Personality - Page 3 of 31

This Personality Trait Is Linked To A Stronger Immune System

People were asked how they generally coped with stress and were given a blood test for markers of bodily inflammation.

People who express their emotions more freely tend to have a stronger immune system, research finds.

In contrast, avoiding expressing the emotions is linked to more inflammation in the body, suggesting the immune system is not working as well.

Other studies have shown that loneliness, poor sleep and stress can also damage the functioning of the immune system.

The current research was conducted in the context of bereavement, explained Dr Christopher Fagundes, study co-author:

“There has been work focused on the link between emotion regulation and health after romantic breakups, which shows that distracting oneself from thoughts of the loss may be helpful.
However, the death of a spouse is a very different experience because neither person initiated the separation or can attempt to repair the relationship.”

The study included almost 100 people who had all recently lost a spouse.

They were asked how they generally coped psychologically with stress and were given a blood test for markers of bodily inflammation.

Dr Fagundes said:

“Bodily inflammation is linked to a host of negative health conditions, including serious cardiovascular issues like stroke and heart attack.”

The results showed that people who habitually bottle up their emotions tend to have greater signs of bodily inflammation, suggesting their immune systems are not functioning as well.

Dr Fagundes said:

“These findings really highlight the importance of acknowledging one’s emotions after the death of a spouse rather than bottling them up.”

The research shows the importance of expressing emotions both for mental health and the immune system.

Dr Richard Lopez, the study’s first author, said:

“The research also suggests that not all coping strategies are created equal, and that some strategies can backfire and have harmful effects, especially in populations experiencing particularly intense emotions in the face of significant life stressors, such as losing a loved one.”

The study was published in the journal Psychosomatic Medicine (Lopez et al., 2020).

These Personality Traits Predict Criminal Behaviour

Why punishment fails to deter people with these personality traits.

Being impatient and able to tolerate risk are personality traits that are strongly linked to criminal behaviour, a study finds.

However, it is being able to tolerate risk easily that is one of the strongest personality predictors of crime.

People who are risk tolerant tend to be less worried about being caught and punished.

Other studies have frequently linked a lack of self-control, personality disorders, psychopathy and childhood physical or psychological abuse with criminal behaviour.

Professor Claus Thustrup Kreiner, study co-author, said:

“The propensity to commit crime is twice as high for the most risk-tolerant individuals compared to the least risk-tolerant.”

Along with these personality traits, people low in cognitive skills are also more likely to commit a crime.

This may be at least partly because people with low intelligence tend to be restricted to very low-paid jobs in many countries.

Taking risks linked to property crime

The conclusions come from a study of over 7,000 young Danish men who were given a variety of tests that were cross-referenced with information about their socioeconomic conditions and any criminal record.

Professor Kreiner said:

“We have chosen to focus on crime among young men aged 15-20 because it is a group where a lot of crime is committed compared with other men and women in general.”

The results showed that different traits predicted different crimes, said Professor Kreiner:

“If we look at different types of crime, willingness to take risks is particularly relevant when it comes to predicting property offenses, such as theft.
If we are talking about violent, drug or sexual offences, problems with self-control are common among the individuals.”

Why punishment fails to deter crime

The irony of the study is that it shows that the kinds of people who are most likely to commit crimes are also the least likely to be worried about being caught or going to prison.

The criminal justice system supposedly relies partly on its deterrent effect, which is much weaker for the typical criminal.

Professor Kreiner said:

“Our study may be able to help explain why there is limited empirical evidence that increasing punishment works to reduce crime.”

Crime prevention should focus on changing these traits, Professor Kreiner said:

“Our study clearly shows that preferences such as risk tolerance, impatience and altruism predict the propensity to commit crime.
Other research suggests that it is possible to influence these behavioral parameters in children and young people, which can be very important in relation to the development of criminal behavior.”

The study was published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (Epper et al., 2022).

These 3 Personality Traits Explain 80% Of Your Lifetime Happiness (M)

Learn the surprising truth about what makes us happy (or not).

Keep reading with a Membership

• Read members-only articles
• Adverts removed
• Cancel at any time
• 14 day money-back guarantee for new members

Become a member

The Clearest Sign Of A Trustworthy Personality Type

People who are prone to this emotion feel more responsibility towards others.

People who are prone to anticipate feeling guilty are the most trustworthy, research finds.

Compared with other personality traits like openness, neuroticism and extraversion, it is guilt-proneness that best predicts people’s trustworthiness.

Anticipating guilt is key, because it means a person is considering how guilty they will feel if they do something wrong…

…and this stops them doing it.

This is different from feeling guilt after doing something wrong, which encourages people to try and make up for the transgression.

