Personality - Page 11 of 30

2 Personality Traits Linked To Chronic Anxiety

The two personality traits can interact with each other to produce chronic anxiety problems.

People who are both neurotic and introverted are more likely to experience anxiety problems, research finds.

Signs of introversion include preferring to be in a quiet, relaxing environment and having a rich mental life.

Neurotic people have a tendency towards sadness, irritability and self-consciousness.

The two personality traits can interact with each other to produce chronic anxiety problems.

It may be because people who are both introverted and neurotic tend to pay more attention to things going wrong, rather than to potential rewards.

Over the years, focusing on problems rather than rewards may condition people with these personality traits to experience more anxiety.

This is hardly surprising if all a person sees is problems everywhere.

Another contributing problem could be that introverted and neurotic people are less likely to get help from others, the study’s authors write:

“…perhaps an introverted neurotic person is prone to experiencing greater anxiety because of a lack of social support to aid in the amelioration of such anxiety (an introverted person may not seek much interaction with others).
Thus, an introverted person may not have the coping strategy of seeking social support as an option, which then maintains and potentially exacerbates anxiety…”

The conclusions come from a study of 466 young adults who were assessed twice over three years.

The results showed that those who were both neurotic and introverted were more likely to be experiencing high levels of anxiety issues three years later.

The study’s authors write:

“Low extraversion and high neuroticism relate to greater susceptibility to negative affect, less susceptibility to signals of reward, greater susceptibility to signals of punishment, and higher vulnerability to arousal and anxiety.”

On their own, being neurotic or introverted may not cause a major anxiety problem.

For example, people who are highly neurotic, but also outgoing and extraverted, may be protected from anxiety, the authors write:

“Even if an individual is highly neurotic, this same individual with high extraversion would more likely also be sensitive to signals of reward, which may offset or mask feelings of extreme anxiety.”

People who are just introverted, but with a stable personality (non-neurotic), were no more likely to be anxious, the study found:

“…even if an individual is highly introverted, this same individual with low neuroticism and low emotional reactivity would be less likely to react to signals of punishment with negative affect such as anxiety.”

The study was published in the Journal of Abnormal Psychology (Gershuny & Sher, 1998).

7 Signs You Have A Wise Personality

Wisdom can protect us from loneliness, anxiety and depression.

Wisdom — a modifiable personality trait — is linked to greater happiness, resilience, and mental well-being.

It is also linked to less depression, anxiety and loneliness.

Here are seven signs that you are a wise person:

You remain calm under pressure.
You do not postpone making major decisions.
You engage in self-reflection to understand myself.
You approach situations where your help may be needed.
You find it easy to give helpful advice to others.
You enjoy being exposed to diverse viewpoints.
Your spiritual beliefs give you inner strength.

Professor Dilip V. Jeste, study co-author, said:

“There are evidence-based interventions to increase levels of specific components of wisdom, which would help reduce loneliness and promote overall well-being.
Like the COVID-19 vaccine protects us from the novel coronavirus, wisdom can aid in protecting us from loneliness.
Thus, we can potentially help end a behavioral pandemic of loneliness, suicides and opioid abuse that has been going on for the last 20 years.”

The results come from a survey of over 2,000 people who were asked about seven major aspects of wisdom.

These are:

self-reflection,
pro-social behaviors (such as empathy, compassion and altruism),
emotional regulation (understanding and controlling your emotions),
acceptance of diverse perspectives,
decisiveness,
social advising (such as giving rational and helpful advice to others)
and spirituality.

Increase your wisdom

Like many other personality traits, wisdom can be difficult to change, but not impossible.

Here are two examples of ways to increase components of wisdom.

1. Increase emotional control

One method that has been tested scientifically is to practice referring to yourself in the third-person (Weng et al., 2013).

Instead of saying “I feel hurt and angry,” a person might say to themselves, “He feels hurt and angry.”

The simple technique helps people distance themselves from the strong emotions they are feeling in the moment.

2. Increase compassion

Compassion, another component of wisdom, is also not something you either have or you don’t — it can (and should) be learned and nurtured.

Participants a one study took part in one-day course in loving kindness meditation to improve their self-compassion.

This helps foster benevolent and loving feelings towards the self and others.

After the self-compassion training, people felt better in themselves, were more compassionate towards others and there was more activation in the areas of the brain associated with love, affiliation and positive emotion.

→ Related: Decision-Making Skills: 16 Ways To Improve

The study was published in the journal International Psychogeriatrics (Thomas et al., 2021).

The Personality Trait Linked To Positive Aging

This personality trait is linked to living almost 8 years longer on average.

