What Makes You What You Are

record What make waters you the way you argon? Science News The fissiparous At much or less point in your life, youve probably filled in a spirit questionnaire (Do you see yourself as.? ), and wondered as you ticked the boxes if on that point merchantman re eithery be any validity to much(prenominal) a simplistic way of assessing pile. Surely the scores just reflect your desire on the day, or what you want the investigator to think back. Surely e real iodine gives the corresponding answer, which is it depends.Or sluice if the scores measure something, surely it is how the person sees themselves, alternatively than how they actually argon. In a new book, I examine what the extent of the science underlying spirit psychology really is. The answer is more than you would think. While it has endlessly been popular in business and pop psychology, and within academic psychology, personality research has been a poor relation to the representatives of the discipline with experiments and clayey objective measures. However, this is changing fast.The flying field of personality is undergoing a renaissance. The reasons for the renaissance argon several. Academics now sport some really grave long-term studies of the bid man-to-mans, and it turns out that those brief, simplistic, pencil-and-paper questionnaires render surprisingly useful properties. They produce a liberal range of selfdescriptions. The rejoinders ar fairly repeat sufficient over intervals of many years. They in any case correlate quite s advantageously up with ratings of the person given by their spouse, friends or colleagues.Much more importantly, though, the responses turn out to predict objective crimsonts. For example, in a famous cohort of gifted Californian children recruited in the 1920s, and who ar venerable or deceased now, personality scores numerical representations of answers to questions are substantive predictors of life expectancy. In a nonher long-term study, this time of Ameri stool unite couples, the quality and duration of the marriage is predicted by the personality scores of some(prenominal) parties prior to marriage. on that point are many other examples, with personality scores predicting stub addiction, problem gambling, and the onset of psychological illnesses. Of course the prediction is a statistical one you potty assign odds, non make oracular pronouncements simply this is how it forever and a day is in psychology. Humans are such manifold systems that you are happy to explain a portion of the random variable in outcomes, and never expect to explain it all. In recent years there has been re-create interest in personality assessment. This has been greatly aided by the fact that there is now a consensus on what the key variables are.Its early development, the field was greatly hampered by every investigator having his or her own scales, frequently using different names and measures for what turned out to b e the same thing, or indeed the same names for what turned out to be different things. But over the last 20 years, many studies in several different cultures make water shown that much of the systematic variation in personality can be reduced to scores along tail fin dimensions (the Big Five) Extraversion, Neuroticism, Conscientiousness, amenity, and Openness. Its important to stress that these are all persisting dimensions.That is, there are no discrete important to stress that these are all continuous dimensions. That is, there are no discrete types of person. Personality dimensions are a want height or weight, which vary continuously, not like being a left- or a right-hand writer. Your score on one dimension is independent of your scores on all the others, so there is an al approximately infinite diversity of different overall profiles possible. If developments within psychology have facilitated the renaissance of personality studies, it is at the interface with biology where the exciting developments are beginning to come.Neuroscientists have shown, mainly using the more and more sophisticated brain imaging techniques that are now available, that those simple pencil-and-paper personality scores correlate significantly with the size or neurophysiological responsiveness of specific regions of the brain. Moreover, these turn out to be the very regions that other types of turn up (evidence from brain damage, for example) would lead us to expect would be involved in that particular area of psychological function. Geneticists, too, are getting involved in personality research.It has recently become apparent that more of the gracious genome differs from individual to individual, even within our rather genetically homogenous species, than was previously thought. We hold up this inter alia from the complete sequence of Dr Craig Venters genome, which was published earlier this month. About 0. 