How Well Do You Know Your Personality?

Ready to gain a deeper insight into what makes you tick?🕰🧠

👉 What is A Personality?

The term “personality” can be fairly ambiguous and have different meanings for different people. The American Psychological Society (2022) has defined personality as “enduring characteristics and behaviour that comprise a person’s unique adjustment to life, including major traits, values, abilities, interests, emotional patterns, and drives”.

👉 Why Delve Deeper into Your Personality?🤔

Furthering your own knowledge of your personality by identifying and understanding what traits you have, can really help you to build a better relationship with yourself. Understanding why you are the way you are can have many advantages for multiple facets of your life, let's take a look at some of these benefits…. ✅ Knowing your personality can help you to understand yourself better. This understanding can help you behave in a way that aligns with what you need as an individual for positive mental well-being. For example, if you identify yourself as having high levels of introversion then you can understand why you might not want to go to a party on both Friday and Saturday nights. You become aware that for you this is excessive socialising that drains your battery, to take care of your mental health you require time to recharge in solitude. ✅ You are able to understand other people better. Once you become aware of your own personality traits and how you need to act to be in alignment with these, you’re able to recognise other people have their own individual traits and needs. This can help you understand different social situations better which might otherwise have caused you feelings of stress. ✅ You are able to take the information regarding your personality traits and apply it to different areas of your life to make you happier. For example, if you struggle with high levels of impulsiveness, once you recognise this you can take action to minimise any negative consequences. Such as, if you have a tendency to overspend you can request help to set a budget and learn skills to stick to it. ✅ When you know your personality, you’re able to learn how you are impacted in different situations. Then you can learn to stop any negative patterns and replace them with behaviours that benefit you. For example, if you know you have high levels of stress after work so you comfort yourself by bingeing tv, you can begin to replace this behaviour with more positive ones that are aimed at reducing stress such as exercising, doing yoga, and meditating. ✅ You can identify your strengths and learn to use these to your advantage in all areas of your life! ✅ You can identify your weaknesses, potentially improve upon them, and take positive actions to minimise any negative effects they have on your life.

👉 What Makes Up Your Personality?🧠

Are you interested in knowing the different traits you have that make you, YOU? The Big Five Personality Model (Fiske 1949) can provide you with some insight...

The Big Five also often referred to as the Five Factor Model is considered the gold standard model for identifying and understanding personality. The Big Five has been demonstrated to be both valid and reliable in a plethora of psychological research, positioning the test as the “go to” test. For example, Dekker and Edwin Van Thiel (2020) reported the test demonstrated reliable coefficient scores and show good construct validity. The Big Five Personality Model is underpinned by the idea that there are five core factors by which our personality is compromised. It is different from some alternative trait theories as it proposes that each personality trait is a spectrum rather than suggesting an individual fits into one binary category. This means that when measuring one of the traits for example extroversion, you would not be considered solely extroverted or introverted but rather you would be positioned on a scale between the two. I’m going to explain these five core factors slightly more in-depth below...

🔷 Openness to Experience At one end of the spectrum, we have people who are willing to try new unconventional experiences and are imaginative and spontaneous. On the other end of the spectrum, we have people who are more practical, dislike abstract concepts, feel happier sticking to their routines, and are cautious about trying new things.

🔷 Conscientiousness At one end of the spectrum, we have people who are impulsive and more disorganised, dislike schedules, and procrastinate or fail to complete tasks. On the other end of the spectrum, we have people who are more disciplined with controlling their impulses, careful, paying attention to detail, and organised.

🔷Extraversion At one end of the spectrum, we have people who are more reserved and enjoy spending time on their own as they prefer to be in their own internal thoughts. These people think carefully before they speak, feel tired when made to socialise excessively, and dislike being the centre of attention. On the other end of the spectrum, we have people who get energy from being around others and participating in group activities. They have a wide group of friends, enjoy initiating conversations, and thrive meeting new people.

🔷Agreeableness At one end of the spectrum, we have people who carefully consider other people's thoughts and take these into account when making decisions, these people tend to take a more cooperative approach and are more empathetic and trusting. On the other end of the spectrum, we have people who are more likely to be competitive, less trusting of others, and more uncooperative. As well as taking little interest in other people or their problems.

🔷Neuroticism At one end of the spectrum, we have people who are more anxious with a tendency to experience more negative feelings, self-doubt, and depression. On the other end of the spectrum, we have people who are very relaxed, don’t experience feelings of worry, and manage stress well.

🙌 There are no right or wrong personalities. Everyone is different and that is what makes each person unique and special! Learning about your personality is intended to be beneficial in helping you adjust your life so you are better able to thrive. 🙌

Remember you are not alone! Happio is here to help you! 🤗. Here at Happio, we are very excited to announce we will soon be launching an interactive personality test where you will be able to take a short test to learn more about your personality! 👏