Category: Personality

This personality trait encourages persistence, cooperation and ambition.

Optimists in paid employment earn more than pessimists, new research finds.

Around 80% of people are optimistic, which tends to encourage persistence, cooperation and ambition.

However, being an optimist may not be as good for those starting their own business.

For entrepreneurs, pessimism is a more beneficial personality trait, the research also finds.

Pessimistic business owners earn 30% more than optimists.

Entrepreneurs typically earn less, work longer hours and take on more risk than those in paid employment.

Optimists, though, are more likely to face these issues without realising the dangers.

Dr Chris Dawson, the study’s first author, said:

“Our results suggest that too many people are starting business ventures, at least as far as personal returns are concerned.

As a society we celebrate optimism and entrepreneurial thinking but when the two combine it pays to take a reality check.

Every episode of the BBC’s Dragon’s Den provides examples of such wishful thinking.

Pessimism may not generally be seen as a desirable trait but it does protect people from taking on poor entrepreneurial projects.”

The conclusions come from data covering 18 years taken from a major longitudinal survey.

Professor David de Meza, study co-author, said:

“Governments frequently talk about the role of entrepreneurs in creating economic growth, but there is a downside.

The personal and societal fall-out of failed businesses shouldn’t be underestimated, which is exactly what optimists do.

Policy makers should not encourage the wrong sort of start-up.”

The study was published in the journal European Economic Review (Dawson et al., 2018).

People with this trait are 50% more likely to be declared bankrupt.

Being kind and trusting is linked to financial hardship, especially for the poor, new research finds.

In general, people who are more agreeable are at greater risk of bankruptcy and lower credit ratings.

The reason is that people who are agreeable tend to care less about money.

For those who have an adequate income, caring little about money is not as big a problem.

With greater financial resources to fall back on, richer people can afford to give money a low priority.

For those at the lower end of society, though, being nice and trusting can be financially problematic.

Dr Sandra Matz, the study’s first author, said:

“We were interested in understanding whether having a nice and warm personality, what academics in personality research describe as agreeableness, was related to negative financial outcomes.

Previous research suggested that agreeableness was associated with lower credit scores and income.

We wanted to see if that association held true for other financial indicators and, if so, better understand why nice guys seem to finish last.”

The study analysed data from over 3 million people.

It used bank account data, a national survey, two online panels and publicly available data.

Dr Joe Gladstone, study co-author, explained the results:

“Not every agreeable person is at equal risk of experiencing financial hardship.

The relationship was much stronger for lower-income individuals, who don’t have the financial means to compensate for the detrimental impact of their agreeable personality.”

The results also revealed that agreeableness in childhood predicted financial problems 25 years later.

Dr Matz said:

“Our results help us to understand one potential factor underlying financial hardship, which can have serious implications for people’s well-being.

Being kind and trusting has financial costs, especially for those who do not have the means to compensate for their personalities.”

The study was published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (Matz & Gladstone, 2018).

Obsessional people often have recurring thoughts or fears.

The personality trait of perfectionism is strongly linked to developing obsessive-compulsive disorder, new research finds.

Young children who have excessive self-control and perfectionist tendencies have double the chance of developing obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), psychologists have found.

For the study, children were asked to draw a perfect circle over three and a half minutes while researchers encouraged them to do better.

Those that concentrated more intensely were deemed to have perfectionist tendencies.

Scans also found that perfectionists had smaller brain volumes in an area linked to OCD, the anterior cingulate cortex.

OCD often involves recurring thoughts or obsessions, like having things in order or a fear of germs.

Dr Kirsten E. Gilbert, the study’s first author, said:

“Having a lot of self-control and striving for perfection often are considered by parents and society as good because they can eliminate mistakes, but excessive self-control and perfectionism raise a red flag.

In adolescents and adults, these characteristics are associated with OCD and other disorders, such as anorexia and social anxiety.

We’ve now been able to link this to OCD risk in children.”

It is important to catch OCD as early as possible in life so treatment can help to reduce compulsions and obsessions.

Dr Gilbert said:

“Some kids were very self-critical.

The researcher would point out flaws, but the child was critical of the effort, too.

That excessive perfectionism was the strongest predictor of OCD later on.”

The conclusions come from a study of 292 children aged just 4 and 5-years-old.

They were followed for 12 years, during which time 35 developed OCD.

Perfectionists were twice as likely to go on and develop OCD.

Dr Joan L. Luby, study co-author, said:

“In its most severe forms, OCD is a highly disabling and intractable disorder.

Therefore, this first identification of tangible risk behaviors in early childhood opens exciting new opportunities for the design of preventive interventions.”

Dr Gilbert concluded:

“One of my interests, ideally, is to create therapies geared toward prevention.

We also want to look at the role of parenting because if one of these kids has a parent who’s always saying, ‘That’s not good enough!’ you can see how this problem could spiral.”

The study was published in the journal JAMA Psychiatry (Gilbert et al., 2018).

How to change your personality for the better.

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

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.

These changes to personality have been documented over years and decades.

Naturally, remaining sedentary is linked to the opposite pattern in personality.

Sedentary people have the tendency to become less agreeable, more introverted, less open to experience and less conscientious.

The good news is that only relatively small amounts of exercise are enough, over the years, to lead to positive changes to personality.

The study followed over six thousand middle-aged people for over two decades.

All completed personality surveys and gave details of how much physical activity they did.

There are all sorts of ways that exercise is probably linked to personality change.

The study’s authors write:

“A physically inactive lifestyle has a range of long-term
biological, health and cognitive outcomes, such as higher risk of frailty, worse mental and physical health and declines in
memory and executive functions.

Such outcomes, in turn, may have a long-term impact on personality, such as reductions in the tendency to be self-disciplined and organized or to be exploratory and curious.

Indeed, cognitive decline, greater frailty, and more
depressive symptoms and disease burden have been associated with reduced conscientiousness and openness over time.”

Depression is also linked to an inactive lifestyle, they write:

“It is possible that the long-term functional limitations and depressive symptoms that result from a physically inactive lifestyle may be reflected in a lower tendency to experience positive emotions, be enthusiastic, and be agreeable.”

→ Read on: How to change your personality

The study was published in the Journal of Research in Personality (Stephan et al., 2018).