Do you have a healthy personality? Science meets – News

Can you tell if your personality is healthy or not? Science can help. According to the experts, a personality is considered healthy when the psychological traits of an individual lead to a happier life. Among the main characteristics that define this personality, there is a good self-esteem, a positive outlook, an optimism and a capacity of self-control. These traits were discovered in a recent study of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

The results also revealed surprising information: people with a healthy personality may have attributes of psychopathy and narcissism – being autonomous and hardly stressed – while presenting characteristics totally opposed to these disorders, such that they are less likely to explore other people and less predisposition to aggression.

In addition, researchers have revealed that the main traits of a personality – whether "good" or "bad" – still predict many other aspects of life such as health, academic and professional performance, self-esteem and the quality of relationships.

All these discoveries were made on the basis of "Big Five", which are the five main features of personality: extraversion, openness to experiences, kindness, awareness and neuroticism (tendency to experience negative emotions).

Methodology
The team from the University of California (USA) conducted the study in two parts: first, psychology experts described the basic concept of a healthy personality through 30 facets that unfold at within the Big Five. Undergraduate students in psychology and students in positive psychology also participate in this first phase, an area that focuses on the virtues and positive traits of people.

The second part of the survey involved 3,000 participants who responded to a psychological questionnaire created by the team in order to define the main traits of their personality. For the experts and students who participated in the first phase, the volunteers would have a healthy personality if the scores were higher in terms of extroversion traits, openness to experience, kindness and sensitivity. consciousness. Already the lowest should be obtained in the question of neuroticism.

"The expert-generated profile suggests that psychologically healthy individuals have particularly high scores in terms of openness to feelings, kindness, positive emotions, openness and competence." The low scores would be related to hostility, depression and vulnerability, "said Wiebke Bleidorn, lead author of the study, in a statement.

The results
The first observation made by researchers is that individuals with a healthy personality are better adjusted in life, that is, they know how to cope with adversity. The traits that stand out most are good perception, optimism, high self-esteem and aversion to aggression and antisocial behavior. Participants in this category, however, demonstrated a greater ability to resist temptation and control their own behavior, as well as the ability to focus on the tasks at hand.

A striking finding was that participants had a high score on the characteristics of psychopathy, such as greater resistance to stress and courage, while decreasing the degree of disinhibition and the tendency to attribute the negative effects of their actions to others – all the factors that characterize psychopathy.

Another surprise was the fact that some people with a healthy personality presented controversial narcissistic features, such as greatness and self-sufficiency, whereas they were far from being traits like a tendency to explore other people .

According to the researchers, these findings suggest that a personality can demonstrate convergent and divergent attributes while staying healthy. If you were curious about the traits that define your personality, the team made available to the public the test (in English) used in the study.