Category: Personality

Forget Optimism: The Personality Trait That Actually Leads To Happiness

Around 80 percent of people are thought to be optimists, but does that make you happier?

Around 80 percent of people are thought to be optimists, but does that make you happier?

Realists are significantly happier than both pessimists and optimists in the long-run.

Pessimism and optimism are personality traits that lie at opposite ends of a spectrum.

Realists, meanwhile, sit halfway in between, occupying the middle ground.

Optimists may suffer in the long-term because they are often disappointed.

The regular disappointment can end up being a stronger emotion than the pleasure gained from anticipating positive outcomes.

The most optimistic people are 13.5 percent less happy than realists, the study found.

Around 80 percent of people are thought to be optimists.

The problem for pessimists is perhaps more obvious: they are constantly dreading the worst.

This dread can overtake any benefits gained from things turning out better than expected.

The most pessimistic people are 21.8 percent less happy than realists, the study also found.

Both optimists and pessimists make decisions based on biased false beliefs.

Dr Chris Dawson, study co-author, said:

“Plans based on inaccurate beliefs make for poor decisions and are bound to deliver worse outcomes than would rational, realistic beliefs, leading to lower well-being for both optimists and pessimists.

Particularly prone to this are decisions on employment, savings and any choice involving risk and uncertainty.

I think for many people, research that shows you don’t have to spend your days striving to think positively might come as a relief.

We see that being realistic about your future and making sound decisions based on evidence can bring a sense of well-being, without having to immerse yourself in relentless positivity.”

The study included 1,601 people who were tracked for over 18 years.

They reported their life satisfaction and any psychological distress each year.

People were also asked about their finances and their tendency to over- or under-estimate them.

The results showed that realists were most satisfied with their lives (life satisfaction is a measure of overall happiness, in contrast to momentary pleasure).

The study was published in the journal Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin (de Meza & Dawson, 2020).

Eating This Food Is A Sign You Are Extraverted

What your diet says about your personality.

What your diet says about your personality.

Eating more meat is a sign of being extraverted.

Vegetarians and vegans, meanwhile, are more likely to be introverted.

However, vegetarians also tend to be slimmer than their meat- eating peers.

This is probably because avoiding animal foods reduces the intake of fat and sugar.

Dr Veronica Witte, study co-author, is not sure exactly why vegetarians tend to be more introverted:

“It could be because more introverted people tend to have more restrictive eating habits or because they are more socially segregated because of their eating habits.”

The conclusions come from a study of 8,943 people in Germany who were given a test of personality, along with other measures.

The researchers had expected to find a link between diet and neuroticism, but did not.

Dr Witte said:

“Earlier analyses had found that more neurotic people were generally more likely to avoid certain groups of foods and to behave more restrictively.

We focused here solely on the avoidance of animal products and could not observe any correlation.”

People who are neurotic are more likely to experience depression and anxiety.

Indeed, some research finds that plant-based diets are linked to depression.

However, there was no evidence of this in the current study.

Dr Witte said:

“It is possible that in previous analyses other factors had blurred the results, including the BMI or conspicuous personality traits that are known to be associated with depression.

We accounted for them.”

The lower weight of vegetarians and vegans is less mysterious.

Ms Evelyn Medawar, the study’s first author, said:

“Products that are excessively rich in fat and sugar are particularly fattening.

They stimulate the appetite and delay the feeling of satiety.

If you avoid animal foods, you consume fewer such products on average.

People who eat predominantly vegetable foods may therefore absorb less energy.”

The study was published in the journal Nutrients (Medawar et al., 2020).

The 2 Personality Traits Of Particularly Generous People (M)

Discover which Big Five traits drive people to give or volunteer.

Discover which Big Five traits drive people to give or volunteer.

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The Personality Trait That Boosts Happiness — Even When You Fake It

Acting out this personality trait makes people feel happier.

Acting out this personality trait makes people feel happier.

Acting like an extravert makes people feel happier — even natural introverts.

Both extraverts and introverts report greater well-being after a week spent being more talkative, assertive and spontaneous.

It is the first study to report the benefits of acting like an extravert over such an extended period.

The study also demonstrates that people who are naturally introverted can enjoy this exercise as much as extraverts.

‘Faux’ extraverts (people who are really introverts) reported no problems acting as extraverts.

Professor Sonja Lyubomirsky, the study’s first author, said:

“The findings suggest that changing one’s social behavior is a realizable goal for many people, and that behaving in an extraverted way improves well-being.”

For the study, 123 people were asked to act like extraverts for one week and introverts for another week.

During the extravert week, participants were told to be talkative, assertive and spontaneous.

During the introvert week, they were told to be more deliberate, quiet and reserved.

People were informed that acting like an introvert and like an extravert is beneficial.

This was to try and dampen the effects of participants’ expectations.

The results showed that people felt better after a week acting as an extravert and worse after the week as an introvert.

The positive effect on well-being is the largest known among happiness interventions.

Surprisingly, acting like an extravert seems to cause people’s personality to shift in that direction.

Professor Lyubomirsky said:

“It showed that a manipulation to increase extraverted behavior substantially improved well-being.

