Personality - Page 7 of 31

The Major Personality Trait Linked To Depression Risk

The conclusion comes from 21,000 Swedish twins who completed personality tests.

Negative emotionality is the strongest risk factor for depression among personality traits, research finds.

Negative emotionality is essentially being highly neurotic and involves finding it hard to deal with stress and experiencing a lot of negative emotions and mood swings.

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

Some neurotic people can be quite shy and self-conscious.

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

The study’s authors write:

“…personality is at least somewhat malleable, especially in youth, but may forecast the onset of depression years in advance, which makes traits a potentially attractive means of identifying individuals at risk and informing selection of interventions.”

In addition, other aspects of personality can protect against the disadvantages of negative emotionality.

Being high in conscientiousness and an extravert together has a protective effect on people who are highly neurotic.

The conclusion comes from two studies — one looked at around 21,000 Swedish twins who completed personality tests.

They were followed up over 25 years later and asked about any experience of depression.

The results revealed that negative emotionality was key and that genetic factors were important in the development of depression.

Professor Kenneth S. Kendler, who led the study, said:

“The personality trait of neuroticism – perhaps better understood as “negative emotionality” is a strong risk factor of major depression.
Our study shows that this occurs largely because levels of neuroticism are an index of the genetic liability to depression.”

The second study reviewed many other studies on the link between personality and depression.

It also found that neuroticism or negative emotionality is strongly linked to depression.

The authors conclude that:

“Current evidence suggests that depression is linked to traits such as neuroticism/negative emotionality, extraversion/positive emotionality, and conscientiousness.
Moreover, personality characteristics appear to contribute to the onset and course of depression through a variety of pathways.”

Although links are sometimes found between depression and being introverted, as well as being low on conscientiousness, it is neuroticism that has the greatest link to depression.

The studies were was published in the journals Annual Review of Clinical Psychology and Archives of General Psychiatry (Klein et al., 2011; Kendler et al., 2006).

2 Personality Traits Linked To A Stronger Immune System

Certain personality traits influence the body’s immune system response.

People with more stable emotions have stronger immune systems, research finds.

People who are emotionally stable usually find it easier to control their urges and are mostly unselfconscious.

Emotional stability is linked to being better at dealing with stress and minor frustrations.

Neuroticism lies at the opposite end of the spectrum from emotional stability.

People who are neurotic typically experience more negative thinking and tend to have worse mental health.

The study included 84 people whose response to a vaccine for hepatitis B was tested.

The results showed that people who were more neurotic — meaning easily stressed, nervous and moody — tended to have weaker immune system responses.

Those who were more emotional stable had a stronger immune response.

Dr Anna L. Marsland,, the study’s first author, said:

“The present findings support a link between trait negative affect and an objective health measure — antibody response to vaccination — raising the possibility that individuals high in trait negative affect or neuroticism may have less protective immune responses.”

In a second part of the study, people were given a stressful task to test their immune function.

The results showed that stress tended to lower people’s immune system response — as previous studies have found.

Extroverts

Along with emotional stability, extraversion has also been linked to a stronger immune system, by a genetic analysis.

Extraverts are typically outgoing, talkative and energetic, meaning they tend to interact with more people.

They are, therefore, exposed to more infections.

A stronger immune response may help to protect extraverts against infectious diseases.

Introverts, meanwhile, tend to have a weaker immune response, as do cautious people.

The study included 121 people who were given personality questionnaires, along with genetic tests and general health screening.

The results showed that extraverts had the highest expression of pro-inflammatory genes.

The effect of these genes is to help fight off infections.

Introverts and cautious conscientious people tended to have a lower inflammatory response.

The study was published in the journal Health Psychology (Marsland et al., 2001).

4 Signs That You Are An Extravert

The considerable advantages of being an extravert — especially in the work environment.

Extraverts typically seek out new experiences, prefer to take charge and are outgoing and talkative.

Introverts, meanwhile tend to be emotionally reserved, quiet and harder to get to know.

A review of the research finds that extraverts tend to enjoy a variety of advantages in the workplace.

Extraverts tend to have better social skills, they feel more positive emotions and are more motivated.

Positive emotions are important as happier people tend to work harder and are seen as better leaders.

Better social skills are linked to persuasion, which is also a key leadership skill.

On top of these advantages, extraverts tend to perform better at work.

