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Advanced Personalities

We talked about the basic personality dimensions, the big five. Now we're going to dig a little bit deeper and talk about some other personality dimensions. Now, you know, we could do a whole semester on this, we could talk about just dimension after dimension and how all these things interact and how they change. But, you know, I don't have that I have I have another hour and change here, we're gonna talk about personality, so I wanted to pick a few other personality dimensions that are really important for your life, for, for the work that you do for your ability to influence your habits, and and in particular some of those habits that are important both for your ability to really be smart and creative in the world and for your ability, teo, to be a leader in the world because I think that, you know, that's a lot of what we want to do is to know what our influence khun b in the world and our personality has an effect on that, okay? So we're gonna talk about that, and we are going to ...

pick back up on that question that we had before about some of the the spectra of personality characteristics that influence our ability to do particular kinds of things in our environment, okay? So there are a couple of worksheets here, and I'm just gonna, you know, I'm gonna give everyone a chance to take a quick look at him will take one question if we've got one that was hanging over, but if you go to page seventeen in the work sheet, there are in the materials again, you know, make sure you've got that. Pdf already. Um then, um there's a there's a a couple of personality inventories that are labeled n f c, which is not national football conference, but instead one that's actually need for cognition and another that's called need for closure. And if you just I don't want you to fill these out, that's why we're only gonna take one section you fill them out at your leisure, but what I want you to do? I know the people here did filled amount, but what I want you to do is to look over the questions and get a feel for what it is that we're asking the two nfc worksheets, the first one that starts on page seventeen and the second one that starts on page twenty one, and while you guys were looking, those over real quick will answer one question and I'm come back to this way had a lot of questions about personality tests, and I know that you mentioned that the nbt I was not the solution for a lot of people out there. This question comes from schumi, and they're asking about what other sorts of assessments do you recommend, especially for the workplace, trying to side if you're a good fit with a company with co workers with the boss now something like the strengths finders test where the disk test came up, any any recommendations for that? Sure so so so the nbt eyes one I say avoid aa lot of these other inventory, they're actually pretty good, so strength finders is a good inventory, that disk is also pretty good. Ah lot of for strength finders. What I would say is the issue with that is not so much the validity that test, I think it's a good test, the question is, how do you use it? So what strength finders is doing is it's asking you a lot of questions and trying to get a sense of what are your strengths, where, what elements of the work place or the places you're most likely to shine? And and really, once you discover I'm good at this, so I'm not so good at this? What does that mean for you? And I think that in many ways you have to recognize that almost everything in your life is a skill that can be acquired rather than a talent that you have or don't have. And so the first thing to recognize that is that even when there are things that you are weak at, those air still things that you could choose to become better out by putting in effort, okay? One of the things I like to say is that for almost everything in the world, if you were to put effort into it, you can be better at it than almost anyone you know, where talent matters and talent does matter but where talent matters is if your goal is to be the best in the world at something, right? So no matter how much I practice sprinting, hussein bolt is going to be better at it than I am he's got more talent, but if I practice sprinting a lot, I could probably be better than almost anyone I know certainly true with the saxophone, right? I am better than most other people I know in in playing the saxophone, but there are a lot of people who are, you know, great musicians with a lot of talent and a lot more time that they've spent on it they're much better than I am, so the thing with strength finders is identify where your strengths lie but recognize that that doesn't mean that you should avoid those things that you're currently week on but ask yourself instead, is this something that I want to spend the time teo to master and the answer that could be yes or no, that really depends on where you see yourself fitting within an organization all right, so that's given everybody enough time to take a look at some of those nfc worksheets and now I want to talk about these two dimensions. Um the first is one that's called need for cognition um need for cognition is sort of what it sounds like there is an individual difference between people in how much they like to think about stuff, okay, some people love to think about things, right? They they watched documentary movies, then they and then they follow up on that by reading a long form article in a magazine like the new yorker, the atlantic monthly uh, and then they take out a book on the library and then