5 per cent of the genetic information in his maternallyinherited g enome is different from his paternally-inherited one. Variant sequences consider nearly half his genes, and it is likely that in many cases those variants will have some functional effect on body, brain or behaviour.In a few cases, we even know which genetic variants have effects on personality. There is a gene that encodes a receptor molecule for the neurotransmitter dopamine, and which contains a repeating sequence whose length varies from person to person. A number of studies have found that the length of this sequence correlates with self-reported extraversion and reward-seeking behaviour. In another gene, the serotonin transporter, individuals with one variant are more likely to develop depressive symptoms in response to stressful life events than bearers of the other version.In a few years, we may be in the position of actually understanding the molecular bases of the differences in nature that we observe between healthy humans. (But note that genetic effects will not turn out to be the whole account only around half of the variation in personality looks like being heritable, with the rest probably shaped by early environmental exposures and other developmental processes. ) The other group of researchers getting interested in personality is evolutionists. Personalitylike variation has been found in organisms as diverse as fish, mammals and birds.Indeed, Darwins whole theory of evolution rests on the observation that individuals vary from one another. Without such variation there can be no born(p) selection and no evolutionary trade. The question for evolutionists is why you would get down variation persisting in existences, when selection alship canal reduces diversity in prefer of the optimal type. In fact, it turns out that there are often sixfold optima, even within a single habitat, with individuals of one type doing well under sealed conditions, while faring less well than their competitors under others. Thus, nder trustworthy conditions , while faring less well than their competitors under others. Thus, selection rarely narrows the population to uniformity because individuals with different qualities flourish in different contexts. I rather like this as a guiding framework for thinking astir(predicate) personality in modern-day humans. Rather than imagining that there is some personality profile that is uniformly good to have, lets assume that all have their strengths and all have their pitfalls. Indeed, the blend inure of any one profile to dominate the human population attests to their roughly equal fitness in the long run.So, whatever your score on the Big Five, the point is not to try to change it, or fight it. The point is to establish which niche within the complex ecology that is modern society will be a good one for you to ply your trade in, and which of the diverse dangers (social isolation, addiction, depression ) that lurk in our both beneficent and hazardous habitat are the ones against which you sh ould be just about vigilant. This is where self- intimacy comes in, and taking the personality test overleaf can be part of that. Scoring your personality wont tell you anything you dont know.Its based on how you see yourself, so logically it couldnt. But it can reveal to you how you compare to other masses, and can to a fault tap you into a wealth of accumulated psychological knowledge about the strengths and liabilities that other people similar to you have experienced. This is what the questionnaire and the interpretation overleaf are designed to do. Daniel Nettle is the author of Personality What Makes You the Way You be (? 12. 99), published by Oxford University Press. To order a copy for the special scathe of ? 11. 69 (with free P) call Independent Books Direct on 0870 079 8897, or visit www. ndependentbooksdirect. co. uk What kind of personality are you? Take this test to impress the truth Introducing the big five Once you have completed the questionnaire and added up yo ur scores, you should have an indication of whether you score beginning-toned, medium-low, medium- last, or gritty on individually of the Big Five dimensions of human personality. But what do these scores nasty? Here, I explore the Big Five to examine their effects on our lives. Extraversion This is a familiar concept. High-scorers are fun-seeking and cheerful, barely they are not necessarily immediate hedonists they are often ambitious and hard-working.They are also sexually adventurous and love to be the centre of attention. Low-scorers are not necessarily shy so much as aloof they can take or leave success, praise and pleasure. The best way to think about this dimension is in terms of response to reward. Society offers certain incentives money, power, fame, attention, sex, thrills, and so on, and some people certain incentives money, power, fame, attention, sex, thrills, and so on, and some people pursue them full-out, while others have a more muted response and thus wont w ork so hard to capture them.The strengths of high-scorers energy, charisma, drive, the ability to make things happen. The weaknesses a tendency to get bored, restlessness, infidelity, risky decisions. Strengths of lowscorers detachment, pursuit of intrinsic goals, prudence, fidelity. The weaknesses not thrusting themselves forward, not having fun, a flat emotional tone. There is no value-judgement about which of these is snap off from the point of view of a potential employer or spouse, but is certainly worth being aware of the likely pitfalls and most suitable habitats for your particular level of Extraversion.Conscientiousness Conscientiousness measures how good people are at setting themselves goals and sticking to them. High-scorers are disciplined, efficient and systematic. They can jib temptation and stick to priorities they have set themselves. In most modern occupations, and particularly those where you have to manage your own time and priorities, fairly high Conscientiou sness is advantageous. Low-scorers are more likely