Why personality changes matter

It describes people who enjoy the arts and new experiences. Possible facets:

• Fantasy: they have a vivid imagination
• Aesthetics: they believe in the importance of art
• Feelings: They experience emotions intensely
• Actions: They prefer variety to routine
• Ideas: they like complex problems
• Values: they tend to vote for liberals.

People that score high on this are organized, methodical and tend to keep going and going. Possible facets:

• Competence: they complete tasks successfully
• Order: they like order
• Dutifulness: the follow the rules
• Achievement-striving: they work hard
• Self-discipline: they get chores done right away
• Deliberation: they avoid mistakes.

People with high levels of self-control are generally seen to be healthy, well-rounded individuals who are ideally less likely to act violently or aggressively.

New research shows that this behaviour pattern may be to gain acceptance and tread the social norms as a means to one’s end, being selfish and self-centred in private.

People with high self-control have a surprising behavioural trait of being shrewd and cruel according to various studies:

1. They are more likely to cover up an anti-social act to avoid getting caught, like for dangerous driving.
2. They ended up being keener to kill hundreds of bugs in a grinder, without any feeling of remorse.
3. They electrocuted their opponents in a TV game to a much higher degree than others, not knowing that the electrocution is being feigned by the contestant.

But more research needs to be done before we slot someone’s moral values and behavioural traits into predictable patterns.

Recently, six traits were identified that are consistently linked to workplace success: Conscientiousness, adjustment, ambiguity acceptance, curiosity, courage, and competitiveness.

Each trait may have drawbacks at extremes. The relative importance of each trait will be determined by the job you are doing. Knowing the traits can also aid in personal development so that you can identify your own strengths and weaknesses and the ways you may account for them.

Conscientious people are committed to plans and ensure they carry them out accurately. They consider the wisdom of their decisions for the long-term.

They are essential for strategic planning but can be too rigid.

A recent study has come to the conclusion that open-minded persons possess the ability to focus on different things at the very same moment. 

Even if there are distractions around them, these individuals still manage to concentrate and see everything that is going on in the room and, so, they are less prone to the so-called 'inattentional blindness'.

Research has proven that individuals' personality plays an essential role in the way they perceive the world. 

Therefore, it is very probable that our perception of the world changes at the same time with our personality.

It reflects the degree to which people like to be the center of attention in social situations. 

Extroverts want that spotlight shown on them, while introverts shun the spotlight (though they typically have many friends and like engaging in smaller interactions).

It reflects how much people want others to like them and have difficulty delivering bad news, giving criticism, and standing up for themselves to others.

People with agreeable personalities really want others to like them, while disagreeable people do not necessarily care whether others like them.

A moderate noise level is ideal to improve our creativity. It increases the processing difficulty which stimulates abstract processing, leading to higher creativity. 
High noise levels impair our creative thinking because we feel overwhelmed and struggle to process information properly.

Different genres correspond to our personality. For instance:

• Blues and Jazz fans have high self-esteem, are creative, outgoing, gentle and at ease
• Classical music fans have high self-esteem, are creative, introvert and at ease
• Opera fans have high self-esteem, are creative and gentle
• Rock/heavy metal fans have low self-esteem, are creative, not hard-working, not outgoing, gentle, and at ease

Virtual teamwork places greater emphasis on communication and organization.

Over the short-term, newly formed virtual teams experience more negative outcomes, such as team conflict, lower satisfaction, less knowledge sharing, and poorer performance. But, they will adapt and improve over time.

At an individual level, some people will find it easier to adapt than others.

• A study revealed that when people are imaginative and enjoying a new challenge, they are happier to embrace virtual teamwork.
• Extroverted individuals prefer face-to-face work, and virtual work may lessen the energy they get from social interaction.
• Introverts are better at adapting to a virtual environment as it involves less face-to-face interaction.
• Those who like to make quick decisions prefer virtual teams.

The dark triad of personality consists of narcissism (self-importance), Machiavellianism (strategic exploitation and deceit), and psychopathy (callousness and cynicism).

We are all at least a little bit narcissistic, Machiavellian and psychopathic.

The light triad is not simply the opposite of the dark triad. There is a little bit of light and dark in each of us.

A study revealed that the average person is leaning more toward the light triad than the dark in their everyday patterns of thoughts, behaviors, and emotions. Extreme malevolence is rare in the general population.

They favor stability, order and rigor.

Likely to stick with the status quo, they are deliberate decision-makers who are practical, focused on detail and reserved.

They value change and they generate momentum.

Direct in the approach to people and problems, they are technical, quantitative and logical.