Category: Personality

The idea that people with aggressive, selfish and disagreeable personalities are more likely to get promotions and acquire power is false.

Jerks do not get ahead, research finds.

The idea that aggressive, selfish, disagreeable people are more likely to get promotions and acquire power is false.

While intimidating people get some advantage from their selfish behaviour, this is offset by their poor relationships.

In other words, what jerks gain by being nasty, they lose by being hated.

Extraverts get ahead

In fact, it is extraversion that predicts people getting ahead in their jobs and obtaining more power.

People who are outgoing, energetic and assertive — all hallmarks of the extravert — are more likely to advance.

Professor Cameron Anderson, the study’s first author, said:

“I was surprised by the consistency of the findings.

No matter the individual or the context, disagreeableness did not give people an advantage in the competition for power — even in more cutthroat, ‘dog-eat-dog’ organizational cultures.”

Disagreeable traits

The study tracked people from college or graduate school to 14 years into their careers.

They were asked about their power and rank in their workplaces.

Those with deceitful, aggressive personalities were no more likely to have gained power than those who were generous and trustworthy, the results showed.

Jerks still obtained positions of power, though, Professor Anderson explained:

“The bad news here is that organizations do place disagreeable individuals in charge just as often as agreeable people.

In other words, they allow jerks to gain power at the same rate as anyone else, even though jerks in power can do serious damage to the organization.”

Agreeable people produce the best results, Professor Anderson said:

“My advice to managers would be to pay attention to agreeableness as an important qualification for positions of power and leadership.

Prior research is clear: agreeable people in power produce better outcomes.”

Signs of a disagreeable personality

‘Disagreeableness’ is one of the five major personality traits.

It roughly translates to ‘being a jerk’, the study’s authors write:

“Disagreeableness is a relatively stable aspect of personality that involves the tendency to behave in quarrelsome, cold, callous, and selfish ways.

Disagreeable people tend to be hostile and abusive to others, deceive and manipulate others for their own gain, and ignore others’ concerns or welfare.”

One of difficulties for disagreeable people is creating alliances.

However, what applies in the workplace may not apply in politics, Professor Anderson said:

“Having a strong set of alliances is generally important to power in all areas of life.

Disagreeable politicians might have more difficulty maintaining necessary alliances because of their toxic behavior.”

→ Read on: How to change your personality

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

Here is a list of the 10 types of personality disorder, including cluster A, B and C from the DSM 5 manual.

People with these types of personality disorder feel, think and behave in quite a different way to the average.

Symptoms of personality disorders vary depending on the type.

Treatment for a personality order usually involves talking therapy, although the condition can improve with time (see below).

For problems associated with personality disorders, such as depression, medication is sometimes prescribed.

There are ten types of personality disorder, which are grouped into three main types.

Each of the three types — or ‘clusters’ in psychiatric speech from the DSM 5 — has various different disorders within it.

Types of personality disorders are controversial

As you read through, bear in mind that personality disorders are controversial for mental health professionals.

The reason is that many people diagnosed with them do not fit neatly into one category or the other.

Many are diagnosed with more than one personality disorder, or have symptoms of one and some of another.

This suggests the categories may not be helpful.

Personality disorder type A: Eccentric or odd

1. Schizoid personality disorder

A person with a total lack of interest in social relationships.

They live alone or have a very lonely lifestyle.

They are typically cold, apathetic and secretive.

It is very difficult to get close to them emotionally: they avoid all emotions, whether positive or negative.

If you can get closer, though, you will discover they have a rich imaginative inner life.

2. Schizoptypal personality disorder

A very socially anxious person who also has other strange or eccentric beliefs.

For example, they may endorse paranormal or superstitious beliefs.

They may have strange patterns of speech and dress unusually.

They may also experience delusions and hallucinations — perhaps believing they can read other people’s minds.

It is difficult to get close to this type of persona because of their natural suspicion of others.

3. Paranoid personality disorder

A paranoid person who is extremely mistrustful of others.

They are very sensitive and are always on the look out 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.

