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A review of correlations between big five personality types and life outcomes

dynomight.net

21–30 of 261 posts

Re: A review of correlations between big five personality types and life outcomes

#21

not personality trait obviously, but in terms of success IQ probably matters more than big 5. I think personality can be improved or changed though effort but intelligence cannot. Someone who is introverted can make an effort to be extroverted in situations where it matters.

Is there data on that? Perceptions of intelligence are variable to practice and preparation if the measure is nonrandomized convergent standardized tests, which is not IQ but is the more accepted assessment of intelligence. IQ only seems to matter up to 135 after which other factors become more dominant in determining success.

Here's a thought. When you reach IQ 135 you start becoming "io-bound". But this is a function of the complexity of our society. As our society and technology gets more complicated the "skillcap" will shift upwards, and a higher IQ will be needed for full performance.

Re: A review of correlations between big five personality types and life outcomes

#22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there data on that? Perceptions of intelligence are variable to practice and preparation if the measure is nonrandomized convergent standardized tests, which is not IQ but is the more accepted assessment of intelligence. IQ only seems to matter up to 135 after which other factors become more dominant in determining success.

https://www.vox.com/2016/5/25/11683192/iq-testing-intelligen... I look at it like this, for creative, intellectually demanding work IQ is a necessary but perhaps insufficient condition. You need to be smart to achieve success cause you are competing with other people, so smarter people will have an edge. Google is not hiring people with 90-110 iqs. So having a high IQ is needed to at least be sufficiently proficient…

> high IQ is needed to at least be sufficiently proficient in coding,

Should I even bother on what's the source of this claim?

Re: A review of correlations between big five personality types and life outcomes

#23

Granted this isn't a peer reviewed paper, but still, a blog that gives personality scores for historical people like presidents can't be based on data. If IQ is important, maybe it's just that intelligent people know how to take personality tests.

> maybe it's just that intelligent people know how to take personality tests

Also why ADHD meds, prescribed legally, are rampant on college campuses.

Re: A review of correlations between big five personality types and life outcomes

#24
post #9

Conscientiousness is by far the least popular but has the highest income. That is not at all surprising. Objectivity, right and wrong as reflected by a balance of measures, is a rare and unpopular innate personality trait that allows for making micro-decisions many people might find abhorrent, more typically based upon evidence.

According to the same chart, conscientious people also seem to perform significantly better in college than everyone else. In the modern world, better GPAs are usually correlated with higher income. Interestingly, those people don't seem to do particularly well in the SAT. Perhaps their abilities are "unlocked" to the fullest only after they get into college and get a chance to make independent decisions.

> Perhaps their abilities are "unlocked" to the fullest

My impression is conscientious people work within the system and don't toe the line.

edit: disclosure, I am highly unconscientious, didn't finish uni etc.

Re: A review of correlations between big five personality types and life outcomes

#25
post #20

I think a lot of this analysis is tautological -- meaning that when you boil it down, you're just saying that things are as you have defined them to be. For instance, take a Big Five trait such as agreeableness. How do we know that a person is agreeable? Because we define agreeableness in a certain way and then measure the degree to which someone conforms to the definition. If that measurement includes questions such…

My (lay) understanding is that personality data tend to be clustered such that it's best explained by five factors, with the names of the factors (Openness, Conscientiousness, etc.) having been added later.

Re: A review of correlations between big five personality types and life outcomes

#27
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to the same chart, conscientious people also seem to perform significantly better in college than everyone else. In the modern world, better GPAs are usually correlated with higher income. Interestingly, those people don't seem to do particularly well in the SAT. Perhaps their abilities are "unlocked" to the fullest only after they get into college and get a chance to make independent decisions.

> Interestingly, those people don't seem to do particularly well in the SAT. Perhaps their abilities are "unlocked" to the fullest only after they get into college and get a chance to make independent decisions. Or maybe the SAT is just a shitty test.

For whom?

The real problem is that not all valuable paths can come to the same bottleneck.

Med student? Well, the SAT might be a good indicator of how successful you'll be at completing a medical program in the US. Same thing for law.

Are you the creative type? Then the SAT probably won't be as indicative of your future success.

Re: A review of correlations between big five personality types and life outcomes

#28
I can't read a text based on the Big Five seriously. My personality changed in many ways over the years. It's kinda like your political position changes over the years.

Someone fresh from college might be introverted and on the left political spectrum because he has no money, but to be successful he might get extroverted and when he has much money, he might get more on the right political spectrum.

How can something which basically assumes that people don't change get so popular?! People change all the time, personality changes all the time.

Re: A review of correlations between big five personality types and life outcomes

#29
post #9

Conscientiousness is by far the least popular but has the highest income. That is not at all surprising. Objectivity, right and wrong as reflected by a balance of measures, is a rare and unpopular innate personality trait that allows for making micro-decisions many people might find abhorrent, more typically based upon evidence.

According to the same chart, conscientious people also seem to perform significantly better in college than everyone else. In the modern world, better GPAs are usually correlated with higher income. Interestingly, those people don't seem to do particularly well in the SAT. Perhaps their abilities are "unlocked" to the fullest only after they get into college and get a chance to make independent decisions.

Perhaps the SAT is more like an IQ test (where a "quick wit" is advantageous), and college grades are based more on sustained performance, planning, meeting deadlines etc. These are very different things.

Re: A review of correlations between big five personality types and life outcomes

#30
post #16

not personality trait obviously, but in terms of success IQ probably matters more than big 5. I think personality can be improved or changed though effort but intelligence cannot. Someone who is introverted can make an effort to be extroverted in situations where it matters.

I’m just amazed that we’re still happy to condense one of the most complex phenomena, if not *the* most complex phenomenon that we were aware of into a single scalar performance value.

Money is another scalar value which matters a lot.
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