Personality Theory

For some strange reason, when you are growing up, nobody really teaches you properly how personality works. There's plenty of pretty good research out there now on how our personalities work, but at least when I was growing up, my parents and teachers would just give generic advice on "be yourself" or "you are special". In fact, science has pretty good evidence on a lot of more personal or sensitive topics like personality and intelligence that the average population just doesn't want to hear about. It's definitely in the category of uncomfortable truths.

Wouldn't it be nice if everyone was born equally smart or equally good? That's a comforting idea. Feels fair.

Here it is, you are born with a personality that is fairly stable. Ripped the bandaid off.

Well first of all, what is personality? After all how can we reason about something if we can't define it. Honestly, psychologists can't define this one super well. In fact the entire field of psychology is a bit hand wavy since it's based on observing behaviours and generally struggles to model the internal workings of the brain. Anyhow, it is roughly defined as characteristics, traits and patterns of thinking, feeling and behaving. As such, a good model for personality should be stable, predictive, and observable. In fact, personality is a powerful predictor for political leanings and other real world effects.

The model I'm most familiar with after listening to many hours of Jordan Peterson (that's like a whole blog in and of itself), is the Big Five Model. It's like a video game where everyone has a value along a slider of each of the five traits which are relatively independent of each other. I did a test and in my own life have tried to infer the personality traits of others using this framework. It is neat and useful, and definitely not perfect.

1. Openness

This is how much you like to explore new stuff. I think my openness is in the top 1% of people. I like learning about new topics, reading about philosophy, trying out new experiences. People low in openness like to stick to what they know and live a relatively sheltered, routine life. This is one of the best predictors for political leanings, as people higher in openness tend to lean left and people lower in openness tend to lean conservative.

2. Conscientiousness

People who are conscientious love staying clean and organised. A lot of people can probably relate to the mum scolding the dad for making a mess of the house. There is a slight effect of women tending to be more conscientious than men, although the bell curves largely overlap. Being high or low in a trait is not inherently good or bad. I'm pretty average here.

3. Extraversion

This is the one everyone who's done a free MBTI can't shut up about. It pisses me off as a past part-time psychology student that people treat it as a binary trait. It's a spectrum from being energised and loving social interactions to wanting to tinker alone in silence, and everything in between. I'm also pretty average here. Btw, the distributions of all of these traits are bell curves, which deserves its own blog at some point! This trait explains why some people never seem to be alone and some people can dwell in their mum's basement for days.

4. Neuroticism

I'd say this one is the only trait where generally, more is worse. It describes how much negative emotion you experience. In life, you sometimes meet people who emotionally crumble at every minor inconvenience and people who remain unfazed even if their arm gets cut off. As you can imagine, someone who's always filled with negative emotions tends to burden themselves and other people. However, sometimes higher neuroticism is good as it can act as a more sensitive alarm system or motivator for change. For instance, if you are easily stressed about your health, you may turn that into building healthier lifestyle habits. I'm pretty low in neuroticism and generally don't feel that bad. However, if something overwhelms me, it hits all at once and I don't have much practice dealing with it. This has led to some bad spirals.

5. Agreeableness

The doormatness index. It is determined by how willing you are to just comply as opposed to engage in conflict. I, for instance, dislike conflict, violence and argument. I am high in agreeableness and tend to be more empathetic and make way for others. Someone who's low in agreeableness tends to be more combative, speak their mind, and engage in conflict. People who express their disagreements healthily can be strong leaders and powerful social influences. People who express their agreeableness healthily can help de-escalate tension and build communities. A naive person higher in agreeableness will always lose to a disagreeable person.

Everyone is a cocktail of various amounts of each trait. Even though these traits are largely determined from birth, your culture, upbringing and life experiences can lead to them being expressed in different ways in different situations. I remember watching this video on James Fallon (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vii60GUGTQU), who by many biological markers was a psychopath. And not in the metaphorical, hyperbolical or insulting sense of the word. A psychopath who lacks empathy, care for others or respect for social order. Yet he remained a well loved and respected neuroscientist. The explanation he gives to explain his own situation is that the genes are present but inactive due to the love and support he always had since childhood. Also some surveys (not super rigorous) seem to suggest that surgeons and CEOs have a higher percentage of psychopathic traits amongst them than the general population. Traits are just traits. They are kind of like mental tendencies or tools. It's about how you use them.

So is being born with a fixed personality baseline unfair? Well, there's comfort in the fact that traits are not necessarily better or worse. It's really a series of trade offs on your "build" as a person. In many ways, it acts as invisible hands steering you into certain interests and life choices.

I have many contradictions in my own life. I am low in neuroticism and high in agreeableness, and yet I train MMA. It's partly to take me out of my own comfort zone and partly to tame my inner feelings of aggression. I'm not particularly suited to do it. I'm scared to move forward and engage and when I get hit, I get overwhelmed and panic. But every time I do it, I push my body and brain in a way it's not used to and I gain a deeper understanding of myself and more confidence in being able to perform outside my comfort zone.

Well just like most things, like your athleticism, you are sort of born with a baseline and tendency that can be activated or shaped by what you surround yourself with and the actions you take. As such, the best thing you can do is understand your own baseline more deeply and try to build upon it in a constructive way that makes you prouder to be yourself.

Like I always say, play the hand that you are dealt and be the best version of yourself that your personality can support and the best version of yourself that challenges what your personality even is.