This benefit probably springs from their personalities, said Dr Michael Wilmot, the study’s first author:

“If you’re motivated to achieve a goal at work, if you’re feeling positive and you’re good at dealing with people, you’re probably going to perform better on the job.
These advantages appear to have a cumulative effect over the span of one’s career.”

However, introverts should not be dismayed, as they have different skills which are sought after in certain occupations.

In addition, most people are ‘ambiverts’, with a mix of extraverted and introverted traits.

Dr Wilmot said:

“You might be more introverted, but if you’re intelligent, work hard and bring other things to the table, you’re probably going to do well.
At the same time, if you’re more extroverted, but lack the cognitive ability or work ethic, you’re probably not going to be as successful.”

The results come from a review of 91 separate studies conducted around the world on the link between extraversion and work-related factors.

The studies looked at things like work-life balance, motivation, performance and emotional well-being.

The results showed that extraversion was beneficial for 90 percent of the outcomes they examined.

The study was published in the Journal of Applied Psychology (Wilmot et al., 2019).

4 Personality Traits Linked To High IQ

These traits are all linked to having higher intelligence.

Having an active fantasy life, appreciating beauty, being emotionally sensitive and wide-ranging curiosity are linked to high IQ, research finds.

All of these are components of the major personality trait of ‘openness to experience’.

People who are open to experience are more interested in things that are complex, new and unconventional.

They are sensitive to their feelings, intellectually curious and seekers of variety.

Curiosity has an especially strong link to high IQ.

This may be because higher intelligence drives a ‘cognitive hunger’.

This encourages people to seek out new experiences to satiate the hunger.

The conclusions come from a study of 17,415 people from the UK.

They were given intelligence and personality tests and followed for 40 years.

The results showed the remarkable strength of the link between openness to experience and IQ.

The study’s authors explain their results:

“…childhood intelligence is indeed positively associated with adult trait Openness, even when it was assessed almost four decades earlier when participants were at 11 years.
Intelligence may influence the development of personality in that intelligent people develop habits to satisfy their curiosity and ‘‘cognitive hunger’’ which are an essential ingredient of Openness.”

The study’s authors think that it is high IQ that drives openness to experience:

“Parents of higher socioeconomic status may foster children’s trait Openness by providing better resources such as choosing good schools and cultural environment (theaters, museums, traveling abroad, etc.); intelligent children tend to use more mental activities (such as abstract ideas, learning new vocabularies, or math formulas) than those who are less intelligent; school settings (quality of teaching, good facilities) may enhance pupils to engage more in school learning.
All these three factors may influence educational and
occupational achievement, which in turn, may increase
the scores on Openness.”

The study was published in the Journal of Individual Differences (Furnham & Cheng, 2016).

The Incredible Ways Time Will Probably Change Your Personality

Many of us will change much more than we imagine over the coming decades.

As they get older, many people become more emotionally stable, more agreeable and more conscientious, research finds.

Emotional stability is linked to fewer mental health problems, agreeableness is linked to being considerate and kind while conscientious people are more reliable.

The stereotype of the grumpy senior is totally misplaced, where personality is concerned.

The conclusions come from a study of how personality changes over 50 years.

The results showed that while personality is reasonably stable over a lifetime, it can also change.

Dr Rodica Damian, the study’s first author, said:

“The rankings (of personality traits) remain fairly consistent. People who are more conscientious than others their age at 16 are likely to be more conscientious than others at 66.
But, on average, everyone becomes more conscientious, more emotionally stable, and more agreeable.”

The study included data from 1,795 people who were followed for 50 years from the age of 16 to 66.

Somewhere approaching half of the participants saw changes in their personality over the five decades.

Some people changed more than others, while a few saw negative shifts in their personality.

The researchers conclude:

“Our findings suggest that personality has a stable component across the lifespan, both at the trait level and at the profile level, and that personality is also malleable and people mature as they age.”

Not all psychologists are convinced, though, that personality is even as stable as that.

One study of personality and aging tracked people over 63 years to see if their personality had changed.

The surprise result — well, it’s a surprise to me at any rate — is that there was no relationship whatsoever between people’s personality at age 14 and at age 77.

It was as if the second set of tests — administered 63 years later — had been given to a totally different person.

Perhaps, then, many of us will change much more than we imagine over the coming decades.

→ Read on: How to change your personality

The study was published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (Damian et al., 2018).

