Personality - Page 6 of 30

This Personality Trait Is A Sign Of High Fluid Intelligence

Fluid intelligence refers to the raw speed at which the brain works.

A hunger for new, unconventional ideas is one of the strongest indicators of high IQ, research finds.

People with high IQs are intellectually curious and enjoy things like unusual activities, philosophical arguments and brain teasers.

This desire for new ideas is linked to an aspect of IQ called fluid intelligence.

Fluid intelligence refers to the speed at which the brain works.

It is like the raw power of an engine or the speed at which a computer can process information.

Fluid intelligence is contrasted with crystallised intelligence.

Crystallised intelligence is something like general knowledge: the information that people have learnt about the world over the years.

The conclusions come from a study of 2,658 employees working at 10 different companies in the UK.

They were all given tests of personality and intelligence.

The results showed that high fluid intelligence was linked to hunger for new ideas.

Like an interest in ideas, being willing to try new activities was also linked to intelligence, the authors write:

“Actions refers to willingness to try different activities, and to a preference for novelty and variety over familiarity and routine.
Fluid intelligence involves things like reaction times, quick thinking, reasoning, seeing relationships and approaching new problems.
This means that individuals high on [fluid intelligence] have an innate ability to cope more efficiently with novel experiences, and to deal with intellectually stimulating tasks such as brain teasers, which would thus make it rewarding for them to pursuit such activities.
Similarly, individuals low on [fluid intelligence] may in time grow to avoid such activities, due to their low ability to handle them, which would thus make them less rewarding.”

The study was published in the journal Learning and Individual Differences (Moutafi et al., 2006).

The Personality Trait That Marks Out Selfless Heroes (M)

Kidney donors may incur considerable expense and undergo painful surgery even without knowing the organ’s recipient. Why do they do it?

Kidney donors may incur considerable expense and undergo painful surgery even without knowing the organ's recipient. Why do they do it?

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The Personality Trait That Could Extend Your Life

Survey of almost 30,000 people finds one personality trait consistently linked to longer life.

Being positive has been linked to living longer by research.

People lived longer if they were more:

optimistic about the future,
closer to other people,
decisive,
and felt more useful and relaxed.

Those who scored in the top sixth for being positive were 18% less likely to die over the next four years.

Other key factors linked to living longer included getting married and having a degree.

The results come from a survey of 28,662 people.

Both people’s mental health and their medical records were examined by the survey.

The people analysed in the survey had similar levels of physical health, income and other demographic characteristics.

Income, perhaps surprisingly, did not have an effect on the chance of dying.

Dr Christopher Jacobi, the study’s author, said:

“The results indicate that better positive mental health seems to have a somewhat protective effect against mortality.
In research literature the most frequently stated ways in which positive mental health is likely to affect mortality are via direct physiological responses such as lowered blood pressure, capacity to cope with stress, less drinking and smoking, an active lifestyle, and better sleep quality.
Likewise, people with high positive mental health might not be affected as severely by potentially negative symptomatic and physiological effects of life events like divorce or unemployment.”

Previous research has also revealed that both extroverts and optimists are more likely to live longer than introverts and pessimists.

As I wrote previously:

“Optimists have healthier hearts than pessimists, a study of over 51,000 adults finds.
Optimists also had healthier body mass indexes, were more physically active and less likely to smoke.
Researchers found that the more optimistic people were, the greater their overall physical health.
The most optimistic people were 76% more likely to have health scores that were in the ideal range.”

The study was presented at the British Sociological Association’s Medical Sociology conference in Birmingham on 8 Sept 2016.

This Personality Trait Is A Strong Sign Of High Empathy

One personality trait is linked to understanding other people’s feelings.

Being agreeable is linked to high levels of empathy, research finds.

Agreeableness is one of the five major aspects of personality, along with conscientiousness, neuroticism, openness to experience and extraversion.

Agreeable people tend to be tactful, trusting, friendly and warm.

They are generally mindful of other people’s feelings, which also makes them more compliant.

People who are agreeable are more likely to be helpful to others, because of their propensity for empathy.

The conclusions come from a series of studies in which people read scenarios describing a person getting into difficulties.

Subsequently, they rated how much empathy they felt and whether they would offer assistance.

The results showed that the more agreeable people are, they more they felt empathy for the victim of the story.

Agreeable people were more likely to offer their assistance.

Along with agreeable people, those who were more neurotic were more likely to empathise.

Dr Meara Habashi, the study’s first author, said:

“It is common for persons to experience distress on seeing a victim in need of help.
That distress can lead some people to escape, and to run away from the victim.
But distress does not need to block helping because it may be one first-appearing aspect of empathy.
Distress can actually contribute to helping, but the way it contributes depends on personality.”

