Category: Personality

This personality trait encourages persistence, cooperation and ambition.

Optimists in paid employment earn more than pessimists, new research finds.

Around 80% of people are optimistic, which tends to encourage persistence, cooperation and ambition.

However, being an optimist may not be as good for those starting their own business.

For entrepreneurs, pessimism is a more beneficial personality trait, the research also finds.

Pessimistic business owners earn 30% more than optimists.

Entrepreneurs typically earn less, work longer hours and take on more risk than those in paid employment.

Optimists, though, are more likely to face these issues without realising the dangers.

Dr Chris Dawson, the study’s first author, said:

“Our results suggest that too many people are starting business ventures, at least as far as personal returns are concerned.

As a society we celebrate optimism and entrepreneurial thinking but when the two combine it pays to take a reality check.

Every episode of the BBC’s Dragon’s Den provides examples of such wishful thinking.

Pessimism may not generally be seen as a desirable trait but it does protect people from taking on poor entrepreneurial projects.”

The conclusions come from data covering 18 years taken from a major longitudinal survey.

Professor David de Meza, study co-author, said:

“Governments frequently talk about the role of entrepreneurs in creating economic growth, but there is a downside.

The personal and societal fall-out of failed businesses shouldn’t be underestimated, which is exactly what optimists do.

Policy makers should not encourage the wrong sort of start-up.”

The study was published in the journal European Economic Review (Dawson et al., 2018).

People with this trait are 50% more likely to be declared bankrupt.

Being kind and trusting is linked to financial hardship, especially for the poor, new research finds.

In general, people who are more agreeable are at greater risk of bankruptcy and lower credit ratings.

The reason is that people who are agreeable tend to care less about money.

For those who have an adequate income, caring little about money is not as big a problem.

With greater financial resources to fall back on, richer people can afford to give money a low priority.

For those at the lower end of society, though, being nice and trusting can be financially problematic.

Dr Sandra Matz, the study’s first author, said:

“We were interested in understanding whether having a nice and warm personality, what academics in personality research describe as agreeableness, was related to negative financial outcomes.

Previous research suggested that agreeableness was associated with lower credit scores and income.

We wanted to see if that association held true for other financial indicators and, if so, better understand why nice guys seem to finish last.”

The study analysed data from over 3 million people.

It used bank account data, a national survey, two online panels and publicly available data.

Dr Joe Gladstone, study co-author, explained the results:

“Not every agreeable person is at equal risk of experiencing financial hardship.

The relationship was much stronger for lower-income individuals, who don’t have the financial means to compensate for the detrimental impact of their agreeable personality.”

The results also revealed that agreeableness in childhood predicted financial problems 25 years later.

Dr Matz said:

“Our results help us to understand one potential factor underlying financial hardship, which can have serious implications for people’s well-being.

Being kind and trusting has financial costs, especially for those who do not have the means to compensate for their personalities.”

The study was published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (Matz & Gladstone, 2018).

Obsessional people often have recurring thoughts or fears.

The personality trait of perfectionism is strongly linked to developing obsessive-compulsive disorder, new research finds.

Young children who have excessive self-control and perfectionist tendencies have double the chance of developing obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), psychologists have found.

For the study, children were asked to draw a perfect circle over three and a half minutes while researchers encouraged them to do better.

Those that concentrated more intensely were deemed to have perfectionist tendencies.

Scans also found that perfectionists had smaller brain volumes in an area linked to OCD, the anterior cingulate cortex.

OCD often involves recurring thoughts or obsessions, like having things in order or a fear of germs.

Dr Kirsten E. Gilbert, the study’s first author, said:

“Having a lot of self-control and striving for perfection often are considered by parents and society as good because they can eliminate mistakes, but excessive self-control and perfectionism raise a red flag.

In adolescents and adults, these characteristics are associated with OCD and other disorders, such as anorexia and social anxiety.

We’ve now been able to link this to OCD risk in children.”

It is important to catch OCD as early as possible in life so treatment can help to reduce compulsions and obsessions.

Dr Gilbert said:

“Some kids were very self-critical.

The researcher would point out flaws, but the child was critical of the effort, too.

That excessive perfectionism was the strongest predictor of OCD later on.”

The conclusions come from a study of 292 children aged just 4 and 5-years-old.

They were followed for 12 years, during which time 35 developed OCD.

Perfectionists were twice as likely to go on and develop OCD.

Dr Joan L. Luby, study co-author, said:

“In its most severe forms, OCD is a highly disabling and intractable disorder.

Therefore, this first identification of tangible risk behaviors in early childhood opens exciting new opportunities for the design of preventive interventions.”

Dr Gilbert concluded:

“One of my interests, ideally, is to create therapies geared toward prevention.

We also want to look at the role of parenting because if one of these kids has a parent who’s always saying, ‘That’s not good enough!’ you can see how this problem could spiral.”

The study was published in the journal JAMA Psychiatry (Gilbert et al., 2018).

People reveal their true selves when in this situation.

Being in hurry makes people reveal their true personalities even more clearly, new research finds.

Time pressure makes selfish people more selfish and it makes good-hearted people even nicer.

This is because, when in a rush, people tend to make the same choice they made before.

Dr Ian Krajbich, study co-author, said:

“People start off with a bias of whether it is best to be selfish or pro-social.

If they are rushed, they’ll tend to go with that bias.”

For the research, 102 people played an economic game, Dr Krajbich explained:

“The participants had to decide whether to give up some of their own money to increase the other person’s payoff and reduce the inequality between them.”

Sometimes people were given two seconds to decide, other times it was 10 seconds.

Dr Krajbich explained the results:

“We found that time pressure tends to magnify the predisposition that people already have, whether it is to be selfish or pro-social.

Under time pressure, when you have very little time to decide, you’re going to lean more heavily than usual on your predisposition or bias of how to act.”

Being forced to wait changed people’s decisions, said Dr Krajbich:

“People may still approach decisions with the expectation that they will act selfishly or pro-socially, depending on their predisposition.

But now they have time to consider the numbers and can think of reasons to go against their bias.

Maybe you’re predisposed to be selfish, but see that you only have to give up $1 and the other person is going to get $20.

That may be enough to get you to act more pro-socially.”

The study was published in the journal Nature Communications (Chen & Krajbich, 2018).