Nine Fascinating Findings from Personality Science
Surprising links between personality, success, and everyday life
In Case You Missed It…
What can your personality tell you about your grades, your career, your income and hobbies - or even whether you like to sing in the shower? Quite a lot, it turns out. Over the past half-century, personality researchers have quietly built up a large treasure trove of findings about how personality matters for almost everything people care about. And they’ve also made great strides in solving the ancient mystery of where individual differences in personality come from in the first place.
In this post, I’ve pulled together nine fascinating findings from recent personality science. Some will confirm your suspicions; others will challenge long-held views - and a few are so odd that, if they didn’t come straight from peer-reviewed research, you might think I’d made them up. Enjoy!
1. Personality Tests: Science vs. Vibes
First things first, which personality framework best predicts real-world outcomes? Writing on the excellent Clearer Thinking website, André Ferretti and colleagues compared three popular options: the Big Five model (extraversion, neuroticism, conscientiousness, agreeableness, and openness), the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), and… astrological star signs. The Big Five came out on top, and astrology came dead last. Meanwhile, the ever-popular but deeply flawed MBTI fell somewhere in the middle, with only around half the power of the Big Five to predict such things as whether people exercise, have many close friends, and are satisfied with their life.
2. Personality and Academic Success
The strongest predictor of academic success, unsurprisingly, is intelligence. But “biggest” doesn’t mean “only,” and several personality traits give intelligence a run for its money. A synthesis of more than 50 meta-analyses found that conscientiousness is the standout personality predictor of academic performance, but that openness and agreeableness also play a role.
3. Personality and Job Success: The Big Picture
The story is similar for job success. Once again, the single strongest predictor is intelligence. But the Big Five are also powerful predictors. Conscientiousness takes pole position, although interestingly, it matters somewhat less at work than it does in the classroom. Meanwhile, extraversion and neuroticism are more strongly linked to job success than to academic success: Extraversion predicts more of it; neuroticism predicts less.