An Aspect Of This Major Personality Trait Is Linked To Success In Life

People with this personality trait tend to be self-disciplined and they aim for achievement.

Making concrete plans is the key to achieving your goals, research finds.

Indeed, the habit of making concrete plans is a type of personality trait the researchers dub ‘planfulness’.

Planfulness is an aspect of the wider personality trait of conscientiousness.

In general, conscientious people tend to be self-disciplined and they aim for achievement.

People who are planful tend to agree with statements such as:

“Developing a clear plan when I have a goal is important to me.”

Ms Rita M. Ludwig, the study’s first author, said:

“There indeed appears to be a certain way of thinking about goals that correlates with long-term progress.
What’s new in this study is that we used an objective measure of goal progress that could be recorded as participants naturally went about their lives: their check-ins at a local gym.”

For the study, the gym attendance of 282 people was tracked over a 20-week period.

Participants also completed personality tests and other critical measures.

The results showed that people high in the planfulness tended to visit the gym more.

The more planful people were, the more they visited the gym.

Ms Ludwig said:

“This work is broadly informative for those who are curious about how people pursue health goals, including their own patterns of thought around goals.
Clinicians might find it helpful in understanding how their patients tend to think about goals and whether person-to-person differences in such thinking are related to outcomes.”

Plans didn’t necessarily need to be written down — in fact, there was no relationship between how detailed people’s plans were and how often they went to the gym.

Ms Ludwig said:

“It seems logical that people who are successful with their goals would be able to write in detail about their planning process.
We were surprised, then, to find no relationship between people’s goal pursuit behavior and how they wrote about their goals.”

The study was published in the journal Psychological Science (Ludwig et al., 2019).

A Major Personality Trait Linked To High IQ

People with high fluid intelligence think quickly and see relationships between ideas.

Laid back people — who can be disorganised and careless — tend to have higher IQs, one study suggests.

These traits are part of one of the five major aspects of personality called conscientiousness — or, in this case, lack of conscientiousness.

Being low on the personality trait of conscientiousness is linked to higher fluid intelligence, the researchers found.

One of the reasons may be that a quick mind can make up for what a person lacks in discipline.

As a result, those with higher IQs can afford to be more relaxed because they do not have to work so hard to achieve the same success.

Fluid intelligence is one of two types of intelligence and refers, roughly speaking to the speed at which the brain works.

As the study’s authors explain it:

“Fluid intelligence has been defined as our ‘‘on-the-spot reasoning ability, a skill not basically dependent on our experience’’.
It involves things like quick thinking, reasoning, seeing relationships between ideas, approaching new problems, and is considered to be biologically based.”

Fluid intelligence is in contrast to concrete intelligence, which refers to something like general knowledge: the things that people have learnt over their lifetime.

The study included 201 adults of all ages who were given tests of both intelligence and personality.

The results showed that while crystallised intelligence was not linked to lacking conscientiousness, fluid intelligence was.

It may be because people with higher fluid intelligence do not have to work as hard, so they become more laid back over the years.

The study’s authors explain:

“…in a competitive environment less intelligent individuals become more Conscientious in order to cope with their disadvantage, or that more intelligent individuals do not become so conscientious, as they can rely on their fluid intelligence to accomplish most tasks.”

The study was published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences (Moutafi et al., 2004).

These 2 Personality Types Are The Most Compatible

People prefer a certain personality type in a romantic partner, study demonstrates.

People with similar personalities are the most compatible, research finds.

Extraverts get on with other extraverts, conscientious people are happy with other conscientious people, the agreeable love other agreeable people — and so on.

There was no evidence in this study that opposites attract.

Romantic partners also get on better — at least initially — when they have similar attitudes.

For a happy marriage, though, it is a similar personality that works best.

Similar attitudes, which are easier to gauge than personality, may help people with similar personalities find each other.

The study’s authors write:

“People may be attracted to those who have similar attitudes, values, and beliefs and even marry them – at least in part – on the basis of this similarity because attitudes are highly visible and salient characteristics and they are fundamental to the way people lead their lives.”

The conclusions come from a study of 291 newlyweds who were asked about their personality, attitudes and marital satisfaction.

The results showed that the couples who had similar personalities were happier together.

Attitudes — whether similar or not — made no different to marital satisfaction.

