Our first paper in psychology was between a few different topics, but overall, fairly open ended. I feel I waffled a bit in order to fill up the space requirement in some parts but overall I feel good about it.  The last two paragraphs are probably something I would have written in a blog post anyway…

Explain how the Big Five Model of Personality has influenced your perception of others using the “Big Five” traits.

The textbook defines the “Big Five” personality traits as “1) openness to experience, 2) conscientiousness, 3) extroversion, 4) agreeableness, and 5) neuroticism.” (pg. 71) The book describes how the big five is widely accepted as the best way to define personality and individual differences. In short, these traits tend to give a good representation of our ‘personality.’ How open are you to new things? Are you agreeable or do you tend to be stubborn and argue? These, and other, traits are learned by those around you to build a perception of who you are in a very general sense.

I don’t think the big five can really narrow down a person’s true self, however it’s intended use seems to be a way to paint people with a broad brush (relative to how complex are personalities really are). I tend to fall in line with Paul where the text describes, “It sees behavior as a product of distinct personality traits that we all have to a greater or lesser degree. In this new view, we’re all just a little big ‘crazy’ or simply exhibit a picture of who we are.” (pg. 72) I agree with Paul in the sense that I don’t believe that most people exhibit the same behavior or ‘personality’ in every social situation, which begs the question, how many of us actually know our own true selves. Either way, the big five seems to achieve it’s goal in generalizing personality enough to quantify it in social experiences, and thus, we can use it to describe how it affects how we perceive people.

The real trick to understanding the ‘big five’ traits and more importantly, understanding yourself, is being able to define these traits in a meaningful way. The personality project has a table which breaks down theorists and how they define these five traits. (http://personality-project.org)

The big five seems to be most useful with initial impressions of a person, therefore a person who is seen as ‘open to experience’ might be seen as creative or possibly daring to some extreme. A conscientious person would most likely seen as honest and dependable. Extroversion would define someone who gets along with others well; possibly charismatic and talkative. Agreeableness would judge someone’s level of irritation of dominance; possibly how easily you let things go. Lastly, neuroticism would deal mainly with how the person looks inward; traits like being vulnerable or insecure.

In my experience, I seem to look for specific things when meeting a person in order to define them (although I don’t realize this at the time). For me, openness to experience and conscientiousness seem to be the two big factors I look at when meeting someone for the first time. A realistic ego and an open mind seem to build my respect more so than the other traits. But more importantly than what builds respect in my mind is why these things build respect. Upon really reflecting about this topic I’ve come to see I value the traits that are closest to my own (or at least how I perceive myself). I value truth, honesty and open mindedness in my own mind which, I can only think, is why I value and respect them in others.

In short, I suppose people tend to surround themselves with like minded individuals, so it’s reasonable to assume the personality traits that make up the core of that individual will be most heavily scrutinized when meeting others. If done right, using these values (which people do whether they realize it or not) to create common ground can lead to a happy and healthy relationship with another, but you must really know who you are before you can make it work.

I will preface this one by saying that I might be completely in the minority on this one, but I suspect I am not. After all, how many Marvin the Robot’s have you met?

I am displeased that the text labels optimism and pesimism as black and white. After reading (Pg 124-126) and doing a few thought experiments I came to the conclusion that most people I know don’t fall into the ‘optimist’ or ‘pesimist’ category. I, for example, don’t expect things that happen to me to be good or bad, but instead expect them to be the result of what is really the case. It is what it is, in other words.The book seems to use both optimism and pessimism in conjunction with some state of self delusion, as if most kid themselves into thinking they’re going to do great or fail. This might be the case but in my experience I don’t have many expectations or preconceived notions about what might happen (circumstantial, I suppose).

If I had to choose, I would probably choose optimism because I would like to think that I control a portion of what happens to me. Obviously, nobody lives in a world where they control every variable of their life; after all, your actions are the only ones you CAN control. There are both negative and positive things that can happen to people, and all you do is lean yourself in one direction or the other.

I haven’t really thought through how this effects preparedness in a person. I mean, if you think the outcome of something is going to be bad, why even try? I can’t imagine every person who labels themselves as a ‘pessimist’ doesn’t lock their doors at night just assuming it won’t make a difference.

More school work here.