Personality tests are very popular in the western world. The most validated personality test is built on trait theory (Judge et al, 2013). Trait theory suggests that personality can be understood across five dimensions
Openness-how open are you to new experiences or not
Extroversion- how social are you or not
Agreeableness- how important is it for conversations to go well or not
Negative emotion- how much or how little negative emotion do you experience
Consciousness- how important are the completion of such things as targets to you or not
For example, if you are highly open and score low on negative emotion, you may be an entrepreneurial risk taker. If you are low in openness and high in negative emotion, you may be the perfect person to keep the feet of the entrepreneurial risk taker on the ground. Together, at least theoretically, the two scores should make a great team. Trait theory certainly has value in provoking thoughts, insights, and putting together teams which might work well.
However, the traits only tell a partial story. If we place too much emphasis on the score then we can be potentially lured into thinking that everyone who has the same scores would be experienced as the same person (Henriques, 2012). The reality is that people apply these traits to situations differently, and therefore present differently despite being statistically similar (Henriques, 2017).
The above would seem to be a case of adaption to environment, fitting yourself optimally to situations (Vervaeke and Ferraro, 2012). We experience the ability of someone to fit themselves to situations, optimally or not, as character (Henriques, 2017). People have different characters, and this effects how they adapt their personality to different situations.
The adaptive quality of personality through character seems to be the key. If we take a personality test then there is a temptation to take that as a fixed point- problem solved, this is me. This is how we seem to organize our thinking in the West, grasping for propositional answers (Varela et al, 2016). Whether we realize it or not, we are highly influenced by the scientific model. This has led us to believe there are concrete answers which will disclose the world, and ourselves, to us.
As we have said before on this blog, in a dynamic constantly changing world, understanding the world only through propositions, whether through personality tests or beliefs, can shut down our ability to grow and transform. This has led us to fall into conflicts with reality, we get the feeling we do not “fit” (Varela et al, 2016).
The result of this conflict has led to an explosion of interest in Eastern psychology in the West which focuses upon the impermanence of all things, including the idea of a static self. On face value, this approach seems better fitted to a changing and confusing world. The center point of this interest seems to be built around meditation and mindfulness, and we shall explore this further in our next blog.
Reading
Judge, T. A., Rodell, J. B., Klinger, R. L., Simon, L. S., & Crawford, E. R. (2013). Hierarchical representations of the five-factor model of personality in predicting job performance: Integrating three organizing frameworks with two theoretical perspectives. Journal of Applied Psychology, 98(6), 875–925
Henriques, G. (2012). (When) Are You Neurotic? Retrieved from http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/theory-knowledge/201211/when-are-you-neurotic
Henriques, G. R. (2017). Character adaptation systems theory: A new big five for personality and psychotherapy. Review of General Psychology, 21, 9-22.
Vervaeke, J and Ferraro, L, (2012) ‘Relevance, Meaning, and the Cognitive Science of Wisdom’ in in Michel Ferrari and Nic Westrate (eds) The Scientific Study of Personal Wisdom: From Contemplative Traditions to Neuroscience, pp. 21-51, Springer.
F. J. Varela, Thompson, E. Rosch, E (2016) The Embodied Mind Cognitive Science and Human Experience. MIT Press.
