Imagine the world as a high-resolution place and your eyes looking at it from a low-resolution
perspective. In such a world, the tools that we have at
our disposal to make sense of it are quite limited.
Humanity has invested a lot of resources in the development of science and technology
that can reduce our fallibility and increase our comprehension of this complex reality,
yet we still feel so lost. I have brooded over this idea a lot and I
have come to the following conclusion: In the grand scheme of things, what happens
in the world is relatively out of our control. We follow the news, we try to participate
in democratic processes, we try to be active members of society, but, still, the monumental
changes required to affect certain aspects of the world that need fixing, render the
effect of our participation quite minuscule, sometimes even meaningless.
So, what role do we actually play in the world? On a more personal level, how do we properly
use our own mental and physical apparatus to alleviate the effect of complexity on our
thinking and decision-making processes? How hard do we try to understand ourselves
in order to improve the interplay between us and the world around us?
How hard do we try to understand ourselves in order to offer the chance to ourselves
to improve the resolution of our perspective? I think, not hard enough.
And it all starts with the notion of personality. Jordan Peterson has stated that a personality
is an evolved solution to the problem of an overly complex world.
He said that because personality shapes our perception, and defines the way one looks
at the world. We are social creatures. We are not alone.
Co-existence is at the core of our social function.
We are, in a sense, a dynamic amalgam of different personalities and in order to co-exist we
should first understand our personalities and then find a way to bridge personality
differences with one another. And the most apropos tool we can currently
use for this endeavor is the big 5 personality traits model.
The big 5 is the most widely accepted theory of personality today.
It has been cited in thousands of papers and it is acknowledged by most psychologists out
there. The reason is quite straightforward.
It offers a quite accurate description of the individual by narrowing down his or her
focus to 5 important traits, and each trait is subdivided into two more.
Also, the assessment of each trait is not binary (i.e. introvert or extrovert), but
rather each personality trait occupies a spectrum. This offers a more holistic understanding
of one’s personality and allows the individual to have a more nuanced view into his or her
inner world. The big 5 is composed of the traits Extraversion,
Neuroticism, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, and Openness to experience.
This might not sound like a lot, but, trust me, if you consider how randomly situated
people are across the spectrum of each trait, you end up with a dynamic assemblage of diverse
groups that is difficult to assess and organize. That’s a consequence of our unpredictable
environments. Each personality is affected by genetic and environmental factors and this
renders the potentiality of a rather homogenous set of personalities within a social group
quite difficult. That’s why models like the big 5 are so
useful. By evaluating our personality traits, we can
become more aware of who we are and also seek out environments where we can put these traits
into use. We can match with people who are similar to
us and can be great potential partners, but also cooperate with people who can be different
and, by capitalizing on diversity, can help us solve all sorts of problems.
The power of the big five simply cannot be ignored.
The model can help us conceptualize the world around us better, discover objective truths
that are of pragmatic utility, and allow humanity to move forward in a less confused fashion.
Every aspect of the big 5 breaks down into two categories.
For extraversion the two categories are assertiveness and enthusiasm.
Assertiveness is a combination of healthy confidence and the ability to stand up for
yourself and your rights, without however disrespecting the rights of others. When you’re
assertive, you are direct and honest with people. You don’t expect others to read
your mind about what you want. If something is bothering you, you speak up; if you want
or need something, you ask. In simple words, assertiveness is a gentle demonstration of
confident characteristics. Enthusiasm is closely related to comfort and
especially comfort in one’s skin. Enthusiastic people are more open and they
bring more energy to an interaction. They make friends easily, reveal a lot about
themselves, and show their feelings. Extraversion is essentially the positive emotion
dimension. What this means is that by being more extraverted you increase the probability
of putting yourself out there in the world. Humans are explorers, and extraversion abets
our need to dive into unfamiliar territories. This can include more risk, but also more
opportunity. The upside is that people high in extraversion
tend to form more relationships and by doing so they increase their social network and
also the probability of randomness enforcing experiences upon them. Both of which can prove
beneficial in succeeding in personal and professional endeavors.
The downside is that more exposure means more vulnerability and this requires a lot of resilience
and the ability to confront different people and views.
It also means that the ego can be inflated and that can affect their mood, behavior,
humility, and proactivity.
Neuroticism can be broken down into withdrawal and volatility.
Both facets of neuroticism are related to negative emotion and how the individual deals
with it. In the case of withdrawal, the individual
will internalize negative emotion. This describes people who are anxious, depressed, worry about
things, get easily discouraged, become overwhelmed by events and, in general, keep their psychological
pain inside them. In the case of volatility, the individual
will externalize negative emotion. This describes people who are touchy, easily offended, easily
irritated, and demonstrate externally their response to negative emotion.
Neuroticism is something very common among humans. It is like a reaction mechanism by
the body that signals a bad situation experienced by the individual.
It’s like anxiety. You feel anxiety so that you don’t have to feel pain. Anxiety prepares
you for things that can hurt you. It is not pleasant, but it is an evolution
mechanism. And because we haven’t really adapted efficiently
to modern society, neuroticism is quite prevalent amongst us.
To put it in different words, negative emotion determines how prone you are to reacting negatively
to the obstacles in your path. The more you react, the easier it is to fall
into depression because you suppress your positive emotion system and you remain stale.