they won't have a whole discussion, and then they email somebody to find out more about it. They just dig into things, and then there are people in this world who just don't like to think, I mean, it just it's not that they can't think it's not that they're incapable of it, they just don't enjoy it, they don't needed I mean think about things you need to do in your life some people need to think and some people just they don't need to think you tell them something like oh yeah okay cool you know, you know they're perfectly content with the time magazine version of things you know not to take anything away from time but it doesn't doesn't necessarily bring that depth to it right? Chances are you're creative live watchers probably a little higher in need for cognition than the average population the average populations like yeah habits I probably have some um and so need for cognition is really one of these dimensions that that helps us to understand something about the way they we interact with the world and so if you are the sort of person who really likes to think I mean to return to one of the questions we had earlier what sorts of people are creative you can't be creative it turns out if you don't know anything right? I mean a lot of people love to think that you know, if you're too much of an expert somehow that expertise constrains you in ways that that will limit your ability to be creative I've got to tell you think about music for example coltrane was an expert you know and he was really creative you know great artists are incredibly creative you know picasso again you know it's seventy five years on task right? And so yeah, you know, expertise does not necessarily constraint creativity and this is true not just in the arts it's also true in in innovation, right? If you look at the inventors of lots of things, those inventors tend to know a lot about a lot of things, and tomorrow we're going to talk quite a bit about some of the the knowledge factors that help people to become more innovative and toe relief think mohr effectively about things in the world, but one of the characteristics is that people who are really creative no a lot and you can't know a lot if you're not willing to think it's just it's a crucial part of of that ability to acquire knowledge. So so one of the things that we care about is this idea of how much do you like to think about things? Another element that's really important is something that's called need for closure need for closure is the second of these nfc scales. The need for closure is this idea that, uh, some people really need to be done with stuff they need to finish things and some people really they they wanna hang back and really, you know, get us much information is possible delayed decisions as long as they can, so I have three kids they have some extreme personality characteristics one of my kid is as low in need for closure is it's possible to get I live in austin, texas? We have a great ice cream shop in austin called amy's ice cream it's one of these gourmet ice cream places and and they always have thirty flavors up on the board and bringing this kid to amy's ice cream is the most excruciating experience because he just stands there going, uh, that one and that one and that wait that one and and it's, just if we could be there for, like, forty minutes with line is building up up the street and he doesn't want to pick one. We actually did develop a little game with him after a while when he was younger, we would get him to get it down to two flavors and hell, he didn't want both he wanted one or the other and so we get it down to two and then we flip a coin and we'd say it if it's heads you get this one if it's tails you get that one um then we flipped the coin and if he was happy with the way the coin came out, then we stuck with it if he was unhappy than we gave him the other one, so we had to get him past the decision point okay, but need for closure is really all about how much do you like to get done with stuff? And if you think about organizations than organizations also sometimes different there in their degree of need for closure, I was talking with a colleague at one point who had a planning group that had been working on a project for ten years. They were they were planning a particular project for ten years, and as he was telling me this story, I was thinking to myself, you know what, guys, you need a few people in this group a little bit higher and need for closure because I got to tell you, if you talk about a project for ten years, there's just something wrong there, you're spending a little bit too much time thinking about it not I mean, not enough time doing now, where does this need for closure to mention come from? It comes from the fact that we have two distinct motivational orientations on the world. You could think of those motivation orientations as a doing mindset and is a thinking mindset notice I'm even sort of stepping forward with one and stepping back from the other, and we do that sort of thing both physically and mentally right think about, you know, everywhere and so we can get ourselves into that doing mindset sometime and say, I got to just get something done right when when a deadline approaches a lot of times you get into that doing mind said let's do it let's get moving right and then there are other times where we think you know what let's let's you know let's take a step back from this and think about it need for closure reflects as a personality characteristic do I tend to live in the doing mindset or two I tend to live in the thinking mind set okay and that that's the