Optimists are most likely to hold positive beliefs about aging, researchers finds.

Critically, optimists believe they can control their lives and make improvements.

This means that believing in a healthy, engaged old age is a self-fulfilling prophecy — people with these views tend to experience better health and are more active and social.

Ms Shelbie Turner, the study’s first author, said:

“How we think about who we’re going to be in old age is very predictive of exactly how we will be.”

People who imagine themselves more positively at 50-years-old tend to have better health 40 years later, studies have found.

They are less likely to suffer a heart attack, have better memory, greater will to live and are less likely to die prematurely.

Professor Karen Hooker, study co-author, said:

“Previous research has shown that people who have positive views of aging at 50 live 7.5 years longer, on average, than people who don’t.”

For the study, 244 people were tested for their optimistic traits and for how they saw themselves in the future.

Each person listed two ‘hoped-for’ future selves and two ‘feared’ future selves.

For example, people feared being chronically sick and in pain and hoped to be healthy and active.

The results revealed that optimistic people were more positive about aging.

Overcoming ageist stereotypes

Older people are often stereotyped as suffering memory problems, having difficulty exercising and being poor drivers.

Professor Hooker said:

“Kids as young as 4 years old already have negative stereotypes about old people.
Then, of course, if you’re lucky enough to live to old age, they eventually apply to you.”

Even older people sometimes reinforce these stereotypes themselves in the way they behave and think about aging.

Professor Hooker said:

“People need to realize that some of the negative health consequences in later life might not be biologically driven.
The mind and the body are all interwoven.
If you believe these bad things are going to happen, over time that can erode people’s willingness or maybe even eventually their ability to engage in those health behaviors that are going to keep them as healthy as they can be.”

The social mixing of young and old would help generate positive views of aging, says Professor Hooker:

“The more you’re around older people, the more you realize that it’s not all bad.
Older people can do some things better than young people do. Increasing opportunities for intergenerational relationships is one way we can make people more optimistic about aging.”

Increase your optimism

People naturally become more optimistic with age, studies have found.

However, exercises such as visualising your ‘best possible self‘ have been shown to increase optimism in the short-term.

Visualising your best possible self may sound like an exercise in fantasy but, crucially, it does have to be realistic.

Carrying out this exercise typically involves imagining your life in the future, but a future where everything that could go well, has gone well.

You have reached those realistic goals that you have set for yourself.

Then, to help cement your visualisation, you commit your best possible self to paper.

The study was published in the The International Journal of Aging and Human Development (Turner & Hooker, 2020).

This Change In Personality Indicates Dementia

Older people given personality tests were followed for many years to see who developed dementia.

Increases in the personality trait of neuroticism are a sign that someone will go on to develop dementia, research finds.

Neuroticism is a personality trait that is strongly linked to anxiety, sadness, irritability and self-consciousness.

People higher in neuroticism find it harder to deal with stress and tend to see threats everywhere.

The conclusions come from analysis of data from almost two thousand people in the US and the Netherlands.

Older people given personality tests were followed for many years to see who developed dementia.

The study’s authors explain:

“These findings provide reliable evidence of a consistent pattern of neuroticism increases preceding dementia diagnosis, and, further, suggest that change in neuroticism may occur early in the disease process.
Additionally, these results indicate that individuals who remain undiagnosed have markedly different trajectories of neuroticism compared to individuals not diagnosed with incident dementia or MCI [mild cognitive impairment].”

Along with increasing neuroticism, the researchers also found that people who went on to be diagnosed with dementia also saw decreases in extraversion.

They write:

“Assessments of extraversion, conscientiousness, openness and agreeableness were also available…
Our analyses revealed significant decreases in extraversion only, and solely for individuals with MCI [mild cognitive impairment].
These results may indicate that individuals with MCI might feel more cognitively challenged in the presence of others, possibly leading to avoidance of social activity.”

The study was published in the The Journals of Gerontology (Yoneda et al., 2018).

An Admired Personality Trait Linked To Higher Suicide Risk

This positive personality trait linked to more suicidal thoughts and suicide itself.

People who have a tendency towards perfectionism are at a much higher risk of suicidal thoughts and suicide itself, research finds.

Perfectionists find it harder than others to deal with a world that is fundamentally flawed.

Perfectionism involves being highly self-critical, constantly striving to meet the standards of others (typically parents or mentors) and being unsure about the efficacy of one’s own actions.

While a certain amount of perfectionism is adaptive and necessary, when it becomes an obsession, it can lead to a vicious cycle.

People in professions which have a strong emphasis on perfectionism — like lawyers, architects and physicians — are at a higher risk of suicide.

