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This site aggregates blogs and popular press articles about personality psychology. If you are an ARP member who writes a blog, or whose research has been featured in a recent popular press article, email us at personalitymetablog@gmail.com to have your work added to the meta-blog.-
Recent Posts
- Personality and Sheltering-in-place during the Pandemic – Scott McGreal (Unique—Like Everybody Else)
- Who Supports Freedom of Speech? Tolerance vs. Prejudice – Scott McGreal (Unique—Like Everybody Else)
- Who Uses Drugs and Why? – Scott McGreal (Unique—Like Everybody Else)
- Why Religious People are Less Likely to Own Cats – Scott McGreal (Unique—Like Everybody Else)
- Thoughts on “Ego Depletion” and Some Related Issues Concerning Replication – Scott McGreal (funderstorms)
- The Real and Fake Faces of Personality’s ‘Big One’ – Scott McGreal (Unique—Like Everybody Else)
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- citation needed by Tal Yarkoni
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Tag Archives: personality
Do Personality Traits and Values Form a Coherent Whole? – Scott McGreal (Unique—Like Everybody Else)
Personality psychologists are currently attempting to create more comprehensive theories that integrate many different components of personality. According to Life History Theory there is a general factor of personality that combines all personality traits in a specific way. However, attempting to integrate personal values with traits poses problems for this model.
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When Being Nice Gets in the Way of Being Smart – Scott McGreal (Unique—Like Everybody Else)
The relation between intelligence and the personality trait agreeableness presents a puzzle. Agreeableness is unrelated to IQ, yet lay people tend to associate agreeableness with lower intelligence, even though it is a desirable quality. A new study found that agreeable people choke under pressure, suggesting that being too nice can be a liability at times.
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What Is An Intelligent Personality? – Scott McGreal (Unique—Like Everybody Else)
Some theorists argue that intelligence and socially desirable personality traits naturally go together. However, lay people associate intelligence with a mix of desirable and undesirable personality traits, such as disagreeableness. The relationship between personality and intelligence may be more complicated than is suggested by grand unitary theories.
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What do Heroes and Psychopaths Have in Common? – Scott McGreal (Unique—Like Everybody Else)
Recent research looks at whether heroes and psychopaths are "twigs from the same branch." People who have performed heroic actions to help others often have a history of antisocial behavior as well. There may be loose connections between heroism and having "psychopathic" qualities, but the reasons for this remain unclear.
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DMT: Gateway to Reality, Fantasy or What? – Scott McGreal (Unique—Like Everybody Else)
The bizarre phenomenon of encounters with non-human entities under the influence of DMT has inspired both mystical and scientific speculations. Greater understanding of the psychological and personality characteristics of DMT users might help shed light on this curious phenomenon. read more
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Does Power Help or Hurt Perspective-Taking? – Amie Gordon (Psych Your Mind)
First comes love, then comes the realization that we are navigating life’s journey with another person who may have different thoughts, feelings, and beliefs than us. How do we deal with having differing viewpoints from our romantic partners? Perspective-taking is a fundamental social skill that helps us smoothly steer through the many bumps in the road, from picking out a thoughtful anniversary gift to helping us reach a compromise on a contentious issue. When people are able to consider their partner’s point of view, both they and their partners report being more satisfied with their relationship (Long, 1990). Although this basic skill is fundamental and beneficial, not everyone is good at perspective-taking, particularly in their romantic relationships (Kenny & Acitelli, 2001). So who is good at perspective-taking and who is lacking? To answer this question, I turned to the research on power. I was curious to find out whether feeling powerful in a romantic relationship might lead people to be better, or worse, perspective-takers.
Power is potent, affecting how people think, feel, and interact with others. Although thinking about powerful people might bring to mind the caricature of a power-hungry CEO, the reality is that power is not just in the workplace, it is part of all of our relationships, shaping how we interact with our parents, friends, and romantic partners. So how exactly does it shape our relationships? Or, in our case, our ability to step into our partner’s shoes? Well, the old adage, “power corrupts,” suggests that powerful people should be selfish, caring only about getting their own way and paying little attention to what their romantic partners are thinking and feeling. And there is research to support this – people are less likely to take strangers’ perspectives when they feel powerful (Galinsky et al., 2006) and in families, powerful members are less likely to perspective take (Barber, 1984). Continue reading
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Personality, Your Money, and Your Health – Howard Friedman (Secrets of Longevity)
What does your health and happiness have to do with your money? It is not so much what we are hearing about expert decision-making, or about status and stress.
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Peak Experiences in Psilocybin Users – Scott McGreal (Unique—Like Everybody Else)
A recent study of intensely positive experiences in people who have used psilocybin found that some users had experienced profoundly altered states of consciousness, including visual hallucinations even when not under the direct influence of the drug. Perhaps psilocybin might have lasting effects on a person’s ability to enter altered states of consciousness without drugs.
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Are Dog People More Prejudiced Than Cat People? – Scott McGreal (Unique—Like Everybody Else)
A new study finds that self-identified dog people are higher in social dominance orientation than cat people, a trait associated with prejudice. However, this seems puzzling as previous research found that dog people are also more agreeable and conscientious. Further research is needed to determine dog people really are more prejudiced than cat people and if so, why.
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Can Cannabis Cause Psychosis? A Hard Question to Answer – Scott McGreal (Unique—Like Everybody Else)
Although a number of long-term studies have linked cannabis use to later risk of mental illness, the question of whether the one causes the other remains unresolved. The possibility that a third factor, such as genetic or personality predispositions, underlies both cannabis use and the development of psychosis needs to be considered more carefully in future research.
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