Individual Personality Traits

Individual Personality Traits

Do you know your personality type? Have you ever wondered where you get your personality from? With the hundreds of personality types out there today, it is relatively easy to figure out your top personality traits. There are many personality assessments out there free of charge for anyone curious to take. Nowadays they have minimized the assessments to top five factors also known as the Big Five Factors of personality which are extroversion, openness, agreeableness, conscientiousness and neuroticism. In this paper I will be discussing my personal results from the Big Five assessment that I took, I will propose solutions to working with other personality types as well I will describe how my results from the assessment compare to the sixteen personality factors and last but not least I will explain my thoughts on how my results are relative to genetics.

The Big Five assessment measures your scores on five major dimensions of personality: Openness, which describes a person’s tendency to think in abstract, complex ways, conscientiousness, which describes a person’s ability to exercise self-discipline and control in order to pursue their goals. Extraversion describes a person’s inclination to seek stimulation from the outside world, especially in the form of attention from other people. Agreeableness which describes a person’s tendency to put others needs ahead of their own and to cooperate rather compete with others and neuroticism which describes a person’s tendency to experience negative emotions including fear, sadness, guilt, and shame. My scores from this assessment came out for the most part accurate, the only part I may dispute is the score for extraversion. I like to stay to myself but at work I am always a team player; but that’s work, as a person outside of work I love to stay to myself and to be in my room or dining room doing my own thing away from everyone else. My scores for this assessment are as follows: I received a high percentage from openness of eighty one percent, conscientiousness with seventy eight percent, agreeableness with sixty nine percent, extraversion with forty one percent and neuroticism with the lowest score of twenty eight percent.

Ever since I was fifteen years old I had been working in office, management and retail positions where I spent a lot of time working in a diverse atmosphere with a lot of different people with all sorts of different personalities. By knowing and understanding the Big Five personality traits, it can help with working with others, for example working with a person who has a low agreeableness score you know that they are closed to new ideas and can be very competitive. With knowing this about that person I would try to finds other ways to incorporate these ways and new ideas in ways that do not seem new but familiar to them. They also have a competitive side to them which can in turn help achieve team goals when working as a team, or how to let them keep their competitiveness in a less aggressive and friendlier manor. Understanding Allport’s theory and being able to identify the person’s cardinal and secondary traits; you could have a better understanding of each individual and how to approach them in a general non offensive way. Understanding a person’s personality can ease a lot of the confusion and confrontation in the workplace. By knowing their personality traits you will know if they are a calm, relaxed person or if they are anxious and nervous. Knowing their personality traits and how to identify them in people will help make you a better communicator all around and will help you to succeed further in your personal and professional life. It also lets you know how they will handle various situations and how you should react and assist them when needed.

Comparing my results to the sixteen personality factors I would have to say that they are relatively close to the sixteen personality factors, the only difference I have found was that the big five assessment in my opinion was a little bit more of a general assessment with only a few questions that would really pin point your exact personality while the sixteen personality factors actually help pinpoint your true personality with more factors at play. They are both rather similar but with the sixteen personality factors being a bit more descriptive and narrowed out. As each of the sixteen personality factor traits fit into one of the Big Five traits such as social boldness, liveliness and privateness all fall under the Big Five traits of extraversion.

When it comes to genetics and personality, I believe many traits are indeed genetic and passed on from one to another. A trait I believe I inherited was one being an introvert which is the opposite of an extrovert in which I scored low in. To me this is weird because I believe I inherited it from my biological mother that I only met a few years back since I was raised by my grandparents. My father’s side of the family with which I was raised more with, are all party goers and love the party scene and going out on vacations and meeting new people. My mother on the other hand is very introverted and says she is always the quiet one in every aspect of life; she loves being home and hates being in crowds. When I was growing up I was always the cousin that stayed to the back of the parties and was always quiet and to myself and only had one friend or two. Even up to adulthood I was very much an introvert until recently I learned to be more social so I could succeed better at my career. I find this very odd since I wasn’t raised around this women and I always had wondered where I got this trait from. Another trait I believe I inherited is openness which I scored the highest in. I have always been a very open minded person and have always taken the time to hear other out on why they think the way they think on certain aspects on life and I have always been very imaginative and open to new ideas and new traditions no matter how strange they could be and I have always been a critical thinker in all my decisions in life whether they be small or large life changing decisions. I have always been curious about the new ways to express yourself such as piercings and tattoos and the clothing people would wear. I have never been the type of person to judge a person for who they are or for why they do things, on the contrary it would drive me closer to them with such curiosity that I would want to learn their ways to have a better understanding. I have always had that curious and creative mind and I found out that my father actually is the same way. It took me awhile to realize this because my stepmother always spoke for him. When it comes to agreeableness, I believe it can and cannot be from genetics. Both my parents and grandparents are all very kind and put others needs first but in sense I also believe it could be just how I was raised and influenced by these nice deeds. I also believe the same when it comes to conscientiousness, both my parents didn’t really have that self-control on pursuing what they wanted in life in terms of goals; they just lived life the crazy way without a thought of consequences.

In conclusion, there are hundreds of personality types out there today with the top five factors known as the Big Five Factors of personality which are extroversion, openness, agreeableness, conscientiousness and neuroticism. Taking this assessment and utilizing it towards our life will help us to better understand our self and others especially in the workplace. Our personalities can be genetically passed down or even influenced from others; our personalities are completely unique as there are no two people exactly the same.

References:

Big Five Personality Tests. (n.d.). Retrieved December 12, 2017, from https://www.truity.com/view/tests/big-five-personality

Cloninger, S. C. (2013). Theories of personality: understanding persons. Boston, MA: Pearson Education.

McLeod, S. (1970, January 01). Saul McLeod. Retrieved December 17, 2017, from https://www.simplypsychology.org/personality-theories.html