People who are prone to anticipating guilt, though, feel more responsibility towards others and are much less likely to behave exploitatively.

The results come from a series of six studies in which people played economic games that tested their behaviour.

In these games, people more prone to anticipating guilt were more likely to return money to others.

The authors write:

“Trust and trustworthiness are critical for effective relationships and effective organizations.
Individuals and institutions incur high costs when trust is misplaced, but people can mitigate these costs by engaging in relationships with individuals who are trustworthy.
Our findings extend the substantial literature on trust by deepening our understanding of trustworthiness: When deciding in whom to place trust, trust the guilt-prone.”

Dr Emma Levine, the study’s first author, said:

“Our research suggests that if you want your employees to be worthy of trust, make sure they feel personally responsible for their behavior and that they expect to feel guilty about wrongdoing.”

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

The Personality Trait Linked To A Healthy Brain

People with this trait tend to have larger brain volumes in critical areas, a study finds.

Conscientious people tend to have larger brain volumes in critical areas, research reveals.

People who are careful, efficient and self-disciplined, have more gray matter in their frontal and medial temporal brain regions.

These areas are critical for many functions, including reasoning, taking action and controlling the emotions.

The link could be explained by conscientious people being more likely to look after their health: so, their brains shrink less with age.

In contrast, neurotic people — those who tend to get nervous or sad — have smaller brain volumes in these regions.

This link may be due to chronic stress causing brain shrinkage.

The conclusions come from a study including 79 people aged 44 – 88 who were given personality tests and brain scans.

Dr Denise Head, study co-author, explained the results:

“Our data clearly show an association between personality and brain volume, particularly in brain regions associated with emotional and social processing.
This could be interpreted that personality may influence the rate of brain aging.”

One of the ways being neurotic may affect brain volume is through stress.

Chronic stress does all sorts of damage to the brain over the years.

Dr Jonathan Jackson, the study’s first author, explained:

“We assumed that neuroticism would be negatively related to structural volume.
We really focused on the prefrontal and medial temporal regions because they are the regions where you see the greatest age changes, and they are also seats of attention, emotion and memory.
We found that more neurotic individuals had smaller volumes in certain prefrontal and medial temporal parts of the brain than those who were less neurotic, and the opposite pattern was found with conscientiousness.”

It is not clear from this study that being neurotic, or lacking conscientious, causes reduced brain volume.

One theory is that the early stages of Alzheimer’s may prompt a change in personality.

Dr Jackson said:

“It might be that changes in personality track onto those people more likely to develop Alzheimer’s.
We know that there are degenerative processes going on before the diagnosis of Alzheimer’s.
We want to be able to see if the subtle personality changes might be particular to an early clinical picture and possibly see if one can predict who will become demented based on personality changes.”

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

The Childhood Personality Trait That Makes You Popular

The trait is intrinsically rewarding.

Being fun is the childhood personality trait that makes kids popular, research shows.

Children rated as more fun tend to have more classmates who like them and more who rate them as popular.

Those rated as fun accrue a higher status among their peers which leads to more opportunities since fun kids tend to group together to practice their skills.

Professor Brett Laursen, the study’s first author, said:

“We had good reasons to suspect that being fun would uniquely contribute to a child’s social status.
Obviously, fun is intrinsically rewarding.
Fun peers are rewarding companions and rewarding companions enjoy higher social status than non-rewarding companions.
But the benefits of fun probably extend well beyond their immediate rewards.
Fun experiences provide positive stimulation that promotes creativity.
Being fun can protect against rejection insofar as it raises the child’s worth to the group and minimizes the prospect that others will habituate to the child’s presence.
Finally, changes in the brain in the early middle school years increase the salience of rewards derived from novelty, in general, and fun, in particular.
Children and adolescents are, quite literally, fun-seekers.”

The study included 1,573 children aged 9-12 who were asked to rate their peers likeability, popularity and how fun they were.

The results revealed that being fun was central to who was liked and popular.

Being fun makes children more rewarding companions, said Professor Laursen:

“One potential combination is surgency and ego resilience, which make the child a novel and exciting companion.
Fun children are probably also socially adept, and have high levels of perspective-taking and social skills.”

Being well-liked is a very handy trait, said Professor Laursen:

“Well-liked children present few adjustment difficulties and tend to succeed where others do not.
Popularity is highly coveted by children and adolescents; many value it above being liked.”

The study was published in the Journal of Personality (Laursen et al., 2020).

The Healthiest Personality Trait In A Partner

This personality trait increases the odds of reaching 85-years-old by up to 70 percent.

Optimism is one of the healthiest traits to have in a partner, research finds.

People married to an optimistic person have a reduced risk of dementia and cognitive decline.