personality characteristic and then the question is to what degree can you influence situations sometimes to create the tendency for people to do things when they tend to want to think so for example if you buy a car right car sales people their hole um mode of operation is all about trying to create a doing mindset in someone who came in to think right so car dealers and want you to test drive a car because it's doing something they want youto talk through the financing with them because you're doing something what they really are trying to do is to promote the mindset of taking action rather than to just say you know take your time browse around think about it you know but don't necessarily take action right and that's you know so so so so we can create situations that promote thinking or doing and as a personality characteristics we have that propensity ourselves okay to either be thinking we're doing and every organization that people may work for has needs people with both of those characteristics organizations will fail if everyone's doing and no one's willing to take a step back and think through the implications of that and organizations will deeply fail if all they do is think because then they miss opportunities to actually engage with things all right so you really wanna have both of those if we think about brains storming for example you want to be careful that the leader of your brain storming group is not someone very high and need for closure the hind need for closure people they hear the first good idea in there like done okay, we got it let's move on okay um so you want to make sure that you've got that mix of people when you get a group of people together okay? So there's a couple of dimensions that are important let's talk about another one the next the next scale that we have in your worksheet if you've got that worksheet is a scale for narcissism it's on page twenty seven of the book it's labeled n p I and um and so we're gonna we're gonna get to that one of seconds off here if you haven't a chance to look at that quiz yet please take a look at that and you guys have any questions on anything so far yeah thinking that you talk about in the um need for kong cognition and the thinking that you talk about in the need for closure are those the same it doesn't they seems like there's a little bit of different types of thinking, right? So that's a great question um these two scales are related to each other, and if you look at the scores on them across people, they are correlated with each other because people who are high and need for cognition tend to live in that thinking space a little bit more than in the doing space, okay, but they're different in the sense that the need for cognition people are living that thinking space not because they're allergic to doing but because they crave complexity, they crave the nuance they really want to understand things. There are some people who are high and need for closure because of that our sorry lo and need for closure because of that that is they live in that thinking mindset because they love to think but there are some people who are low and need for closure because they fear making a bad decision, right? So so my son in the ice cream store it's not that he won too deeply understand each ice cream flavor it's that he's worried that if he makes one decision it will not have been the right one and he will regret not having taken the other one right and that can also put people into that thinking mindset rather than doing mind set which is why these two dimensions are identical to each other all right, so if you had a chance now to look at this next scale this is the the n p I which is one of the scientific scales that's used to measure narcissism narcissism is a personality dimension where if you are high in it I don't have a huge amount nice to say I'm sorry narcissists are like human energy vampires okay, what narcissists do is narcissus basically build up their self esteem and their self image from the adulation of others okay, so what they're doing is so they tend to be somewhat high and extra version but not all extroverts are narcissists okay? Some some some people are extroverts just because they like to be involved in the center of attention but extra version is a piece of narcissism but narcissists want the adulation they want people to really you know think that they're brilliant to think they're amazing to think that their ideas air great they their self esteem is built up by other people and this you know, sometimes that's okay, right? That is it narcissists aren't always poisonous in organisations, particularly if they are really great and pee and they're just they're just sort of basking in the reflected glory that they get from other people the problem is that narcissists in organizations can also structure their world to make sure that they get lots of credit for things whether they deserve it or not. So if you have a narcissistic manager for example, a good manager really make sure that everyone who's working for them gets credit for their for their contributions to the organization because part of what makes you a great manager is your ability to nurture the careers of the people working for you, right? I mean ahs a phd advisor for example I have students who worked with me and part of people's evaluation of whether I've been a good advisors do my students go on and get good jobs? You know, are they recognized for their growing skill as scientists? If I were a narcissist, then I would want to take credit for all of my students achievements and so I would be make sure that I was