Mr Martin Smith, who led the research, said:

“We tend to think of perfectionism as potentially a good thing.
We’re told, ‘Aim high, reach for the stars’.
But for some people, even excellence isn’t good enough, and that’s where they run into issues. Insisting on flawlessness is simply not mentally healthy, adaptive or advisable.”

The conclusions come from 45 studies involving almost 12,000 people.

The ‘meta-analysis’, which draws together the results of lots of different studies, found that perfectionism was strongly linked to suicide.

Mr Smith continued:

“We can’t at this point say perfectionism is a cause of suicide.
But we can say the two correlate closely.
The drive to be perfect – whether it’s because of internal or external pressure to succeed without ever failing – can be an unbearable and untenable strain.”

People with high levels of perfectionism do not often seek help because it would be an admission of failure.

The study’s authors write:

“Our findings join a wider literature suggesting that, when people experience their social world as pressure-filled, judgmental, and hyper-critical, they think about and/or engage in various potential means of escape (e.g., alcohol misuse and binge eating), including suicide.”

The study was published in the Journal of Personality (Smith et al., 2017).

This Personality Trait Protects Against Loneliness

People like this enjoy being exposed to diverse viewpoints and others look to them for advice.

Wisdom protects people against loneliness, a study suggests.

People high in two particular components of wisdom — empathy and compassion — were especially unlikely to become lonely, the researchers found.

Wisdom is a personality trait: typically, wise people enjoy being exposed to diverse viewpoints and other people look to them for advice.

Wise people are also skilled at filtering negative emotions and do not postpone major decisions.

Professor Dilip Jeste, the study’s first author, said:

“An important finding from our study was a significant inverse correlation between loneliness and wisdom.
People with higher scores on a measure of wisdom were less lonely and vice versa.
Loneliness was consistently associated with poor general health, worse quality of sleep and less happiness, whereas the reverse was generally true for wisdom.”

The study included older adults in a relatively isolated, rural area of Italy.

The researchers also surveyed people living in San Diego, an urban/suburban area in the US.

All were asked about various components of wisdom, including compassion, empathy, emotional regulation and self-reflection.

The results showed that people who were high in empathy and compassion were particularly unlikely to feel lonely.

Professor Jeste said:

“Both loneliness and wisdom are personality traits.
Most personality traits are partially inherited and partially determined by environment.”

Like many other personality traits, wisdom can be difficult to change, but not impossible.

Dr David Brenner, study co-author, said:

“If we can increase someone’s compassion, wisdom is likely to go up and loneliness is likely to go down.
At UC San Diego, we have considerable interest in enhancing empathy and compassion to reduce levels of stress and improve happiness and well-being.”

Professor Jeste said:

“So how do you increase compassion? Utilizing approaches like cognitive behavioral therapy or writing in a gratitude diary can help someone become more compassionate.”

The study was published in the journal Aging and Mental Health (Jeste et al., 2020).

The Best Remedy For A Perfectionist Personality

When a perfectionist slips up, they criticise themselves too much and can experience burnout and depression.

Being self-compassionate is one of the best remedies for a perfectionist personality, research finds.

Learning self-acceptance helps protect the type of perfectionists who are highly self-critical from depression.

Some perfectionists are very worried about making mistakes and push themselves too hard to succeed.

When a perfectionist slips up, they criticise themselves too much and can experience burnout and depression.

However, perfectionists who are self-compassionate and self-accepting are less likely to get depressed.

A practical approach to boosting self-compassion is explained in my ebook “Accept Yourself“.

The conclusion comes from a study of 541 adolescents and 515 adults.

All were given tests of perfectionism, depression and self-compassion.

Dr Madeleine Ferrari, the study’s first author, explained the results:

“Self-compassion, the practice of self-kindness, consistently reduces the strength of the relationship between maladaptive perfectionism and depression for both adolescents and adults.”

The study’s authors explain how self-compassion is helpful:

“…self-compassion is ‘a useful emotion regulation strategy, in which painful or distressing feelings are not avoided but are instead held in awareness with kindness, understanding, and a sense of shared humanity’.
Thus, instead of avoiding social comparisons or overcompensating for negative feelings about the self through futile attempts to attain a higher social rank, the cultivation of self-compassion might help individuals to unconditionally accept ones’ failings.”

The study was published in the journal PLoS ONE (Ferrari et al., 2018).

An Obvious Early Sign Of An Introvert

The signs of a reserved personality can be seen at 14-months-old.

People who are inhibited as children tend to grow up into reserved introverts, research finds.

Inhibition as a child involves cautious, fearful and avoidant behaviour towards unfamiliar objects, people and situations.

