The Good Life Campaign: What do YOU need?

“Style is a reflection of your attitude and your personality."

Shawn Ashmore (actor)

How to find your own way to well-being

As previously mentioned, there are some things which we all need, including the physiological needs, a sense of safety, belonging, esteem and self-actualisation.¹ For a high level of well-being we also need positive emotions (high positivity ratio), engagement, good relationships with others, and meaning/purpose and accomplishment in life.² However, to which degree we need all these things and in which way we can achieve them depends somewhat on individual factors, such as our personality traits and signature strengths, our beliefs/values, but also the societies we live in.^2,4,5,7 Today, we are going to initially look at different personality traits but to avoid any misunderstandings, just a few comments in advance:

There is no such thing as a good or bad personality or character trait. All traits come with advantages and disadvantages, and it is up to us to make the best out of them!
These traits are sliding scales and most of us are somewhere between the two extremes.
There is evidence that genes strongly influence our personality, but of course our upbringing and life experiences also play a part. Furthermore, our brain allows us to make free, conscious choices. We can either fully behave within our character traits or we can adapt our behaviour, for example if we find that one of our traits is problematic for us in certain situations.³ Adapting behaviours and habits which go ‘against’ our character traits may not be easy, but can be very important as it gives us some flexibility when interacting with the world.
Today’s post can only give a short introduction and broad summary into personality and character traits. If you are interested into this topic in more detail, you can learn more from great books and websites listed below.

Personality

There are different personality theories around. The scientifically most accepted theory differentiates between 5 different personality traits (also known as the Big Five)³:

Extraversion: Extraverts are highly responsive to external rewards and generally enjoy receiving social attention and status- however, it does not mean that extraverts are always sociable (in the sense of friendly/amiable), as this also depends on their Agreeableness (see below). Extraverts tend to have a higher level of positive emotions (e.g. joy, excitement).⁴ So if you are an extravert you may find it naturally easier to experience hedonic happiness, which makes you feel good. However, some people may find that they always need a ‘new buzz’ and chase from one pleasure to the next. It may therefore be helpful to consciously seek activities, which create a more eudaimonic type of well-being. Of course introverts also experience positive emotions, but generally not as intensely and frequently; also, they may find situations, which are highly valued by extraverts (e.g. parties) more exhausting. On the other hand, being an introvert also makes you somewhat more independent of external rewards, which can be a strength.⁴ To increase your well-being as an introvert, you may consciously choose to take part in more hedonic activities, but you may also find that you need some time to rest after these activities.

Neuroticism: People who score high on the trait 'neuroticism' tend to experience more negative emotions (e.g. anxiety, sadness, guilt), and are more prone to depression, anxiety disorders and stress, particularly when suffering negative life events.^3,6 Although it is quite normal to experience negative emotions from time to time, an excessive amount of negative emotions obviously decreases our well-being. However, a higher neuroticism tendency also makes you more sensitive to real hazards and risks in your private life as well as at work, and can motivate you to high achievements. So if you score high on neuroticism, you may find that you have to work harder for your well-being than others, but if you learn to live with it and harness this trait it can also be rewarding in the long run.³The trick is not to eliminate all negative emotions, but to learn and manage your tendency towards negativity by minimizing unhelpful and unnecessary negative emotions. There will be several posts in the next weeks explaining how this can be achieved.

Conscientiousness: This trait reflects our degree of self-control and discipline. If you score high on conscientiousness, you are likely to plan ahead and be highly organized. If your score low on conscientiousness you are more likely to be spontaneous and act on impulse.³ Importantly, this trait influences how easy it is for us to forgo or give up an immediate pleasure for a more distant goal. It has also been shown that extraverts which score low on conscientiousness are more likely to develop addictions.³ On the other hand, if you are on the high end of conscientiousness, the fixation on rules, lists and schedules to achieve the distant goal may make you less flexible and lose out on unexpected opportunities. You may also find it more difficult to adapt to quickly changing situations, particularly if these collide with your original plans. So you may want to work on your self-discipline if you know that you are low on conscientiousness, whereas those of us who are on the higher end, may benefit from allowing ourselves some more spontaneity and freedom from time to time.

