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The 7 Ways Your Personality Can Get in the Way of Your Success, According to Psychology
When a team led by Nobel Prize-winning economist James Heckman combed through data on thousands of people to discover what factors matter most for success in life, they found that IQ mattered a minuscule one or two percent. What mattered a whole lot more? In a word, personality.
Which might sound pretty terrifying to those who worry they don’t have the right personality to get ahead in life. But it shouldn’t.
If research is pretty clear that character plays an outsized role in life outcomes, it’s also clear that personality can change. Measure what psychologists call the Big 5 personality traits — extroversion, neuroticism, agreeableness, openness, and conscientiousness — when someone is 14 and then do it again when they’re 75, and the two tests will bear basically no resemblance to each other. What’s more, studies show that with a little bit of effort, it’s possible to consciously change your personality if you so desire.
So to sum up, your personality can make or break your chance of success in life, and your personality is, at least to some degree, under your control. This raises the obvious next question: Which personality traits should you try to influence?