Less agreeable people seem to need more reminders that they should help out, said Dr Habashi:

“Personality matters.
It matters in how we structure our request for help, and it matters in how we respond to that request.
Helping is a result of several different processes running in sequence.
Each process contributes something different.
The way we ask for help -perspective taking — can influence our chances for getting it.”

The study was published in the journal Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin (Habashi et al., 2016).

The Surprising Personality Trait Linked To Depression

The type of people who are more sensitive to negative emotions.

People who are more open to experience are at higher risk of depression.

People who are open to experience are more likely to be imaginative, sensitive to their feelings, intellectually curious and seekers of variety.

In particular, people who are into art and in touch with their emotions are more likely to experience depression.

It may be because artistic people are more sensitive.

The conclusion comes from a study of 143 people who were given tests of personality, focusing on the personality trait of openness to experience:

“Open individuals exhibit an increased awareness of, and receptiveness to, their feelings, thoughts, and impulses, as well as a need for variety, or a recurrent need to enlarge and examine experience.”

Some people in the study had never been depressed, some were depressed in the past and the remainder were currently experiencing depression.

The authors explained the results:

“Depressed participants (both current and past) scored significantly higher than nondepressed participants on the broad factor of Openness, as well as on both Openness to Aesthetics and Openness to Feelings.”

Sensitivity to the arts is probably linked to sensitivity to negative emotions, the authors write:

“It seems more likely that individuals who are attuned to beauty and the arts might be more sensitive, in general, and might therefore be more sensitive to, and affected by, negative events and stimuli.”

An appreciation of art and the experience of depression may be strongly linked:

“…the experience of depression may lead to an existential ”reexamination of the purpose of living,” and consequently bring the depressed individual “in touch with the mystery that lies at the heart of ‘tragic and timeless’ art”
[…]
Similarly, Ludwig (1994) suggested that the experience of depression (as well as other emotional problems) serves to fuel the writers “motivation for expression, . . . providing them with the basic ingredients for their art’.”

The study was published in the Journal of Personality Assessment (Wolfenstein & Trull, 1997).

1 Personality Trait Predicts Happy Marriage Over 40+ Years

One personality trait emerged as the most important for satisfaction across 40+ years of marriage.

People with very stable emotions tend to have the best marriages, research finds.

Stable emotions reflect low levels of the personality trait of neuroticism.

Emotionally stable people (those low in neuroticism) tend not to criticise their partners, behave defensively or be contemptuous of them.

In married couples, having an extraverted, outgoing partner is also linked to higher satisfaction.

In addition, both high agreeableness and high conscientiousness are linked to relationship satisfaction in dating couples.

But it is having a partner that is co-operative and responsible that is the key, not necessarily being that way yourself.

Neuroticism, though, has the greatest effect of all personality traits on how satisfied couples are with their relationship.

People with high levels of neuroticism are more likely to get divorced.

To see how beneficial these traits are imagine for a moment the reverse of someone who is stable, agreeable and responsible.

Being neurotic, along with dis-agreeable and irresponsible is known as the ‘lack-of-self-control’ cluster of personality traits.

It is not hard to see why this set of three personality traits — that are linked to psychopathology and substance abuse — might not make for the best marriage.

The conclusions come from a study that surveyed 136 dating couples and 74 married couples.

They were asked about both their own and their partner’s personality as well as their satisfaction with their marriage.

The personality trait of neuroticism — one of the five major aspects of personality — emerged as most important, just as it has over decades of research.

The study’s authors describe one early piece of research that…

“…studied 278 couples from the mid-1930s through the early 1980s.
[…]
Analyses indicated that respondents who initially were high on neuroticism were more likely to become divorced over the course of the study.
[…]
Neuroticism scores showed significant predictive power across time spans of more than 40 years.”

The study was published in the Journal of Personality (Watson et al., 2001).

These Parental Personality Traits Are Linked To Children’s Success (M)

There is little evidence that children ‘turn into’ their parents, but parental personalities are central.

There is little evidence that children 'turn into' their parents, but parental personalities are central.

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The Personality Trait Linked To Longer Life

This personality trait can be boosted using simple exercises.

People who are optimistic tend to live longer, research finds.

In fact, being optimistic — a trait that can be boosted — can increase the odds of reaching 85-years-old by up to 70 percent.

Optimism has also been linked to better memory, psychological resilience and higher quality of life.

Optimistic people tend to expect positive outcomes in the future.

