neuroticism feel negative emotions faster and more intensely than less neurotic types. They are emotionally reactive and tend to give emotional responses to situations that normally wouldn’t affect many people. Highly neurotic types tend to be self-conscious, and shy and have trouble controlling urges or delaying gratification.
The six sub-traits of neuroticism are as follows:
Anxiety
Anger
Depression
Self-consciousness
Immoderation
Vulnerability
Individuals who score low in neuroticism are known as emotionally stable. People with lower levels of neuroticism are desired in most professions because they tend to get less distracted by work, their personal lives, or other stressors.
High levels of neuroticism are associated with a higher risk of mental illness and less favorable results on measures of health and relationships.
However, neuroticism provides a higher sensitivity to potential threats which is a useful survival mechanism. People with high levels of neuroticism also learn faster than their emotionally stable counterparts. There is a strong utility in experiencing negative emotion, which I will talk about in future lessons. We learn faster when we experience negative emotions and since neurotic types are more sensitive to negative emotions, they experience this sooner.
The knowledge of our sensitivity to negative emotion is critical when examining the potential realities in front of us.
Fairly neurotic types may want to consider that they don’t work well under pressure and plan so their work can be done at a leisurely pace.
Emotionally stable types may not have to exercise that type of consideration and would be a fantastic fit for high-pressure careers like firefighting or surgery.
Methods of Identifying Personality
All of this knowledge is great, but how do we determine exactly where we land on each dimension?
There are multiple methods with some being more accurate and precise.
The easiest is taking a test while in a neutral psychophysiological state. There are tons of resources online. I recommend understandmyself.com.
Make sure you are feeling as neutral as possible. Don’t take the test upset, tired, or hungry. On the flip side, don’t take it if you are happy, excited, or anxious!
This knowledge is crucial to take into account when we plan our futures including study schedules, career goals, relationship choices, and other life plans.
Keep in mind that personality, especially since there are no flawless models, is just a starting point when it comes to designing a life trajectory.
Paying attention to our inclinations is a promising way to know what kind of life fits us best.
Knowing ourselves takes time because we have multiple levels all working together like an orchestral symphony.
Personality is a great starting point for building a foundation for the knowledge and cultivation of our inclinations. People like Steve Jobs or Robert Greene achieved the levels of success they had because they took the time to get to know themselves and cultivated their interests.
Knowing ourselves intimately gives us access to deep satisfaction that we couldn’t get anywhere else.
I was lucky enough to have parents support my inclination to music at a young age. I got to explore my love for music and the deeper I got, the more I fell in love with it.
Fast forward to post-college where I am forced to deal with the realities of life and decide what my life will mean, I learn that I’m high in trait openness. From my analysis and reflection, I discovered that long periods where I can be creative will satisfy my openness appetite. Combining the knowledge of these two ideas, I spent years slowly molding my schedule into one that provides me ample time to be creative. Today, I can say with 100% certainty that it gives me inner peace and a pure sense of satisfaction to have connected with something deep within me. Getting to know ourselves is truly the best way to spend our time. It enriches every aspect of our existence.
Another method of identifying personality is writing an autobiography. Now, this doesn’t have to be some thick book. It could be short with just a few paragraphs. There are no rules for writing an autobiography other than you have to write it yourself.
The real meaning lies in what we write and not how much we write.
This method is less quantitative than the online exams but could offer deeper insights.
Articulating the past is helpful because we can see how we understand the past. We can stand back, look at the picture as an outsider, and make sound judgments about what we think, feel, or know.
Writing an entire biography is difficult, so to make it a little more manageable, just start by breaking our life story up into 5 epochs. How we divide up our lives gives us a hint into what we value.
For example, when I last did this exercise I noticed that my epochs were based on what my main occupation was at the time. This particular division suggests my proclivity towards high conscientiousness. The time before last, I split my life up by which people I spent the most time around, which can suggest my agreeable tendencies.
Write your story and see how you know yourself. It can be very interesting to examine our lives through our own eyes.
Correlations
The world of personality research has given us a wealth of knowledge that we can use to better understand ourselves and others. Relationships regarding personality are not blanket statements about any specific group of people. There will be exceptions in every case. For example, women tend to be more agreeable than men but that does not mean there are no agreeable men or disagreeable women.
One personality relationship worth paying attention to is between gender differences.
Across cultures, women tend to report higher levels of neuroticism, conscientiousness, agreeableness, friendliness (extraversion subset), and emotionality (openness subset).
Men, on the other hand, typically report higher levels of assertiveness (extraversion subset), and adventurousness (openness subset).
There is much overlap between men and women except for the difference in neuroticism, which is the biggest and most prominent difference in these self-reported studies.
Each of these traits has been believed to have evolved out of survival.
However, success in the modern world and survival in the wild require different abilities and skills.
Agreeableness, for example, is great for caring for infants. That’s why we choose to take care of them if they’re crying at 3 AM rather than throw them out the window. On the other hand, agreeableness isn’t great for moving up the corporate ladder. We do need some agreeableness to cooperate with everyone, but we need to be disagreeable enough to fight for opportunities and look out for our interests. All of these traits are useful for survival, but not in the modern world.
There are also trends with personality and birth order. Frank Sulloway, an American psychologist best known for his work on birth order personality research, argues that firstborns are higher in conscientiousness and lower in openness than their later-born siblings. He also argues that firstborns are more socially dominant. There have been other studies conducted that have fallen in line with Sulloway’s claims but with a small correlation.
There are some correlations between personality and substance abuse as well. The personality profile of a typical heroin user would be low in neuroticism, high in openness, low in agreeableness, and low in conscientiousness. The personality profile of a typical ecstasy user would be high in extraversion, high in openness, low in agreeableness, and low in conscientiousness.