Personality disorder type B: Emotional, dramatic or erratic

1. Borderline personality disorder (BPD)

A history of unstable relationships characterises those who have a borderline personality disorder (BPD).

This is partly caused by unstable and impulsive emotions.

At one time people with borderline personality disorder can idolise someone else, and soon after they hate them.

People with BPD are terrified of being abandoned and they have a very unusual and disturbed sense of self-identity.

They may also be depressed and/or substance abusers.

2. Antisocial personality disorder

Typically have no regard for other people’s feelings or judgments.

Likely have a history of crime or impulsive and borderline illegal behaviour.

They see themselves as free of society’s rules and standards.

Often similar to what we think of as a psychopath.

3. Histrionic personality disorder

This type of person loves to attract attention to themselves.

They love to flirt, to be dramatic and enthusiastic.

They desire approval from others above all else.

They will exaggerate their emotions, indulge themselves and perhaps manipulate others to get what they want.

4. Narcissistic personality disorder

Narcissists are convinced of their own superiority to others.

Naturally, then, they appear arrogant and conceited.

At the same time, they are also envious: they want power, prestige and adoration.

It goes without saying that they are extremely self-absorbed.

Personality disorder type C: Fearful or anxious

1. Obsessive-compulsive personality disorder

One of the most well-known of personality disorders, those with OCPD are typically perfectionists who are also highly fearful or anxious.

They want control and find it very hard to relax.

They will plan everything down to the last detail.

Those with OCPD carry out certain rituals in response to their fears (checking ovens are off, doors locked and so on…)

There is relatively little difference between OCPD and obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD).

2. Dependent personality disorder

A person who is highly dependent on others.

This dependence is so strong that it is very difficult for them to lead any kind of independent life.

3. Avoidant personality disorder

These are people who very much want to be close to others, but find it difficult.

They consider themselves socially inept and fear humiliation and rejection.

That fear causes them to avoid all social situations for fear of extreme embarrassment.

Causes of personality disorders

All these types of personality disorder are thought to be caused by a combination of genes, environmental circumstances and early life experiences.

Environmental factors linked to personality disorders include:

• a chaotic or unstable family life,
• little support from caregiver,
• bad experiences at school,
• poverty and dislocation.

Adverse early life experiences include:

• losing a parent,
• often feeling afraid, upset,
• neglect
• and being involves in major accidents or incidents.

Treatment for personality disorders

The treatment for personality disorders is usually talk therapy and possibly medication for associated conditions, such as depression.

However, time can slowly remedy personality disorders, even without treatment, research shows  (Lenzenweger et al., 2004).

Psychologists and psychiatrists had long thought that people with personality disorders cannot change.

Personality was thought to be like eye colour or height — very difficult to change.

But, personality disorders can improve, the study of 240 people over 4 years found — even without any kind of treatment (although treatment can help).

Professor Mark F. Lenzenweger, who led the study, said:

“Although the disorders are common, with 1 in 10 people affected, the good news is that we now know the disorders can change with time.”

The results showed that over time the features of personality disorders reduce, by an average of 1.4 per year.

People who did get treatment for their personality disorder during the study also saw an increased improvement in their symptoms.

The study’s authors conclude that:

“… [personality disorder] features show considerable variability across individuals over time.

This fine-grained analysis of individual growth trajectories provides compelling evidence of change in PD [personality disorder] features over time and does not support the assumption that PD features are traitlike, enduring, and stable over time.”

Studies on particular personality disorders, such as borderline personality disorder have found something similar.

One study concluded that borderline personality disorder is not a ‘death sentence’ for patients (Sharp et al., 2021).

The personality disorder can be treated and it generally improves over time even without specialised treatment.

However, early intervention in young people is the best approach.

Psychotherapies and even time can both help to heal the disorder, researchers found.

Dr Carla Sharp, the study’s first author, said:

“Like adult BPD, adolescent BPD appears to be not as intractable and treatment resistant as previously thought.

That means we should not shy away from identifying BPD in adolescents and we shouldn’t shy away from treating it.”