There is a clear indication here that the human mind and body are design in a way that
demands movement. The more static we become, the more negative emotion we produce.
Positive emotion releases dopamine which is analgesic, meaning that it alleviates pain.
So, what do you do in order to reduce neuroticism?
When you want to encourage development in people you have to find a small and performable step forward that constitutes improvement
and point them to that direction. This is groundbreaking and it showcases two things:
1. How prone our mind and behavior are to
habit-building. 2. How this can also be applied to a societal
scale and affect general behavioral patterns within the population.
By choosing tangible goals that are not extremely ambitious, you indicate to your anxiety systems
that you are more competent than the thing is dangerous.
Gradually, you get accustomed to the new environment and assuage the effect of neuroticism in your life.
In the social arena we need to form opinions,
tackle problems, forge alliances, and attempt to coexist. The level of cooperation we can
establish is predicated upon how agreeable or disagreeable we are as people.
This personality trait is called agreeableness and it is composed of compassion and politeness.
Compassion refers to how sensitive we are to others’ needs and feelings. Compassionate
people are more empathetic, invest in others, have a soft side, and are easier to get along
with. Politeness refers to how much we respect authority
and reflects how prone we are to conform to social norms.
High agreeableness distinguishes people who are caring. It is like the maternal aspect
of the personality, but there is an upside and a downside to that.
Too much agreeableness can render one extremely dependent on others – unable to establish
autonomy on their own and also incapable of forming their own views.
This can also be defined as childlike dependent characteristics extended into adulthood.
Too much disagreeableness is associated with low level integration of various information
necessary for both understanding and sharing the emotional world of others.
Disagreeableness is closely related to antagonism and the propensity of the individual to demonstrate
aggressive behavior whenever their sense of justice is provoked.
Agreeableness is tricky. Most relationships are like a trading game.
The question is how much should you care for others and how much for yourself.
This definitely depends on the occasion, but a rule of thumb to follow is that, in every
human relationship, reciprocity should the fundamental rule of the game.
The Oxford dictionary defines conscientiousness as the quality of wishing to do one's work
or duty well and thoroughly. A conscientious person is a careful and diligent
person. The subdivisions of conscientiousness are
industriousness and orderliness. Industrious is someone who is effective and
efficacious. They carry out their plans, follow a well-organized schedule, meet deadlines,
finish what they start, and know what they are doing.
Orderliness refers to people who like to have their personal space in order. They are tidy,
avoid clutter, follow routines and rituals, and are bothered by disorder.
Conscientious people value duty, diligence, and focus.
It is a trait that can predict success in the workplace, but the weird thing about conscientiousness
is that it is very difficult to measure. Apart from self-report tests, there is no
real good model that can predict or measure the level of conscientiousness in a person.
And that’s probably because conscientiousness emerges from other functions.
The actual origin of the word is “controlled by conscience, governed by the known rules
of right and wrong.” So, there is a clear correlation between conscientiousness
and morality. Moral people tend to follow rules and order
in order to allow morality to flourish through those rules.
But even morality itself is a debatable topic within society.
There is also a connection between orderliness and disgust and industriousness and guilt.
The more sensitive someone is to disgust, the more he or she will take care of the aesthetics
and the cleanliness of their surroundings. With regards to industriousness, it could
be that industrious people work a lot because they feel guilty. Guilty because if they don’t
work they don't offer to the community. As you can imagine, excess orderliness can
lead to certain pathologies. There is always a dark side to every trait.
Openness to experience reflects the ability to chase new experiences and engage in creative
pursuits. People low in openness tend to prefer their
comfort zone and safe spaces, whereas people high in openness tend to question the boundaries
of conventional knowledge and seek innovation. Openness to experience is subdivided mainly
to openness and intellect but it can also involve six dimensions, including active imagination
(fantasy), aesthetic sensitivity, attentiveness to inner feelings, preference for variety,
and intellectual curiosity. The first 5 dimensions are connected to creativity
and introspection. People who score high in these dimensions
tend to enjoy abstract thinking, challenging problems and are intellectually curious.
With regards to intellect, we need to mention that intellect is not measuring intelligence or IQ.
Dr. Todd Grande explains it perfectly in this video.
As far is intelligence is concerned, according
to Wikipedia, openness to experience is moderately associated with crystallized intelligence.
Crystallized intelligence, refers to cognitive functions associated with previously acquired
knowledge in long-term store. That is the ability to access and use learned knowledge
and experience. Different experiences offer different ways
to view different problems and that can have a huge impact on the intellectual development
of the individual.
Life is balance. The whole world is built on balance. Balance is key in establishing systems of
beneficial order both within ourselves and within society as a whole.
Disrupting balance may cause a person or a social group to go astray and lose themselves
in chimeras and delusions. Sometimes we might need to disrupt balance
when we see that the current systems are not favoring the common good, but, eventually,
we will have to re-establish it. Understanding our personalities is key for
this process. Becoming aware of who we are and how different
personality traits are favoring or jeopardizing our lives and the lives of others is instrumental
in our self-development and co-existence with others.
A person who knows himself has nothing to fear because he knows which demons to fight.
A person who doesn't know himself will most probably fight the wrong demons.