There are also connections between personality and health. Research has found that being high in conscientiousness can add 5 years to your life and being high in neuroticism is related to less favorable health outcomes. People who report high levels of conscientiousness, extraversion, and openness tend to have lower risks of mortality as well. It seems like it pays off to try to be conscientious, extroverted, and open.
Here are some connections between academic achievement and personality: conscientiousness is predictive of GPA and exam performance. Students who report higher levels of conscientiousness and agreeableness tend to have higher GPAs and exam scores. Those who report higher levels of neuroticism tend to have less desirable academic outcomes.
Personality can also be a predictor of job performance. This is partly why I suggest using personality to help shape our life trajectory. We are more likely to enjoy jobs that we would excel in. People who excel in leadership positions are perceived to have low levels of neuroticism and high levels of openness while maintaining balanced levels of conscientiousness and extraversion. Studies have found that employees are less likely to view their supervisor’s actions as abusive if they consider their supervisor to be high in conscientiousness. Professional burnout is highly correlated with high levels of neuroticism. People who report higher levels of agreeableness tend to make less money than their disagreeable counterparts.
Conscientiousness is the biggest predictor of overall job performance, the higher the conscientiousness the better the performance. Extraversion is the 2nd biggest predictor of overall job performance, the higher the extraversion the better their performance. Agreeableness and Neuroticism are tied for 3rd, with lower levels of each being tied to higher performance.
Research on how individual traits affect individuals and organizations at work found that individuals (or organizations of individuals) who are higher in openness are more proactive with tasks but less organized and proficient. Both of these effects are mutually exclusive. Those who are more agreeable tend to be less proactive with tasks. Those who are higher in extraversion are, on average, less proficient at tasks. Those who are high in conscientiousness tend to relate positively to all forms of work performance. Highly neurotic types tend to relate negatively to all forms of work performance.
In romantic relationships, personality could predict satisfaction and relationship quality during the various stages of a romantic relationship.
Dating couples’ studies suggest that people will have higher relationship satisfaction and quality if they see their partner with lower levels of neuroticism and higher levels of conscientiousness as well as see themselves with higher levels of conscientiousness.
Engaged couples’ studies suggest that relationship satisfaction and quality are higher among those who report their partner as high in openness, agreeableness, and conscientiousness and lower in neuroticism. Satisfaction and quality are also higher for those who report themselves as higher in extraversion and agreeableness. Neuroticism predicts worse relationship satisfaction and quality for both self-reported and partner-reported studies.
Married couples, on the other hand, demonstrate higher levels of relationship satisfaction and quality when self-reporting higher levels of neuroticism, extraversion, and agreeableness as well as partner-reported agreeableness.
Personality can also show up with people’s political identification, but not with all 5 traits. People who are higher in conscientiousness tend to be more conservative, while people who are higher in openness tend to be more liberal. The other three traits are not linked to preferred political preferences.
Personalities are subject to change as our lives move and one of the traits that change the most with age is neuroticism. Research has found that neuroticism tends to decrease with age and after major life events.
Similar to MBTI, The Big 5 has a few critiques as well. While The Big 5 is more based on empirical evidence, it is still limited in its predictive power and does not accurately encompass all of the human personality. However, it’s one of the best models we have and that doesn’t mean that we can’t use it to our advantage.
Since there is more research related to the Big 5, we can use what rings true from The Big 5, MBTI, our personal experiences, and other sources to clearly articulate our preferences. We can use everything we know about personality to create a more refined way of determining our life trajectory. Keep in mind which traits you have and how they will change and use that knowledge to inform your choices when you choose what you do for work, who you marry, where you live, and why you do what you do.
Aiming with Precision
While it’s great to tailor our life trajectory to our personalities, that does not mean we should avoid exposing ourselves to the opposites of our preferences.
Wisdom is found on the other side of what we are.
“Become who you are. Become all that you are. There is still more of you – more to be discovered, forgiven, and loved." - Carl Jung (1875-1961)
Personality is just one way of defining success. It can be a powerful starting point, but
Life is about refining that definition and going after it relentlessly.
It is critical that we set realistic, but optimistic, expectations of our lives so we bolster ourselves up against depression and suicide.
Many of our life expectations are developed in adolescence and are used as benchmarks for success in adult life.
Getting clear on those expectations is the foundation for understanding our definition of success.
Keeping the Big 5 traits in mind, we can get an idea of what success would look like.
Extraversion - success in social domains
Agreeableness - success in intimate relationships
Disagreeableness - success in competitions
Openness - success in creative pursuits
Neuroticism - success is predictable and stability
To know where we are and where we are going, we use a map.
If we don't know where we want to go, we can run through a mental exercise.
Here are a few questions we can answer to discover our preferred pathway:
You have to treat yourself like you’re someone you have to take care of
If you could have the family you want, what would that look like?
If you could have the career you want, what would that look like?
How will you take care of yourself mentally and physically?
How are you going to educate yourself?
How are you going to resist the temptation of drugs and alcohol?
How will you use your time meaningfully and productive outside of work?
Do you want a long-term stable relationship? How will it lay itself out?
What are your weaknesses? What would happen if you let them run wild?
This will help us see what we want. When we establish aims we see pathways and obstacles. A bad plan is better than no plan. We can always recalculate.
Use this knowledge to make 8 goals.
Rank the goals
Now we can articulate why these goals are good for us.
Why do you want to accomplish the goal?
Why it is good for your family?
Why it is good for your community?
These reasons will arm us against haters, but also ourselves when we’re feeling down.
Success is best when it is our definition. We just need to take the time to understand ourselves and what we want for our lives.
You can take an extremely comprehensive personality test and more at the link below.
https://www.clearerthinking.org/