The results of that study showed that most people got better over time, with or without specialised treatment.

Currently, the best treatments for borderline personality disorder are mentalisation-based therapy and dialectical behaviour therapy.

→ Read on: How to change your personality

[These are the main classifications of personality disorders in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM 5) produced by the American Psychiatric Association — other classifications of personality disorders are sometimes used.]

Building courage and bravery can be done using personality traits, self-efficacy, hope, resilience, values, beliefs and social forces.

How does a fire-fighter feel so courageous they can enter a burning building?

How does an anxious person pluck up the courage to introduce themselves to a stranger?

How does a severely depressed individual find the bravery to go through the motions of another day?

All require courage, but this sort of bravery is an elusive quality.

In this article we look at the components that make up courage and how these can be developed.

Sean Hannah and colleagues from the United States Military Academy, writing in The Journal of Positive Psychology, provide a new model of courage (Hannah et al., 2007).

In it they set out a web of interrelated factors thought to feed into the subjective feeling of courage.

Broadly they suggest that levels of courage are influenced by character traits, particular states of mind and the values, beliefs and social forces acting on a person.

Alongside these factors set out below, I’ve provided suggestions for how each can be increased.

Courageous character traits

Firstly, then, the following three personality traits are thought important in being courageous:

1. The courageous are open to experience

This trait is associated with both divergent thinking, e.g. brainstorming, and the related idea of creativity.

Being courageous, then, is all about having options, and in order to generate those options you need to be creative.

How can it be increased?

Techniques which may help increase divergent thinking are brainstorming, keeping a journal, free writing and mind mapping.

Whether these will lead back into increased openness to experience, however, is unknown.

It’s unlikely to cause you any harm though!

2. The courageous are conscientious

The conscientious are dependable people who feel a sense of duty towards themselves and others.

They get the job done.

How can it be increased?

One way to increase conscientiousness may be to commit to more social institutions such as marriage, work, family or other role in the community.

This suggestion comes from research that has found conscientiousness increases with age, which is also associated with greater work, family and social commitments.

3. Core self-evaluation

These include traits like emotional stability and internal locus of control.

An internal locus of control refers to a feeling of control over situations.

How can it be increased?

Increasing locus of control can be achieved through cognitive therapy.

Central to cognitive therapy is the idea that our outlook on life is fundamentally affected by how we explain what happens to us and others – the attributions we use.

Changing these attributions can lead to changes in core self-evaluations.

Remember that these first three components are ‘traits’ meaning they are thought to be relatively stable across situations and across time-points.

While they can, and do change, they will be difficult to budge quickly or easily.

Courageous states of mind

The following four states of mind are, though, more open to adjustment and may be better bets for increasing courage in the moment:

1. Self-efficacy and confidence

Essentially means confidence in yourself and your ability to achieve desired outcomes.

How can it be increased?

Two important predictors of self-efficacy are firstly mastering a skill and secondly cognitively reinterpreting current situations.

So, self-efficacy can be increased through practicing a task and through the way it is cognitively represented.

2. Means efficacy

This is the belief that the tools available can do the job.

How can it be increased?

They say a bad workman blames his tools – so a good workmen sees potential in his tools to complete the job.

Really believing you can use what you’ve got is half the battle to becoming more courageous.

3. State hope

Believing the task is possible and seeing a way of carrying it out at the time at which it needs to be done.

How can it be increased?

Like locus of control, state hope can be increased using cognitive therapy.

At heart, the idea is to change the attributions we make.

4. Resilience

This is bounce-back-ability.

It’s also having the belief that should the inevitable problems arise, you’ll be able to overcome them.

How can it be increased?

Research suggests resilience may be predicted by positive emotions.

Generating amusement, interest or any other positive emotion is likely to increase levels of resilience.

Essentially, it may be possible to laugh off the fear often experienced when being courageous.

Convictions and social forces

There are two final components important in Hannah and colleagues’ model of courage.

1. Inner convictions of bravery

These include independence, selflessness, integrity and honour.

These types of beliefs can all have important effects on behaviour in the face of fear.