Agreeableness: Agreeable people tend to highly empathize with others. If you are high in agreeableness, you are likely to have good social relationships with others (particularly if you are also an extravert), and you may chose to sacrifice some of your interests for the benefits of people who you care about. On the plus side, this can give you a strong sense of identity and connection with others, and it may make your group as a whole (e.g. family, team at work) more successful. On the other hand, putting others first can make you less successful as an individual, particularly in a competitive work environment, and you need to be careful not to overlook your own needs.^3,7

Openness: This category is difficult to characterize but can probably be best explained to represent openness to experience. People high in openness are likely to feel the need to participate in artistic/creative, cultural or spiritual activities, whereas low scorers may be more pragmatic and find practical/factual problem solving more rewarding.³

Importantly, our personalities are not completely fixed, and they tend to shift over time; we may also think and behave differently in different environments (e.g. at home vs at work). As a general rule, people tend to get a bit higher on Agreeableness and Conscientiousness and tend to become slightly lower on Extraversion, Openness and Neuroticism as they become older.³

I have found the whole topic of personality theory extremely interesting and helpful. It helps not only to understand why you think and behave in certain ways yourself, but it also helps to have a better understanding and acceptance of other people. They may not do something to wind you up- they may just simply do things differently because this is who they are!

On the other hand, I think that we have to be careful not to use our personalities as excuses. Yes, certain traits will make you more likely to behave in certain ways, but we still have a huge conscious influence on our choices. For a long time it was assumed that the neural connections in our brains are essentially fixed once reaching adulthood, but this assumption has been revised. Instead, it has been shown that as we explore new ways of thinking, create new habits and experience events differently, the connections in our brain are 're-wired'.⁵This process of physical re-organisation of the brain is called neuroplasticity. This can even be visualised on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI): When examining the brain of people who regularly meditate, MRI scans show that certain brain areas increase in size, including the prefrontal cortex, the insula and the hippocampus.⁸ We will come back to the importance of these brain areas at another time, but the important point for today is that neuroplasticity allows us to gradually change our thoughts and behaviour until they become a habit. This means that we have the power to change ourselves in small steps if we feel that it would help us to enhance our well-being.

How to get to know yourself?

A great book on the topic is Personality from Daniel Nettle (see also references below).
You can find a free ‘Great Five’ personality test at http://www.personal.psu.edu/~j5j/IPIP/
A helpful website with free personality tests and further information is https://www.authentichappiness.sas.upenn.edu (registration required).
Another interesting website is https://www.16personalities.com. This uses a slightly different theory and different personality trait categories, but I found it still very informative.

Preview: Next time you can find out about some further individual differences, which may influence your preferences and life-style choices.

References and further evidence-based reading:

1. Maslow AH. A theory of human motivation. Psychological Review. 1943;50(4):370-96.

2. Lyubomirsky S, Sheldon KM, Schkade D. Pursuing Happiness: The Architecture of Sustainable Change. Review of General Psychology. 2005;9(2):111-131.

3. Nettle D. Personality: What makes you the way you are. Oxford University Press; New York. 2007.

4. Seligman MEP. Flourish: A New Understanding of Happiness and Well-Being- and How to Achieve Them. Nicholas Brealey Publishing; London, UK. 2011.

5. Fredrickson B. Positivity: Groundbreaking Research to Release Your Inner Optimist and Thrive. Oneworld Publications; Oxford, England. 2010.

6. Seligman MEP. What you Can Change and What you Can’t: The Complete Guide to Successful Self-Improvement. Nicholas Brealey Publishing; London, UK. 2010.

7. Diener E, Biswas-Diener R. Happiness: Unlocking the Mysteries of Psychological Wealth. Blackwell Publishing; Oxford, UK. 2008
8. Hanson R: Hardwiring Happiness: How to reshape your brain and your life. Rider Ebury Publishing, Random House, UK. 2013.

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