Similarly, optimistic people themselves tend to live a longer life.

Indeed, being optimistic can increase the odds of reaching 85-years-old by up to 70 percent.

Critically, optimists believe they can control their lives and make improvements.

While optimism is partly genetic and related to upbringing and circumstances, there is evidence to show it can be cultivated.

Exercises such as visualising your ‘best possible self‘ have been shown to increase optimism.

Dr William Chopik, study co-author, said:

“We spend a lot of time with our partners.
They might encourage us to exercise, eat healthier or remind us to take our medicine.
When your partner is optimistic and healthy, it can translate to similar outcomes in your own life.
You actually do experience a rosier future by living longer and staving off cognitive illnesses.”

The conclusions come from a study of 4,457 couples who were tracked for up to eight years.

Dr Chopik explained the results:

“We found that when you look at the risk factors for what predicts things like Alzheimer’s disease or dementia, a lot of them are things like living a healthy lifestyle.
Maintaining a healthy weight and physical activity are large predictors.
There are some physiological markers as well.
It looks like people who are married to optimists tend to score better on all of those metrics.”

Optimistic people tend to create a healthier environment at home, said Dr Chopik:

“There’s a sense where optimists lead by example, and their partners follow their lead.
While there’s some research on people being jealous of their partner’s good qualities or on having bad reactions to someone trying to control you, it is balanced with other research that shows being optimistic is associated with perceiving your relationship in a positive light.”

Dr Chopik said people can become more optimistic if they want to change:

“There are studies that show people have the power to change their personalities, as long as they engage in things that make them change.
Part of it is wanting to change.
There are also intervention programs that suggest you can build up optimism.”

Conscientiousness

Along with being optimistic, studies also show that having a highly conscientious partner leads to more stable and healthier relationships.

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

Indeed, conscientious people tend to live longer themselves.

Highly conscientious people live an average of two to four years longer than their less self-disciplined peers.

They are also less likely to smoke or drink and experience lower levels of stress.

The study was published in the Journal of Personality (Oh et al., 2019).

The Personality Trait Linked To Good Mental Health

The personality trait associated with less depression and anxiety.

People whose emotions are more stable have better mental health, research finds.

Stable emotions are linked to low levels of neuroticism, one of the five major personality traits.

People low in neuroticism report frequently feeling calm, unstressed and satisfied.

Indeed, people generally report feeling even more content, positive and cheerful in their middle and later years.

In other words, most people become more satisfied with their lives with age — and that is linked to good mental health.

However, people who are high in neuroticism tend to have more mental health problems, explained Dr Rebecca Ready, the study’s first author:

“People who score high on a neuroticism scale had less mental well-being over time and this pattern was stronger for older and midlife adults than for younger persons.”

The results come from 1,503 people who were followed over 10 years.

People whose personality was most stable at the start of the decade were least likely to experience common mental health problems like depression and anxiety at the end of the period.

The results showed that being neurotic was particularly problematic for older people.

Dr Ready said:

“On average, neuroticism tends to decrease during adult development, but not at the same rate for everyone.
Such decreases may result in better, broader and richer emotional experiences in later life.
This hypothesis is supported by results of the current study.”

Many people incorrectly think personality traits cannot change.

However, people can become significantly less neurotic after undergoing therapy, research finds.

Dr Ready said:

“We did not assess risk for future depressive disorders but it is reasonable to speculate that older and midlife adults high in neuroticism are at greater risk for depressive symptoms in the future than are persons lower in neuroticism.
They may also experience less well-being and may have less tolerance for complex emotions.”

The study was published in the journal Aging and Mental Health (Ready et al., 2012).

The Simple Signs Of A Highly Sensitive Person

Up to one-third of people are ‘highly sensitive’.

Up to one-third of people have particularly ‘sensitive’ brains, psychologists find.

People with this trait tend to pay more attention to their experience, which is what produces their sensitivity.

It also means they need time to reflect on their experiences.

Psychologists call this a sensory processing sensitivity (SPS).

People with a sensory processing sensitivity tend to agree with statements like these (the full list is below):

I have a rich, complex inner life.
I am made uncomfortable by loud noises.
I startle easily.
I find it unpleasant to have a lot going on at once.
I notice and enjoy delicate or fine scents, tastes, sounds, works of art.

SPS is a personality trait not a disorder or a condition.

In other words, it is just the way that some people are.

Sensitive people can be prone to emotional outbursts, procrastination, and withdrawal.

However, they also process things more deeply, have a greater appreciation for beauty, are more conscientious, have higher levels of creativity and deeper bonds with others.