Children who show this sort of behaviour are at a greater risk for anxiety disorders and social withdrawal later on.

People showing this pattern early on were also likely to have fewer romantic partners and lower social functioning, the study found.

However, being reserved had no negative effects on people’s success in education or employment.

Dr Daniel Pine, study co-author, said:

“While many studies link early childhood behavior to risk for psychopathology, the findings in our study are unique.
This is because our study assessed temperament very early in life, linking it with outcomes occurring more than 20 years later through individual differences in neural processes.”

The study involved 165 infants who were tracked first at 14 months-old, then at 15-years-old and later at 26-years-old.

Dr Nathan Fox, study co-author, said:

“It is amazing that we have been able to keep in touch with this group of people over so many years.
First their parents, and now they, continue to be interested and involved in the work.”

In adolescence they were given a wide variety of psychological and neurophysiological tests.

One test was for people’s ‘error related negativity’ — in other words, how sensitive they were to making mistakes.

People who are highly sensitive to their mistakes tend to develop anxiety-related problems.

Those who are not sensitive enough to their mistakes are at risk of problems like substance abuse and impulsive behaviour.

The results showed that infants who were inhibited tended to grow up into reserved adults.

Dr Fox said:

“We have studied the biology of behavioral inhibition over time and it is clear that it has a profound effect influencing developmental outcome.”

8 Superb Signs You Have An Introvert Personality

The study was published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (Tang et al., 2020).

The Major Personality Type Linked To Depression Risk

Among the major personality traits, it shows the strongest link to depression.

Negative emotionality is linked to a higher risk of depression, data from millions of people finds.

Negative emotionality, or being neurotic, involves a tendency towards fear and worry.

People who are neurotic are more likely to experience negative emotions like fear, jealousy, guilt, worry and envy.

The good news is that a depressive personality can be changed, contrary to what many people think.

The study’s conclusions come from analysing data from over two million people.

Their DNA revealed 269 genes related to depression.

Certain genes were also related to some lifestyle choice, like smoking.

The study shows that experiencing depression is linked to personality, which is partly controlled by genes.

Dr Raliza Stoyanova, of Wellcome, who funded the study, said:

“This large study is an important advance in understanding how genetic variability might contribute to risk for depression.
Given that current treatments work for only half of those who need them, the study provides some intriguing clues for future research to follow up — for example that biological pathways involved in developing the condition may not be the same as those involved in responding to treatment.”

Dr Sophie Dix, Director of Research at mental health charity MQ, said:

“This study adds to the weight of evidence that genes are one of the key risk factors in depression, which is also impacted by life events such as social environment and trauma.
The value of this could really be seen when looking into the development of personalised treatments — a welcome step given the dearth of innovation in identifying new approaches.
We have seen very little advancement in nearly 50 years for people living with depression and right now the avenues available are not working for everyone.”

The study was published in the journal Nature Neuroscience (Howard et al., 2019).

The Childhood Personality Trait That Makes You Popular

The trait is intrinsically rewarding.

Being fun is the childhood personality trait that makes kids popular, research shows.

Children rated as more fun tend to have more classmates who like them and more who rate them as popular.

Those rated as fun accrue a higher status among their peers which leads to more opportunities since fun kids tend to group together to practice their skills.

Professor Brett Laursen, the study’s first author, said:

“We had good reasons to suspect that being fun would uniquely contribute to a child’s social status.
Obviously, fun is intrinsically rewarding.
Fun peers are rewarding companions and rewarding companions enjoy higher social status than non-rewarding companions.
But the benefits of fun probably extend well beyond their immediate rewards.
Fun experiences provide positive stimulation that promotes creativity.
Being fun can protect against rejection insofar as it raises the child’s worth to the group and minimizes the prospect that others will habituate to the child’s presence.
Finally, changes in the brain in the early middle school years increase the salience of rewards derived from novelty, in general, and fun, in particular.
Children and adolescents are, quite literally, fun-seekers.”

The study included 1,573 children aged 9-12 who were asked to rate their peers likeability, popularity and how fun they were.

The results revealed that being fun was central to who was liked and popular.

Being fun makes children more rewarding companions, said Professor Laursen:

“One potential combination is surgency and ego resilience, which make the child a novel and exciting companion.
Fun children are probably also socially adept, and have high levels of perspective-taking and social skills.”

Being well-liked is a very handy trait, said Professor Laursen:

“Well-liked children present few adjustment difficulties and tend to succeed where others do not.
Popularity is highly coveted by children and adolescents; many value it above being liked.”

The study was published in the Journal of Personality (Laursen et al., 2020).