Posts Tagged ‘Personality’
6 Types of Shoplifters
Shoplifting is a behavior that, besides being ethically questionable, doesn’t seem like a very good risk-reward trade-off. Naturally, when psychologists see people engaged in that kind of activity, they ask: why? As it turns out, not everyone who shoplifts does so for the same reasons. A new study from researchers at University of Texas and…
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More Compassionate People Can Prefer Harsher Punishments
A compassionate disposition and a desire to see someone get their “just deserts” might not seem to go together. But a new study suggests that people who are more compassionate also prefer to see harsher punishments doled out when someone perpetrates an injustice against others. As part of the study, published in Journal of Personality…
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Perfectionism Has Been Rising Over Time
Millennials get accused of all sorts of things. Narcissism is a common one. That idea fell apart when scientists took a closer look at it. But here’s a charge that might stick: perfectionism. It turns out that levels of perfectionism have been rising over time. A recent meta-analysis aggregated data from studies in which over…
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How Much of Self-Control Is Genetic?
We each strike a different balance between following our impulses and second-guessing them. The amount of self-control we have can factor into how well we do in school, or how likely we are to develop addictive behaviors. For this reason, psychologists are keen on understanding where our individual differences in self-control come from. Front and…
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Your Personality Might Have Implications for Your Cat’s Wellbeing
It’s well-known that parents’ personality characteristics can influence their children. But a new study suggests that the same might also be true of cat parents. In the study, researchers in the United Kingdom surveyed 3,331 cat owners. They asked the cat owners both about their own personality traits and about the health, wellbeing and behaviors…
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What Makes a “Healthy” Personality?
Do you ever meet someone who just seems remarkably free of stress and comfortable with themselves? You might come away wondering whether there’s a certain set of personality traits that predisposes some people to be happy and successful no matter what life throws their way. This idea is one that’s long appealed to psychologists, as…
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Dark Personality Traits and Internet Usage
It’s a common recognition these days that the internet has a dark side. The anonymity, lack of face-to-face interaction, and low amount of effort required are all a natural fit for the less noble side of human nature. Psychologists researching the relationship between the dark side of the internet and the dark side of the…
Read MoreStigma Toward Borderline Personality Disorder Is Improving
People with borderline personality disorder struggle with symptoms that range from fear of abandonment to difficulties with emotion regulation to self-harm. Unfortunately, they’ve also traditionally struggled with another problem: stigma from mental health care providers. Stereotypically, borderline personality disorder is considered hard to treat, and people with borderline personality disorder are seen by clinicians as…
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The Personality of a Team Player
If you’re looking for someone who is good at teamwork, your ideal candidate is probably extraverted, agreeable and conscientious – but not too extraverted, agreeable or conscientious, according to a new study. The study was, fittingly, a collaboration between researchers in Romania, the Netherlands and Singapore. In it, the researchers examined the personality traits associated…
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5 Traits of Highly Resilient People
Intuitively, we all understand the idea of resilience. We have dozens of one-liners we can draw on to summarize what it means to be resilient in trite terms: It’s not about how many times you get knocked down but how many times you get back up. When the going gets tough, the tough get going.…
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