Dr Bianca Acevedo, the study’s first author, explains:

“Behaviorally, we observe it as being more careful and cautious when approaching new things.
Another broad way of thinking about it, that biologists have been using to understand people’s individual differences in responses to different things, is that the person with high sensitivity will be more responsive, both for better and for worse.”

For the study, people who were shown descriptions of happy, sad and neutral events then asked to rest, while their brains were scanned.

Dr Acevedo explained the results:

“What we found was a pattern that suggested that during this rest, after doing something that was emotionally evocative, their brain showed activity that suggested depth of processing and this depth of processing is a cardinal feature of high sensitivity.”

Sensitive people demonstrated greater connectivity between the hippocampus and the precuneus.

This circuit is vital to how memories are consolidated and retrieved.

However, there were weaker connections in circuits that help people process and control their emotions.

This could help explain why sensitive people can be prone to overstimulation and anxiety.

One of the best ways of coping with being highly sensitive is to take a break, said Dr Acevedo said:

“For all of us, but especially for the highly sensitive, taking a few minutes’ break and not necessarily doing anything but relaxing can be beneficial.
We’ve seen it at the behavioral level and the level of the brain.”

Find out if you highly sensitive

To find out if you are highly sensitive, think about whether you agree with each of the statements below.

Agreeing with 14 of these statements suggests you are a highly sensitive person.

A positive answer means agreeing that it is at least somewhat true of you.

I am easily overwhelmed by strong sensory input.
I seem to be aware of subtleties in my environment.
Other people’s moods affect me.
I tend to be very sensitive to pain.
I find myself needing to withdraw during busy days, into bed or into a darkened room or any place where I can have some privacy and relief from stimulation.
I am particularly sensitive to the effects of caffeine.
I am easily overwhelmed by things like bright lights, strong smells, coarse fabrics, or sirens close by.
I have a rich, complex inner life.
I am made uncomfortable by loud noises.
I am deeply moved by the arts or music.
My nervous system sometimes feels so frazzled that I just have to go off by myself.
I am conscientious.
I startle easily.
I get rattled when I have a lot to do in a short amount of time.
When people are uncomfortable in a physical environment I tend to know what needs to be done to make it more comfortable (like changing the lighting or the seating).
I am annoyed when people try to get me to do too many things at once.
I try hard to avoid making mistakes or forgetting things.
I make a point to avoid violent movies and TV shows.
I become unpleasantly aroused when a lot is going on around me.
Being very hungry creates a strong reaction in me, disrupting my concentration or mood.
Changes in my life shake me up.
I notice and enjoy delicate or fine scents, tastes, sounds, works of art.
I find it unpleasant to have a lot going on at once.
I make it a high priority to arrange my life to avoid upsetting or overwhelming situations.
I am bothered by intense stimuli, like loud noises or chaotic scenes.
When I must compete or be observed while performing a task, I become so nervous or shaky that I do much worse than I would otherwise.
When I was a child, my parents or teachers seemed to see me as sensitive or shy.

These statements are from the highly sensitive person test.

→ Read on: being highly sensitive is in the genes.

The study was published in the journal Neuropsychobiology (Acevedo et al., 2021).

How To Instantly Read Someone’s Personality With One Question

One type of question can indirectly reveal a lot about a person’s personality.

Asking someone what they think about other people reveals much about their own personality.

The reason is that people tend to see more of their own qualities in others.

The generous person sees others as generous and the selfish person sees others as selfish.

Dr Dustin Wood, the study’s first author, said:

“A huge suite of negative personality traits are associated with viewing others negatively.
The simple tendency to see people negatively indicates a greater likelihood of depression and various personality disorders.”

The conclusions come from a series of three studies.

In one people were asked to judge the positive and negative characteristics of three other people.

The more positively they judged those people, the more happy, enthusiastic, capable and emotionally stable they turned out to be themselves.

People who judged others more positively also turned out to be more satisfied with their own lives.

Set against this, those who judged others more negatively had higher levels of narcissism and antisocial behaviour.

The researchers even returned to the same people a year later and found the results were the same.

This suggests that what people’s ratings of others say about themselves remains stable over time.

Personality disorders are often diagnosed at least partly by how people view others, the authors write:

“…although narcissists may perceive others as being uninteresting or worthless, this may not reflect how they see themselves.
Similarly, individuals displaying behaviors typical of paranoid personality disorder may believe that others are malevolent and untrustworthy, even though they may not see themselves that way.
Machiavellianism is usually measured in part by asking individuals the extent to which they perceive a lack of sincerity, integrity, or selflessness in others’ actions, and narcissistic behavior is thought to be prompted in part by a belief that other people are inferior, uninteresting, and unworthy of attention.”

The study was published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (Wood et al., 2010).