Personality is revealed in what people buy, study finds.
This famous personality test has a serious flaw.
This surprising personality trait is linked to greater earnings decades later.
How a dog reflects the personality of its owner.
Dog ownership is linked to higher mental well-being and increased health.
People with this personality trait naturally emerge as leaders.
The children ate better, slept better and were in stronger control of their emotions.
The children ate better, slept better and were in stronger control of their emotions.
Mothers who believe they have control over their lives raise smarter children, new research finds.
Psychologists call it an ‘internal locus of control’ and people with this trait do not blame outside forces, or fate.
Instead, they believe in choice and consequences.
Mothers who think like this have children who score better in tests of maths and science.
These mothers were also more likely to:
As a result of believing that what they do matters, children eat better, sleep better and are in stronger control of their emotions.
Professor Jean Golding, the study’s first author, said:
“It is widely known that the locus of control of a child is strongly associated with their academic achievements but until now we didn’t know if mothers’ locus of control orientation during pregnancy had a role to play in early childhood.
Thanks to the longitudinal data from Children of the 90s study we can now make these associations.”
The Children of the 90s study started with 14,541 pregnant women in England who have been followed since 1992.
The results showed that mothers who had an internal locus of control brought up smarter children.
Professor Stephen Nowicki, study co-author, said:
“Internal parents believe that they have behavioural choices in life.
…when they expect life outcomes to be linked to what they do their children eat better, sleep better and are better able to control their emotions.
Such children later in childhood are also more likely to have greater academic achievements, fewer school related personal and social difficulties and less likelihood of being obese.
Parents are not necessarily stuck with how their current locus of control, said Professor Nowicki:
“It is possible for a parent to change their outlook; we’ve demonstrated in the past that parents who become more internal (i.e. learn to see the connections between what they do and what happens to their children) improved their parenting skills which would have a positive effect on their children’s personal, social and academic lives.”
The study was published in the journal Frontiers in Psychology (Golding et al., 2019).
How tidy or messy desks reflect on your personality.
How tidy or messy desks reflect on your personality.
A tidy desk and office makes people think you have stable emotions, an agreeable personality and a conscientious nature, new research finds.
A cluttered desk, though, is linked to being neurotic, disagreeable and disorganised.
Essentially, people make a direct link from an untidy office to negative personality traits.
All is not lost, though, for messy people.
Messy desks have been linked to breaking rules and higher creativity in previous research.
The latest conclusions come from a study in which 160 people sat in three offices of varying levels of tidiness.
They were then asked to make judgements about the occupant’s personality.
Professor Terrence Horgan, who led the study, explained the results:
“When there are cues related to less cleanliness, order, organization and more clutter in an owner’s primary territory, perceivers’ ascribe lower conscientiousness to the owner, whether that owner is a worker in the real world (office), a job-seeker (apartment), a student (bedroom) or a researcher at a university (lab office).”
Ms Sarah Dyszlewski, study co-author, said:
“Once trait information about a target becomes activated in perceivers’ minds, either consciously or unconsciously, that information can subsequently affect how they process information about, the types of questions they ask of, and how they behave toward the target, possibly bringing out the very trait information that they expected to see from the target in the first place.”
The study was published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences (Horgan et al., 2019).
Many of the stereotypes about rich people’s personalities are true, research finds.
Many of the stereotypes about rich people’s personalities are true, research finds.
Rich people are more extraverted, conscientious, emotionally stable and narcissistic than others, new research reveals.
Confirming the stereotype, rich people are also more self-centred and less agreeable.
The results come from a study of 130 German millionaires who all had financial assets of at least one million euros (not including property).
They were compared to a large survey of the general public.
All were quizzed about their personality and wealth.
Dr Marius Leckelt, the study’s first author, said:
“Despite the influence of high net-worth people on society, evidence about their personality is scarce.
What research there has been has tended to concentrate on how social or antisocial they are.
We wanted to discover whether they differ from the wider population more generally and, if so, how.”
Along with their findings about the personalities of millionaires, the researchers also asked a group of people how they viewed the rich.
The results showed that people overestimated how different the rich were to themselves.
However, they did identify broadly the same trends of greater conscientiousness, emotional stability and self-centredness.
Many of the wealthy Germans in the study had their own businesses, the study’s authors write:
“…more than 60% of our millionaire sample indicated that one of their main sources of wealth came from running their own company, suggesting that entrepreneurial behaviour may play an especially important role for these high‐net‐worth individuals.”
This may well stem from the ‘entrepreneurial personality’, which is something rich people shared:
“The ‘entrepreneurial personality profile’ has been described by a combination of high Extraversion, Conscientiousness, and Openness as well as lower Agreeableness and Neuroticism.
This constellation is thought to address typical affordances of being an entrepreneur such as acquiring new customers, managing finances, developing innovative products, negotiating with suppliers, and coping with enduring phases of uncertainty and risk.”
The study was published in the British Journal of Psychology (Leckelt et al., 2018).
The personality trait linked to ‘getting lucky’ more often.
The personality trait linked to ‘getting lucky’ more often.
People who are extraverted have more ‘mating success’, new research finds.
The more extraverted men and women are, the more often they ‘get lucky’ with the opposite sex.
For men, those with certain combinations fare even better.
Men who are both extraverted and agreeable or extraverted and conscientious are especially fortunate.
Introverted men should not despair — they still do well if they are high on both agreeableness and conscientiousness.
Both extraverted men and women have more offspring, the study found.
Dr Stephen Whyte, the study’s first author, said:
“Throughout history, competitive advantages have helped men and women achieve increased success in their occupation, sport, artistic endeavours, their ability to acquire and secure resources, and ultimately, their survival.”
The conclusions come from a study of almost 4,500 heterosexual people.
They were given personality tests and asked about their private lives and any children they had.
Dr Whyte explained:
“The results showed certain trait combinations appear to result in higher mating frequency and more offspring for select males.
The combinations producing higher frequency for select males being high extraversion and high agreeableness, high extraversion and high conscientiousness, and high agreeableness with high conscientiousness.”
The study was published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences (Whyte et al., 2019).
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