Manipulating personality-relevant behavior over as long as a week may be easier than previously thought, and the effects can be surprisingly powerful.”

Related

The study was published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General (Margolis & Lyubomirsky, 2019).

The Healthy Personality Trait In Your Partner That Benefits You As Well (M)

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

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

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The Personality Type Linked To Poor Mental Health

Around one-in-five people are thought to have this personality type.

Around one-in-five people are thought to have this personality type.

People who experience a lot of negative emotions and do not express them have more mental and physical health problems.

This is known to psychologists as a ‘type D’ personality: the ‘D’ stands for distressed.

People with a type D personality are likely to agree with statements like, “I am often down in the dumps”.

They are also likely to demonstrate social inhibition by agreeing with statements like, “I am a closed kind of person”.

Type D people are fearful of rejection if they express their negative emotions.

Around one-in-five people is thought to have a type D personality.

The study found that people who were type D tended not to report their health problems to a physician or nurse.

The study’s authors write:

“Type D patients were shown to report lower levels of health status, more cardiac symptoms, and more feelings of disability, when compared with non-Type D patients high on positive affect.”

The study involved 276 heart failure patients.

The results showed that heart failure patients who also had a type D personality were six times more likely to be in a worse state of health.

The study was published in the journal Quality of Life Research (Pelle et al., 2009).

The Strong Personality Trait That Indicates High IQ

This character trait is linked to a high IQ.

This character trait is linked to a high IQ.

Being conscientious is linked to having a high IQ, but only among females.

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

Among males, however, those who are more careless and indifferent have higher IQs.

The study of school children also found that introverts who are conscientious get the best grades.

Fear may also be a factor in driving up grades, the Swedish research found, since neurotic pupils got better grades.

Neurotic people tend to worry more, which may motivate them to work harder if their worries are stoked by the system.

Ms Pia Rosander, the study’s first author, said:

“We have a school system in Sweden that favours conscientious and fear-driven pupils.

It is not good for psychological well-being in the long term if fear is a driving force.

It also prevents in-depth learning, which happens best among the open personality types who are driven by curiosity.”

The study included 200 pupils entering secondary school at 16 who were followed for three years.

The results revealed that girls who were eager to please got better grades.

On the other hand, boys were more likely to be curious, but the system tended not to feed their curiosity.

Ms Rosander said:

“Greater conscientiousness, i.e. getting things done, arriving on time, etc. may be a way for boys to compensate for a lower IQ.”

The study also found that introverts get better grades, probably because extraverts have so much to distract them.

Ms Rosander said:

“My studies clearly show that the school system needs to be more individualised.

How else can we support talented pupils with the ‘wrong’ personality type, those we call under-performers, who are capable but lack the ability to plan their school work, for example?”

The study was published in the journal Learning and Individual Differences (Rosander et al., 2011).

The Positive Personality Trait That Increases With Age

The study underlines the surprising resilience of the human mind in the face of life’s tragedies.

The study underlines the surprising resilience of the human mind in the face of life’s tragedies.

People get more optimistic as they get older.

From the age of 15 until mid-life, people’s optimism tends to increase and remains at a high until they reach their 60s or 70s, when it starts to drop again.

Even health problems, divorce and bereavement fail to dent people’s fundamental optimism.

The study underlines the surprising resilience of the human mind in the face of life’s tragedies.

Dr William Chopik, the study’s first author, said:

“We found that optimism continued to increase throughout young adulthood, seemed to steadily plateau and then decline into older adulthood.

Even people with fairly bad circumstances, who have had tough things happen in their lives, look to their futures and life ahead and felt optimistic.”

The study included 75,000 people in the US, Germany and the Netherlands.

They were asked about their levels of optimism, along with life events such as new jobs, marriage, divorce and bereavements.

Dr Chopik was surprised by how the most serious life events affected people’s optimism:

“Counterintuitively — and most surprising — we found that really hard things like deaths and divorce really didn’t change a person’s outlook to the future.

This shows that a lot of people likely subscribe to the ‘life is short’ mantra and realize they should focus on things that make them happy and maintain emotional balance.”

The results showed that, on average, people become more optimistic between 15 and 60 or 70 years old.

Dr Chopik said:

“There’s a massive stretch of life during which you keep consistently looking forward to things and the future.

Part of that has to do with experiencing success both in work and life.

You find a job, you meet your significant other, you achieve your goals and so on.

You become more autonomous and you are somewhat in control of your future; so, you tend to expect things to turn out well.”

Old age brings a decline in optimism as people face health concerns and their own death.

Nevertheless, people do not become fully fledged pessimists, said Dr Chopik:

“Retirement age is when people can stop working, have time to travel and to pursue their hobbies.

But very surprisingly, people didn’t really think that it would change the outlook of their lives for the better.”

People’s resilience is remarkable, Dr Chopik said:

“We oftentimes think that the really sad or tragic things that happen in life completely alter us as people, but that’s not really the case.

You don’t fundamentally change as a result of terrible things; people diagnosed with an illness or those who go through another crisis still felt positive about the future and what life had ahead for them on the other side.”

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

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