Science of Personality—Part 2

Science of Personality—Part 2

Now that we have identified the 6 basic personality traits and some of their consequences, we need take a look at just how these traits are measured for a particular individual. All of these basic traits form a Bell shaped curve for the entire human species. Thus, most of us are located somewhere on this curve.  How an individual fits in is often pegged by asking them a series of questions about how they would feel or respond to varying situations. We could take any trait but let’s take agreeableness. Even if you score high on the agreeableness scale it doesn’t mean you are always agreeable in every situation. Under certain situations a person may not be agreeable at all. In addition, some people who are agreeable by nature may not have the same intensity of agreeableness as others have in that same situation. Thus, we need remember a personality trait often is situation related and intensity sensitive. 

From a certain perspective we must remember that personality is dependent on brain function to express itself. So we are essentially, at the brain cellular level, talking about neurotransmitters, synapse function, and established brain pathways. Some of these pathways are determined by our genes and other pathways are learned pathways, much as when we learn to ride a bicycle. Our genes set limits on how well we can learn to ride a bike. So when we say one of these six personality traits are 40% genetic, we are essentially setting limits on their expression. 

Motivation is involved in our personalities in three ways. First, how motivated are we to interact with other people? Second, how motivated are we to be successful at a particular path? Third, how motivated are we to influence other people or have power over them? Let’s start with the first one, called affiliation motivation. This motivation is related to extraversion in the sense that extraverted people tend to have high affiliation motivation. However, some people can have high affiliation  motivation but are not highly extraverted because they lack confidence, fear rejection, or simply do not have the skills to be highly social. It is very distressing to be shy of social contact if you have high affiliation motivation. People with low affiliation motivation are not indifferent to how other people view them, but they are less concerned about it because they have less desire to affiliate with others. For those people with high affiliation, they are more likely to be insecure and dependent.  They may be too clingy and dependent. These people prefer to work with others rather than work alone. Couples who have similar affiliation motivation tend to be happier as couples who differ in this respect. 

Achievement motivation is an interesting personality component. It is 40% genetic, so right away there limits are considerable from a genetic standpoint. People high in achievement motivation tend to be more successful in life if the achievement is based mostly on effort. They work harder and longer at a task, but tend to like a job in which their effort can carry them far. But we need to be careful here. The goal in life is to be contented. By no means are those most successful with career goals necessarily the most contented. Those who are satisfied with little are often more content than those with more wealth, power, popularity, etc. and yet always want more. And too much achievement motivation, called an A type personality, can be harmful to  one’s health and make them more susceptible to heart attacks, high blood pressure, neuroticism, and so on. 

Another type of motivation is power motivation——the desire to have control over others. Like many other aspects of personality there are pluses and minuses to being low or high here. People higher in power motivation belong to more groups and organizations, where they have more opportunities to have control over others. They tend to end up in careers where they can be in control of things—like manager, CEO’s, school principals, teachers, members of the clergy, etc. However, just wanting to have control over others does not mean a particular person will be successful at that. Other aspects of their personality may not enable them to be very successful. That sometimes leaves their children as the primary avenue for them to exert their control. This can then impact on the personalities of their children, but since each of their children have their own unique personality, this will not impact necessarily in the same way. 

Leaders in high power motivation are not necessarily more effective. Fewer ideas get discussed and  members of a group feel less free to operate on their own even if their particular ideas are superior to the ideas of the power hungry leader. Thus, leaders infected with high power motivation are only more successful if their ideas are the best most of the time. There is no difference in power motivation between sexes. People who are higher in power motivation tend to have friends who are lower in power motivation, people higher in power motivation tend to seek spouses who are lower, and employers with high power motivation seek employees with lower power motivation. Thus, a particular employee applying for a particular job would do well to figure this factor before accepting a job. If a person has a high need to run their ‘own show’ they better be careful working under a boss who is determined to ‘run the whole show’ 

This perhaps is a good time to be realistic about how much of a child’s personality resembles that of their parents. While it may be a good thing to view our children as strong replicates of ourselves, this is hardly true at all. Half the genes come from one parent and half from the others, but then there is the issue of which genes are dominant when. Then add that heredity only plays a role ranging from 30% to 60% in most of the traits we are discussing here. So this means roughly 50% percent of a child’s personality is even based on heredity. This, again roughly, reduces the impact of one parent down to 25%. It is hardly a surprise then that a given parent will find others in their life who are a better match for them than any of their grown children. Of course it is a good thing that parents feel a strong responsibility, for whatever reason, to properly raise their children. Those who can’t do this leave kids in their formative years in a difficult situation, one in which proper support and guidance will have to come outside the family, and this can often be a disaster. The other side of the coin here is that it can be very upsetting to realize a child of your own is hardly a replicate of your own personality. Good parents realize that parenting may require different approaches depending on the offspring in question. Rigidity here can be disastrous. Many parents face some emotionally serious situations when they realize an offspring is hardly a carbon copy of their own personality. 

In part 3 we will continue to investigate additional factors which determine personality. I don’t know why I say we since at least 80% of everything here is from Professor Mark Leary. To a very limited extent I have taken what I have learned from him and applied my own life observations, which tend to be limitless, as part of my own hobby is to ponder all aspects of life in writing. I have stopped high-lighting portions of this musing because in these personality musings, it’s all high-lighting.