How can it be increased?

Inner convictions can come from a variety of sources such as philosophy, societal beliefs or religion.

2. Social forces for courage

Really important, some might even argue this is the most important.

People look at how other’s react to a situation, then think how they should act in relation to other people.

How can it be increased?

Essentially courage is socially contagious.

The practical advice from this is simple: to increase your courage, hang out with courageous people.

Interrelationships

While I’ve considered each of these factors separately, in Hannah’s model of building courage they are all interrelated.

For example positive emotions are likely to lead to less experienced fear, which also leads to more courageous behaviours which leads to the subjective experience of courageousness which in turn will feed back into positive emotional states.

Only courage by a different name?

One of the main criticisms of these types of models about building courage is that they just re-describe courage in terms of different attributes.

There is some truth to that, but only some.

The strength of this model is that it breaks down courage into its components so that each can be individually targeted.

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Grit is the determination to put in the months or even years of effort to succeed at a goal.

Grit is more about passion than personality, research finds.

It is not just about being born or brought up with a ‘gritty’ personality.

Everyone can find the determination in themselves to succeed if they have passion for their goal.

Developing a passion for a goal is linked to a kind of adaptive perfectionism.

Adaptive perfectionism means perfectionism with some level of obsession, but not so much that it is ultimately destructive.

Setting oneself attainable goals is one of the keys to avoiding destructive perfectionism.

The conclusions come from a study of 251 students who completed a series of questions about grit.

People with high levels of grit tend to agree with statements like:

• Setbacks don’t discourage me. I don’t give up easily.
• I have overcome setbacks to conquer an important challenge.

Ms Danielle Cormier, the study’s first author, said:

“We wanted to know whether people bring grit to every aspect of their life, or if they are gritty athletes or gritty students, or even a gritty parent or a gritty hobbyist.”

It emerged that people were more gritty in specific areas of their life, rather than being gritty overall.

In other words, some students were passionate about their academic studies and they did better at those.

Others were more passionate about sports, so they did better at those.

Ms Cormier said:

“It seems grit is best conceptualized as a domain-specific trait, and not in general, which is how the field has been measuring grit since it was conceptualized.”

A growth mindset is key to success, Ms Cormier said:

“Instead of thinking talents are fixed, like believing your intelligence is just the way it is, a growth mindset allows you to believe that intelligence, or other character traits and talents, can be grown.

In order to do that you must embrace failures and setbacks, because without any of those learning opportunities, you’re not going to get better.

Everyone has an element of grit in them, it is just finding that passion.”

The study was published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences (Cormier et al., 2019).

How to change your personality using the right strategies.

Most people want to know how to change their personality, psychologists find.

Personality change is possible — even dramatic improvements can be made, but they take effort.

Here is PsyBlog’s guide to the psychology of personality change.

What you will learn:

• The most popular personality changes.
• Change personality facets first.
• How to make specific plans.
• How to become more extraverted.
• How to be less neurotic.
• How to improve multiple personality traits at once.
• How time changes your personality.
• How to overcome personality disorders.

The most desirable personality changes

The most desirable changes for people are to be more extraverted, more conscientious and more emotionally stable, one study has found.

It is easy to see why:

• Extraverts are generally self-confident and cheerful and can also be more successful at work and tend to make natural leaders.
• Conscientious people are more self-disciplined and they aim for achievement.
• The emotionally stable are less likely to experience mental health problems.

That covers three of the five major aspects of personality.

Many people would also like to be more agreeable, the fourth aspect of personality, another study has found.

Agreeable people tend to be friendly, warm and tactful — always taking into account other people’s feelings.

The final of the five major personality traits is openness to experience.

People who are open to experience are curious and motivated to learn new things.

They are also likely to be imaginative, sensitive to their feelings, and seekers of variety.

Most people do not seem interested in increasing this trait — perhaps because its practical benefits are not as obvious as the other traits.

This is a mistake since increasing openness to experience enriches the life of the mind: art, beauty, feelings, ideas and imagination.