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

So, optimistic people may live longer partly because they develop healthier behaviours.

Psychological resilience is also a factor, said Dr Eric Kim, the study’s first author:

“While most medical and public health efforts today focus on reducing risk factors for diseases, evidence has been mounting that enhancing psychological resilience may also make a difference.
Our new findings suggest that we should make efforts to boost optimism, which has been shown to be associated with healthier behaviors and healthier ways of coping with life challenges.”

The study included 70,021 nurses, whose health was tracked over six years.

The results showed that the most optimistic women had a 30 percent lower risk of dying than the least optimistic women.

Among the reduced risks linked to optimism were:

38 percent lower chance of dying from heart disease,
52 percent lower chance of dying from infection,
16 percent lower chance of dying from cancer.

Optimism can be learned

The good news is that optimism is not fixed in stone.

Exercises such as visualising your ‘best possible self‘ have been shown to increase optimism.

Here is how I’ve previously explained the exercise:

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.
This exercise draws on the proven benefits of expressive writing.

The study was published in the American Journal of Epidemiology (Kim et al., 2016).

The Personality Type Linked To Poor Mental Health

This personality type affects around one in six people in the US.

People with personality disorders are at double the risk of developing mental health problems by 35-years-old, research finds.

People with personality disorders are more likely to be socially disadvantaged, separated or divorced.

By 35, people with personality disorders are almost twice as likely to be experiencing depression and/or anxiety.

Personality disorders affect around one in six people in the US.

The three most common personality disorders in the US are:

Obsessive-compulsive personality disorder.
Paranoid personality disorder.
Antisocial personality disorder

Obsessive-compulsive personality disorder (OCPD) is one of the most well-known of personality disorders

Those with OCPD are typically perfectionists who are also highly fearful or anxious.

They want to control everything and find it very hard to relax.

In contrast, those with a paranoid personality disorder are extremely mistrustful of others.

They are very sensitive and are always on the lookout for things that confirm their worst fears: that everyone is out to get them.

They assume others are hostile, they bear grudges and find it hard to have an emotional connection with others.

Finally, people with an antisocial personality disorder typically have no regard for other people’s feelings or judgments.

They see themselves as free of society’s rules and standards and are similar to what we think of as a psychopath.

→ More details on how to spot personality disorders.

Dr Paul Moran, who led the Australian study of 1,520 people, said:

“At the age of 24, personality disorder was already linked with social disadvantage, substance misuse and poor mental health.
Eleven years later, the presence of personality pathology predicted the occurrence of anxiety and depression, as well as the absence of long-term relationships.
What is most striking is that these associations were not due to pre-existing mental health, substance use or social problems.
People with personality disorder appear to be a distinctly vulnerable group with regards to future mental health and relationship problems.”

The study was published in the The Lancet Psychiatry (Moran et al., 2016).

These Personality Types Are The Most Compatible

The main thing people look for in a partner.

People tend to look for the same personality type in a partner over-and-over again, research concludes.

One of the main things people look for is a similar personality to themselves.

So, extraverts prefer other extraverts, agreeable people prefer other agreeable people, and so on.

However, it is more than that, the researchers found.

There is also a lot of similarity between a person’s ex-partners.

One of the advantages of having similar partners is learning how to deal with a particular personality type.

Ms Yoobin Park, the study’s first author, said:

“In every relationship, people learn strategies for working with their partner’s personality.
If your new partner’s personality resembles your ex-partner’s personality, transferring the skills you learned might be an effective way to start a new relationship on a good footing.”

The conclusions come from a study of 332 people.

Researchers compared the personalities of their current partners with those of their past partners.

They were asked how much they agreed with statements like:

“I am usually modest and reserved.”
“I am interested in many different kinds of things.”
“I make plans and carry them out.”

The results showed that people tend to have a ‘type’, said Ms Park:

“It’s common that when a relationship ends, people attribute the breakup to their ex-partner’s personality and decide they need to date a different type of person.
Our research suggests there’s a strong tendency to nevertheless continue to date a similar personality.
The effect is more than just a tendency to date someone similar to yourself.
The degree of consistency from one relationship to the next suggests that people may indeed have a ‘type’.
And though our data do not make clear why people’s partners exhibit similar personalities, it is noteworthy that we found partner similarity above and beyond similarity to oneself.”

In some circumstances, though, sticking to the same personality type all the time can be damaging, said Ms Park:

“So, if you find you’re having the same issues in relationship after relationship, you may want to think about how gravitating toward the same personality traits in a partner is contributing to the consistency in your problems.”

The study was published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (Park & MacDonald, 2019).