Here are the Big Five personality traits, which are simply semantic associations – words used
to describe aspects of a person’s personality. A little mnemonic to remember these is OCEAN,
Openness, Conscientiousness, Extroversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism.
Perhaps as I talk through each one and rank myself, you can do the same and rank yourself.
Remember, there are no right answers. Feel free to leave your results in the comments section.
Openness is one’s ability to experience new things. People with high openness tend to be
more creative, inventive, curious, adventurous, imaginative, and tend to challenge authority.
People with low openness are seen as conventional, traditional,
and more comfortable with familiar experiences. I would certainly say that I have a high openness.
Conscientiousness is one’s desire to do a task well. Highly conscientious people are
usually careful, diligent, efficient, organised, dependable, self-disciplined, and display planned
rather than spontaneous behaviour (although, taken to the extreme, they can be seen as workaholics,
or perfectionists). People with low conscientiousness are often described
as easy-going, laid-back, extravagant, disorderly, and sometimes careless. I would certainly describe
myself as having high conscientiousness. It turns out that the strongest predictor
of long life is conscientiousness. People with low conscientiousness tend to have problems with
alcohol, disordered eating (resulting in obesity), drug use, lack of exercise, risky behaviour,
and violence. Conscientious people tend to stick to their exercise and health regimes,
they service their vehicles regularly, they check their smoke alarms, and so on.
Extroversion was actually first introduced to psychology by Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung.
Extroverts tend to be outgoing, talkative, energetic, enthusiastic,
assertive, and gregarious. They like social interaction and thrive off being around
other people. Introverts are seen as solitary, reserved, reflective, and are easily overwhelmed
by too much social stimulation. That’s me in a nutshell. I’m certainly not extroverted,
but I can sometimes pretend to be. It is said that society is biased against introverts,
with people being taught from childhood that to be sociable is to be happy.
Agreeableness is one’s ability to “get along” I suppose.
People with high agreeableness tend to be kind, sympathetic, cooperative, flexible, considerate,
compassionate, empathetic, altruistic, but can also be compliant, meek, and mild. Those
with low agreeableness can be seen as being competitive, tough-minded, cynical, discourteous,
arrogant, selfish, greedy, and can show a lack of empathy. People with very low scores can be
aggressive, manipulative, antagonistic, and vindictive. I would certainly say that I’m
more agreeable than not, but I certainly do not see myself as being compliant
(as I have mentioned in other videos). Some people might describe me as meek and mild, however.
And finally, Neuroticism, the tendency to experience negative emotions. I hadn’t really
investigated this very much, but this really is me in a nutshell. People with high neuroticism
tend to be moody and to experience such feelings as anxiety, worry, fear, anger,
frustration, envy, jealousy, guilt, depressed mood, and loneliness. They are more likely to
interpret ordinary situations, such as minor frustrations, as appearing hopelessly difficult.
Their negative emotional reactions tend to persist for unusually long periods of time.
Lacking contentment in one’s life achievements can correlate with high neuroticism scores.
That is certainly me (although, I rarely feel lonely, but all the others fit the bill). People
with low neuroticism tend to be calm, confident, emotionally stable, and resilient. Although I can
put on an act that I am confident and resilient, mostly, it’s just an act. I really do try to
teach my children to be calm and resilient, but I don’t know if I’m the best person for the job.
Actually, it’s not all bad news. Evolutionary psychology theorises that there is
a survival benefit of being neurotic. Heightened reactivity to negative outcomes can increase your
chances of survival. Terror management theory states that neuroticism is primarily caused by
insufficient anxiety buffers against unconscious death anxiety. That is,
we are all worried about death deep down, so we need something to combat those negative feelings.
Things like social continuity beyond one’s death, future legacy, afterlife beliefs, a sense
of personal value, an enduring sense of meaning, all of which help to combat neuroticism. However,
the modern-day shift towards a more materialistic and secular culture is deemed to have increased
neuroticism. People buy cars to try to give their life meaning instead of more meaningful pursuits.
So how did you fare? Are you neurotic like me? Is that even a bad thing?