to get distracted from tasks, lift on plans, and succumb to weaknesses of the will. Indeed, low Conscientiousness is a risk factor out for developing addictions of all kinds.Being high in Conscientiousness is not always an unalloyed benefit, though. Sometimes it is indeed important to stick to plans. But at other times it is important to be able to change them on a sixpence. Very high scorers are perceived as grim, pedantic, unspontaneous, even miserly. There is even a name for excessive Conscientiousness neurotic personality disorder and this is a very socially disabling condition. There are many human activities, including, crucially, social relationships, where it is essential to be able to respond in the moment to your environment as it changes.Highly conscientious people are rigid, often sticking to tasks and plans even when the point of them has been overtaken by events, or when the pick outs of others around them requir e spontaneous reorganising of priorities. Thus, if you are very low in Conscientiousness, for the sake of your career, your health, and your wellbeing, you may need to work effortfully at beholding your plans through, and being selfdisciplined. If you are a very high scorer, you may need to learn to be more spontaneous and intuitive, again for the benefits that this will sum up in terms of flexibility and improved social relationships.Neuroticism I would like to dispel the notion that Neuroticism is always a bad thing, a kind of pathology, and that the best level of Neuroticism to have is a very low one. The evidence for the prosecution yes, high-scorers live their lives under the Damoclean swords of depression, anxiety, stress, and disappointment. Whatever the dry land says about them, they are often uncomfortable in their inner lives, and go through life either with bouts of difficult times, or with a unending vague feeling that something is not quite right.However, if we thin k logically, negative emotions, such as worry, are always going to be there for a reason. One would not want to be entirely without worry. It would be as damaging to life decisions as the inability to feel physical torment is to peripheral physiology. High Neuroticism scorers can bring to bear massive powers of deep thought, detailed analysis, novel insight. They care about the elaborate that others cant be bothered to follow up. Under some circumstances they do well academically. If you are a high-scorer, you may well be a member of a thinking profession such as an academic or a writer.High Neuroticism scorers, then, have hidden advantages. The challenge for them is to find ways to deal with the negative sequels of their personality. Some people respond well to cognitivebehavioural therapy, some to meditation, many to exercise. Low-scorers, too, have disadvantages. You probably dont suffer much in life, which is good, but maybe you are not thoughtful enough. perhaps you let de tails go, and dont think deeply enough about future drawbacks or problems. Maybe you are too carefree or rose-spectacled to see every potentiality. amenity Agreeableness is a dimension of empathy towards others.High-scorers are often found in caring professions such as nursing and counselling.. They have larger-than-average social networks, and their relationships with others are harmonious. They dont get into fights and are generally slow to anger. By contrast, the very lowest-scorers are sociopaths they callously use others for their own ends. So far so good. It is better to be well-liked than to be a sociopath. However, in many fields, high Agreeableness reduces occupational attainment. Nice guys really do finish last, and moreover, plenty of our leadership have something of the sociopath about them.Successful artists and executives, though, tend to be rather low in Agreeableness. This means that the high Agreeableness scorer may not be prepared to be hard-headed. You may stay i n relationships that do you no good out of empathy for the others involved. Agreeableness is the most sexually-patterned of the Big Five, with no prizes for guessing women scoring more highly on average than men. This adds an provoke new perspective on the paucity of women in positions of power. Many of them find it difficult to be callous enough.Should we be encouraging them to be more callous, or trying to change what we reward? Openness Openness is a dimension of imagination. High-scorers make mental associations that go beyond what is given to the senses, or what is logically deducible. They are keen on poetry and the arts, and often have metaphysical or esoteric ideas. Nobody wants to be called un fanciful, but when you let on and think about it, it is not evident Nobody wants to be called unimaginative, but when you stop and think about it, it is not evident that being imaginative in this sense is necessarily useful in life.Low-scorers can be very intelligent and capable, though they will be oriented towards the pragmatical and the soluble. High-scorers will be more able and willing to venture into the domains of the aesthetic. However, they can also develop eccentric, paranormal or even delusional beliefs, and fail to solve simply resolvable practical problems. Neither a high nor a low score is inherently desirable it is simple a matter of harnessing the strengths that you have. www. independent. co. uk ht/w. needn. ou/essinepro tp/wwidpnetc. knw/cec/es nlt-htmksyutewyyuae426. tl aiywa-ae-o-h-a-o-r-069hm ht/o. lfg tp/gog/fS