Change personality facets first

Personality change is possible: people who wanted to increase aspects of their conscientiousness and openness to experience were able to do so in just two weeks, one study found.

The factors used to change people’s personality were awareness, realising strengths, targeting thoughts, feelings and behaviours:

1. Awareness was achieved by reminding people regularly of their goal.
2. To realise their strengths, people were asked about the benefits of their desired behaviour change.
3. Targeting thoughts and feelings involved being reminded of the advantages of change and the barriers to be overcome.
4. To boost desired behaviours, people were reminded of their plans for action.

Working on facets of personality — self-discipline, rather than conscientiousness overall — produces a larger effect, the research suggested.

Here are the five major aspects of personality, along with the sub-facets:

• Neuroticism: Anxiety, Hostility, Depression, Self-consciousness, Impulsiveness, Vulnerability.
• Extraversion: Warmth, Gregariousness, Assertiveness, Activity, Excitement-Seeking, Positive Emotions.
• Openness to Experience: Fantasy, Aesthetics, Feelings, Actions, Ideas, Values.
• Agreeableness: Trust, Straightforwardness, Altruism, Compliance, Modesty, Tender-mindedness.
• Conscientiousness: Competence, Order, Dutifulness, Achievement Striving, Self-Discipline, Deliberation.

For example, rather than trying to become more extraverted, it is better to focus just on seeking excitement.

Similarly, instead of trying to become less neurotic, focus only on reducing impulsiveness.

People naturally vary on the facets of personality, just as they do on the five major factors.

That means it will be easier to change some facets of one trait than others.

Trial and error will soon reveal which is which.

Do not be surprised if efforts to change personality are slow or difficult.

Plan to change your personality

Patience is important as studies of personality change have found that people only achieve modest goals over time.

It is particularly difficult for people to change when their goals are vague.

For example, saying to yourself ‘I’ll be more social’ tends not to work.

What does work is making very specific plans about how to behave in certain situations.

For example, if you want to be more social, you might say to yourself: “If I see someone I know, then I’ll go over and say hello.”

When change does occur, it is a fascinating process in which the new, desired behaviours lead to changes in self-concept.

In other words: people fake it until they make it.

Then, their view of themselves changes.

Shifts in self-concept then prompt more behaviours in line with the desired personality change.

This forms a virtuous circle that reinforces itself.

How to change your personality: extraversion

One great example of faking it until you make it is increasing extraversion.

Acting like an extrovert — even if you are an introvert — makes people all around the world feel happier, studies find.

Participants in the study were told to act in an outgoing way for 10 minutes and then report how it made them feel.

Even among introverts — people who typically prefer solitary activities — acting in an extroverted way gave them a boost of happiness.

Try experimenting with other extroverted behaviours, such as being talkative, adventurous and having high energy levels.

People reported feeling more positive emotions in daily situations where they either acted or felt more extroverted.

How to change your personality: neuroticism

Becoming less neurotic (the same as more emotionally stable) is the goal of much psychological therapy.

Indeed, people become significantly less neurotic after undergoing therapy, one study found.

After only three months of treatment, people’s emotional stability had improved by half as much as it would over their entire adulthood.

Therapy also made people slightly more extraverted, the researchers found.

Both reduced neuroticism and increased extraversion were maintained in the long-term.

So, therapy is a well-established way to achieve meaningful personality change — although with a greater input of time and money.

Another way of reducing neuroticism, should you by lucky enough, is by falling in love.

Love helps people who think pessimistically to approach life with more confidence and see events in a more positive light.

Improve multiple personality traits

We have touched on neuroticism and extraversion, but what about being more conscientious, open to experience and agreeable?

Fortunately, there are well-known techniques that allow you to target multiple major personality traits at once.

While the approaches are ancient, their effect on personality is a more modern discovery.

1. Exercise

The first technique is exercise.

Being more physically active makes people more extraverted, conscientious, agreeable and open to new experience.

Only relatively small amounts of exercise are enough, over the years, to lead to positive changes to personality.

