What's Your Personality Type?

     This week I've decided to write my blog on the "Five-Factor Model"; which, basically, is five distinct types of personalities that someone may have when they are in mid-adulthood. These "Big Five" traits were due to the efforts of Paul Costa Jr. and Robert McCrae and include the following:

• Neuroticism: A person high in this dimension tends to be anxious, hostile, self-conscious, impulsive, vulnerable, and depressed. This type of person would likely have difficulties getting along with others and show violent tendencies. People low in this aspect would be calm, self-content, unemotional, etc...
• Extraversion: A person who is high in this dimension tends to be talkative, outgoing, easily expresses feelings and emotions, active, have lots of energy, and love to be challenged. This type of person would likely choose a job with humanitarian goals (social worker, nurse, doctor, etc...). People low in this aspect tend to be quite, passive, serious, and emotionally nonreactive.
• Openness to Experience: A person high in this dimension tends to have a vivid imagination, appreciative of art, and always want to try something at least once. These people are naturally curious and make decisions based on different factors instead of rules that are set in stone. People low in this field tend to be down-to-earth, uncreative, and conventional.
• Agreeableness: A person high in this type of dimension tends to be accepting, likes to work with others, and caring. A person who is low in this field tend to be ruthless, stingy, and irritable.
• Conscientiousness: A person who is high in this type of dimension is said to be hard-working, ambitious, energetic, and preserving. These people have a strong desire to make something of themselves. A person low on this spectrum is said to be negligent, disorganized, aimless, and non persistent.

      Something I really liked reading in this section was about the stability of these traits throughout adulthood. I found it weird that some found these traits to be set in stone, that they stop changing and progressing after the age of 30. And, in contrast to that, new evidence is being shown that these personality traits do, in fact, change over a 30 to 40 year period. They are doing more and more studies on this theory, and are beginning to see that neuroticism tends to increase throughout life, and extraversion tends to steadily decline as we grow older (Oh, the joys of adulthood). I found that this kind of made sense a little though. I mean, as we grow older more and more stress is added to our daily lives. We start out bubbly, full of energy, and just happy-go-lucky everyday, and as life hits us head on everyday (especially if we choose a harder, more demanding type of lifestyle) we become almost bitter to a lot of things we use to enjoy as younger adults.

     I feel like, when I was reading these, I couldn't place exactly which category I would fit under. I wanted to grab a little from every category and make my own personality dimension... Something along the lines of an "Extra-agreeable-open-scientiousness" (Ya, that sounds scientific). I guess it is just difficult for me to see exactly where my strong suits are, and what doesn't quite describe me. I am really curious, outgoing, sometimes impulsive, pretty imaginative, caring, love to be challenged, and I tend to work really hard and be ambitious. So, that being said, I am making my own personality category (feel free to join) :)

Thanks for reading!

Keisha