The authors write:

“…once people are in a committed relationship, it is primarily personality similarity that influences marital happiness because being in a committed relationship entails regular interaction and requires extensive coordination in dealing with tasks, issues and problems of daily living.
Whereas personality similarity is likely to facilitate this process, personality differences may result in more friction and conflict in daily life.
As far as attitudes are concerned, people who chose to marry each other should be well aware of how similar or different they are on these domains because attitudes are very visible and salient.
This suggests that attitudinal and value differences, when they exist, are part of a conscious decision to stay together on the basis of other important considerations.”

The study was published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (Luo & Klohnen, 2005).

The Personality Traits Linked To Long Life

People who live to almost 100 have these personality traits.

Being optimistic, outgoing and enjoying laughter are linked to longevity, research finds.

People who live to almost 100-years old are more likely to be emotionally expressive and positive.

Long-lived people tend to have stable emotions and to have high levels of conscientiousness.

People with stable emotions are non-neurotic and are at a lower risk of developing anxiety and depression.

People who are emotionally stable usually find it easier to control their urges and are mostly unselfconscious.

People who are conscientious are more careful, efficient and self-disciplined — and they aim for achievement.

Professor Nir Barzilai, study co-author, said:

“When I started working with centenarians, I thought we’d find that they survived so long in part because they were mean and ornery.
But when we assessed the personalities of these 243 centenarians, we found qualities that clearly reflect a positive attitude towards life.
Most were outgoing, optimistic and easygoing.
They considered laughter an important part of life and had a large social network.
They expressed emotions openly rather than bottling them up.”

The study included 243 people aged over 95-years-old who were given personality tests.

The results showed that centenarians had high scores on two scales:

Positive Attitude Towards Life: includes being outgoing and optimistic
Emotional Expression: not bottling up emotions but letting them out.

Professor Barzilai said:

“Some evidence indicates that personality can change between the ages of 70 and 100, so we don’t know whether our centenarians have maintained their personality traits across their entire lifespans.
Nevertheless, our findings suggest that centenarians share particular personality traits and that genetically-based aspects of personality may play an important role in achieving both good health and exceptional longevity.”

The study was published in the journal Aging (Kato et al., 2012).

The Personality Trait Linked To Heart Disease

The study looked at three different types of hostility: emotional, behavioural and cognitive.

Being hostile and cynical increases the risk of heart problems, research finds.

Cynical people tend to be distrustful of the nature and motives of others and believe they are motivated only by self-interest.

Cynicism is also linked to pessimism and being contemptuous.

While hostility has long been linked to heart problems, this is one of the first studies to link it to being cynical.

The study, which included 196 people, looked at three different types of hostility: emotional, behavioural and cognitive.

Ms Alexandra T. Tyra, the study’s first author, explained:

“Cynical hostility is more cognitive, consisting of negative beliefs, thoughts and attitudes about other people’s motives, intentions and trustworthiness.
It can be considered suspiciousness, lack of trust or cynical beliefs about others.
These findings reveal that a greater tendency to engage in cynical hostility—which appears to be extremely relevant in today’s political and health climate—can be harmful not only for our short-term stress responses but also our long-term health.”

Meanwhile, behavioural hostility manifests as verbal or physical aggression and emotional hostility as chronic anger.

Under healthy circumstances, people get used to stressors and adapt to them.

Ms Tyra explained:

“Essentially, when you’re exposed to the same thing multiple times, the novelty of that situation wears off, and you don’t have as big of a response as you did the first time.
This is a healthy response. But our study demonstrates that a higher tendency for cynical hostility may prevent or inhibit this decrease in response over time.
In other words, the cardiovascular system responds similarly to a second stressor as it did to the first.
This is unhealthy because it places increased strain on our cardiovascular system over time.”

The people in the study were given personality tests along with a test of their stress response.

The results showed that neither emotional nor behavioural hostility were linked to a higher stress response.

Ms Tyra said:

“This does not imply that emotional and behavioral hostility are not bad for you, just that they may affect your health or well-being in other ways.”

However, people with greater cynical hostility had a high and sustained stress response.

Ms Tyra said:

“I would hope that this research raises awareness about the potential health implications of cynicism.
Perhaps the next time someone thinks a negative thought about the motives, intentions or trustworthiness of their best friend, a co-worker or even a politician, they will think twice about actively engaging with that thought.”

The study was published in the journal Psychophysiology (Tyra et al., 2020).