A few of the benefits of these personality changes include:

• Higher conscientiousness is linked to more success in life,
• more extraverted people experience more positive emotions,
• and being open to experience is linked to creativity and intelligence.

2. Meditation

While meditation has been around for thousands of years, its effects on personality are only just emerging.

Meditation is linked to higher levels of extraversion and openness to experience and lower levels of neuroticism, research finds.

The results showed that the longer people had been practising meditation, the more their personalities had changed.

They experienced higher levels of openness and extraversion and lower levels of neuroticism with more meditation.

Neuroticism is a personality trait that is strongly linked to anxiety, sadness, irritability and self-consciousness — so reducing it is clearly beneficial.

Mindfulness may be particularly effective at increasing openness to experience and creativity.

Openness to experience is the quality of being receptive and curious, as well as imaginative and sensitive to feelings.

3. Education

Education has a positive effect on people’s personalities, recent research finds.

People generally become more extraverted after completing higher education.

The personalities of students from poorer backgrounds benefit even more from attending university.

Along with increased extraversion, these students become more agreeable.

How time changes your personality

People’s personality naturally changes with age — often for the better.

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

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.

Almost half the participants in that study saw changes in their personality over the five decades.

Over even longer periods, our personalities may change out of sight.

One study that followed people over 63 years found 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.

The reason we don’t notice these huge shifts in personality is that they happen so slowly.

Like a glacier constantly moving under its own weight, our personalities continue to shift imperceptibly as time and circumstances do their work.

We might feel like the same person 20 years later — but perhaps it is only an illusion?

Personality disorders can be overcome

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

People with a personality disorder behave, think and feel very differently from the average person.

There are three types of personality disorder:

1. Fearful or anxious.
2. Emotional, dramatic or erratic.
3. Eccentric or odd.

Within each type are a number of subdivisions, the most common being obsessive-compulsive personality disorder (a fearful or anxious type) and borderline personality disorder (an emotional, dramatic or erratic type).

Here are all the personality disorders described.

People with a personality disorder are at double the risk of developing depression or anxiety, are more likely to be socially disadvantaged, separated or divorced.

Historically, personality disorders were considered difficult to treat.

More recently, though, psychologists have found that personality disorders can get better.

Time can slowly remedy personality disorders, even without treatment, research shows.

Talking therapies can help to change depressive personality traits.

That could be individual therapy, group therapy, self-help and/or medication.

Other studies have shown that borderline personality disorder generally improves over time even without specialised treatment.

This is despite the fact that borderline personality disorder is often thought the most difficult disorder to treat.

So, personality disorders, like other aspects of personality are amenable to change.

Personality may determine who we are now, but not necessarily who we can become.

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People who are low on this trait can improve it over time.

Conscientiousness is the personality trait that tends to lead to satisfying and well-paid careers.

Conscientious people are disciplined, dutiful and good at planning ahead.

However, people who are not conscientious can develop the trait over time, the researchers found.

People who are most successful at changing a personality trait tend to actively change their behaviours to fit their goal.

In other words: find a way to act conscientious first so as to become more conscientious later.

The conclusions come from a study of almost 2,000 adolescents in Iceland who were tracked for 12 years, from around the age of 17 through to 29.

Researchers looked at personality and how it changed over time as well as how this was linked to their careers.

Dr Kevin Hoff, the study’s first author, said:

“Results revealed that certain patterns of personality growth predicted career outcomes over and above adolescent personality and ability.”

Young people who are conscientious and emotionally stable tend to have the most objective success through the early part of their careers, the results showed.

However, young people were able to change aspects of their personality, said Dr Hoff:

“The study showed you’re not just stuck with your personality traits, and if you change over time in positive ways, that can have a big impact on your career.”

Young people who felt they had become more conscientious, extraverted and emotionally stable were more likely to be satisfied with their careers and income.

Dr Hoff said:

“Adolescent trait levels also predicted career success, highlighting the long-term predictive power of personality.

Overall, the findings highlight the importance of personality development throughout childhood, adolescence and young adulthood for promoting different aspects of career success.”

The study was published in the journal Psychological Science (Hoff et al., 2020).