Personalityis what makes us who we are.
But what factors influence our personality?
Can we change our personalities, or do our overall traits remain the same throughout our lives?
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Since personality is such an interesting topic, its one of the most heavily researched subjects in psychology.
Lets take a look at some of the most interesting psychology facts about personality.
But is there any science to back up these stereotypes?
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Research also suggests that many of the stereotypes commonly associated with birth ordersuch as firstborns being bossydont hold up.
Long-term studies of personality suggest that the core parts of our personality remain stable throughout our lives.
According to researcher Paul T. Costa Jr., our personality stays relatively stable as we grow older.
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Openness tends to peak when were teens and young adults and declines later in adulthood.
Change is not necessarily a bad thing, either.
Studies have shown that the personality changes that happen later in life can often be positive.
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For example, extraversion and neuroticism tend to decline while conscientiousness and agreeableness tend to increase.
Openness tends to peak during adolescence and young adulthood and declines during later adulthood.
Researchers have used a statistical technique called meta-analysis to look at studies on the connection between personality and disease.
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Your Pets Have Personalities… For example, psychologist Sam Gosling at the University of Texas-Austinhas extensively studied animal behavior.
That observation actually makes sense, because female hyenas are physically larger than males.
Goslings also thought a lot about how different animal behavior might seem quite familiar to humans.
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Then, they tried to match up the personality traits with data collected from doggie DNA.
So, it wasnt surprising that traits like trainability seemed to be highly heritable.
According to one study, your answer may reveal your personality.
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Gosling, the researcher from UT Austin, has also studied pets and human personality.
Gosling says the results could have real-world valuefor example, in pet therapy.
If youve ever taken an online personality test, chances are youve come across the Big Five.
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Many personality researchers have gotten behind thefive-factor theory of personality.
For example, research suggests that your personality might play a role in your political preferences.
That said, personality and preference arent the be-it-end-all.
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We still have the power to make choices.
In reality, we dont always have the luxury of choosing a job that fits our personality well.
And even if we do, theres no such thing as a perfect job.
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Its easy enough to do since we can choose what we want to share (or not).
Surprisingly, one study found that your Facebook profile is actually pretty good at conveying yourrealpersonality.
Goslingthe researcher who studied animal personalitieshas also done quite a bit of research on human personality.
Observers in the study then rated the personalities of the participants based on the online profiles.
The observations were then compared to the results of the personality questionnaires that the participants took.
One personality that may not be as accurately represented on social media?
Examples of cluster B personality disorders include:
Cluster Cpersonality disordersare characterized by anxiety and fear-driven behavior.
It was an interesting idea, but its considered pretty rare for these traits to wholly define a person.
For most people, personality is a mix of traits.
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