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

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

#211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Take for example “Openness”. It’s not hard to imagine how the very same person can be very open with one group of people Lest this be misunderstood, note that "Openness" in this context is not about being honest. It is short for "Openness to Experience". Roughly, it's about creativity and curiosity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Openness_to_experience

Good point. Still, a person that radiates creativity and curiosity in an environment that they find inspiring could be the exact opposite in another environment that they find less suitable. Hence my point that this personality trait stuff is at least as much dependent on context as on personal traits.

Definitely! I only didn't respond the rest of your comment because anbende did so better than I could.

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

#212
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…

>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.

I'm not sure what's the point of this observation.

This is the case with every term.

How do we know someone is a murderer, a cry-baby, a thief, a chef, or any trait X?

Because "we define X in a certain way and then measure the degree to which someone conforms to the definition"

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

#213
The author is making a subtle mistake; evolution doesn't mean like-parent-like-child.

Evolution is likely selecting for, eg, people who have children at a certain ratio of introverted-extroverted.

Introverted, disagreeable, high-contentious types make, for example, great scientists. A population (call it A) that produces a reasonable number of such people is at a huge advantage compared to the alternative that only produces extroverted agreeable types (call them B).

Population B will be more competitive at breeding, but population A will win any conflict with B because they'll have a bunch of weirdos in the back room producing a lot of high quality science (a classic stereotype with some foundation in truth).

Note that men are much more likely (something like 4x) to be "completely homosexual" compared to women [0]. I'm betting this is because having a few men who opt out of the race to pass on their genes and focus on other stuff is a massive advantage to the society that hosts them. Look how much of a force gay men have been in culture for example.

Locally catastrophic for breeding, globally optimal for society. The equilibrium isn't for all offspring to maximise their chance of breeding. The optimum is for the community to thrive.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_sexual_orienta...

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

#214
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…

The links at the bottom of Correlated.org , "How Correlated generates its stats" and "A response to Correlated's critics", appear to be broken. Clicking either of them leads to pages that display "Page not found".

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

#215
post #213

The author is making a subtle mistake; evolution doesn't mean like-parent-like-child. Evolution is likely selecting for, eg, people who have children at a certain ratio of introverted-extroverted. Introverted, disagreeable, high-contentious types make, for example, great scientists. A population (call it A) that produces a reasonable number of such people is at a huge advantage compared to the alternative that only p…

I came here to say essentially this. But what is the name of this process where groups of people select for variety instead of optimal individuals?

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

#216
post #52
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…

While this is true for a lot of common psychological constructs, the Big Five were not defined according to agreement or consensus. The definitions were driven by the lexical hypothesis whereby the wide variety of personality descriptive adjectives in human language were factor analyzed and found to cluster into 5 distinct factors. So this isn't tautological in the way that you've described, though it is certainly re…

So how do we objectively measure all 5 dimensions? I.e. would I roughly assess myself similar to how others (on average) would assess me?

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

#217
post #213

The author is making a subtle mistake; evolution doesn't mean like-parent-like-child. Evolution is likely selecting for, eg, people who have children at a certain ratio of introverted-extroverted. Introverted, disagreeable, high-contentious types make, for example, great scientists. A population (call it A) that produces a reasonable number of such people is at a huge advantage compared to the alternative that only p…

I came here to say essentially this. But what is the name of this process where groups of people select for variety instead of optimal individuals?

I'm confident that it is evolution. People don't evolve, populations evolve.

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

#218
post #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…

Not as much the case as you might think and the Big Five model is largely reliable.

Different traits can change over time, some are easier to change than others, they are also skewed if the individual suffers from acute mental health issues such as depression.

Concienciousness is the easiest to change, via intervention, but takes a very long period of time. We tend to naturally become more conciencious as we get older.

Openess is the hardest to change I believe, it's also a predictor of creativity and IQ, IQ being impossible to improve currently.

The teenage/developmental opinion swings are a result of life experience and information gathered about surroundings rather than personality. Personality is mostly established by age 6. Lou

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

#219
post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or they could know something about the intelligence literature. There are very few people in professional careers, lawyers, doctors, engineers etc. with measured IQ below 115. It’s close to impossible. The demands are just too high.

I doubt it, less than 115 is 85% of people. Aside from the low end IQ really isn't that predictive.

81%. Yes, a large majority of people are incapable of becoming lawyers, doctors or engineers. IQ is predictive at the low, middle and high end. There is no evidence of a threshold at which more ceases to be better. Emphasis below not in originalz

> Can You Ever Be Too Smart for Your Own Good? Comparing Linear and Nonlinear Effects of Cognitive Ability on Life Outcomes > Despite a long-standing expert consensus about the importance of cognitive ability for life outcomes, contrary views continue to proliferate in scholarly and popular literature. This divergence of beliefs presents an obstacle for evidence- based policymaking and decision-making in a variety of settings. One commonly held idea is that greater cognitive ability does not matter or is actually harmful beyond a certain point (sometimes stated as > 100 or 120 IQ points). We empirically tested these notions using data from four longitudinal, representative cohort studies comprising 48,558 participants in the United States and United Kingdom from 1957 to the present. We found that ability measured in youth has a positive association with most occupational, educational, health, and social outcomes later in life. Most effects were characterized by a moderate to strong linear trend or a practically null effect (mean R2 range = .002–.256). Nearly all nonlinear effects were practically insignificant in magnitude (mean incremental R2 = .001) or were not replicated across cohorts or survey waves. We found no support for any downside to higher ability and no evidence for a threshold beyond which greater scores cease to be beneficial. Thus, greater cognitive ability is generally advantageous—and virtually never detrimental. https://www.gwern.net/docs/iq/2021-brown.pdf

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

#220

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.

No, concienciousness is more indicative than IQ, then the rest of the factors follow IQ. Openness is highly correlated with IQ as well.
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