the first author on all of the papers that we wrote and I would give all the talks and I would make sure that I got all of the credit right that's where narcissism could take its dark side in organizations is that the narcissist is not spreading the credit around all right? They're not really making sure that other people are getting credit for the great contributions that they've made because the problem with but with narcissism is that that this this energy becomes a zero sum game I succeed to the extent that that in that in from that that this energy flows in word to me any time someone else takes the spotlight, that diminishes my own self esteem, and so I can't win unless you lose, okay, if you win, I'm losing today and not becomes a real problem. So when and the interesting thing is that a lot of times actually a competent narcissist, that is a narcissist who's really good at their job? Well, actually rise up within an organization early on, because they are people who let everyone else know about their accomplishments. They will, they will, you know, justifiably take credit for good things that they've done, and so they, you know, these are, you know, people who because they're extroverted and enjoy that spotlight of attention. Khun b very engaging in charming and public situations, and so they can be, you know, the golden child early on in there in their career, but as they move on, then it becomes clear that they're having an negative influence on the organization because they're taking the lines share of the credit for everything that's happening, and they're making sure that that other people are not really getting the fulfillment that they need out of their job, and so so what does this mean? Well, first of all, if you look through that scale and discover that you are yourself a narcissist, there is hope for you on I'm not saying there's like a twelve step support group for you, but it does mean that you have to recognize that you're going to say that you've developed a habit and that your habit is the belief that that when you succeed, the on ly way for you to succeed is for other people to be billed beneath you in this and a strategy that could be very effective for people who have that tendency is essentially to define yourself more broadly. So think about this your self esteem is being driven by the accolades of other people now itself is defined as me as an individual, then then I have to win when you lose. But let's, imagine I defined self as my organization if I'm a match, if I'm managing a group of people, lets imagine that myself is my group. Now every time somebody in my group gets an accolade from somebody else, I can claim credit for that because that becomes part of my extended self, and so we are a little bit flexible in our ability to define who we are, so just to find it a little bit more broadly. And that that allows it's still not the healthiest thing in the world. Maybe, but at least then you are allowing everyone else around you tohave off a pleasant, fulfilling and satisfying work. And, um, if you're working for a narcissist, um, good luck, it's hard it's, very hard. And, you know, and trying to help other people within the organs organization to recognize that that that the work environment has gotten unpleasant because people are really working hard and not necessarily getting the credit that they need or deserve from that that's, something that I think is important for people to do to try and help themselves out in that situation. So narcissism. One of those dimensions that I don't have a tremendous amount nice to say about yes. In terms of kind of reading our individual tests eyes it just anything greater than zero is like, the greater the worst. How can we? Yeah, I would say that s o so the theme of north look, all of us have some of these things to some degree. And and again, almost all of these scales are fairly well behaved, meaning that the bulk of people are going to fall somewhere in the middle, you know, and it's it's healthy. Teo, to enjoy some amount of attention from other people it's and it's it's healthy to enjoy some amount of time in the spotlight. It's healthy to believe that you have some degree of influence on the people around you, right? The question is, are you extreme on that and not? And most people aren't going to be extreme, because, again, you're going to get this pretty nice looking distribution. And so what I would say is, you know, if you find yourself at the very tippy top of the scale in this scale, then you should look at yourself and think, you know, maybe I'm a little bit, you know, at the end of this, and this is something I should pay attention to if you find yourself in the middle, you know, that's great it's not like just because being a true narcissist is a problem doesn't mean that the best place to be is a sfar from narcissism is you can get it is it is healthy to want to get credit for things you've done, it is healthy to want to feel like you've had an effect on the people around you, it's healthy teo to believe that when you tell a story to other people that that they're enjoying that story, right, it's just that if if you come to believe that you are in fact the exact geographic center of the universe and everything comes to you you know that that's where it begins to become a problem, any other questions let's see now I just want to share a good comment about you mentioned people working for narcissus working with narcissist this comes from valerie and she says I worked under no less than three narcissists they blamed everyone else for failures and took credit for all the accomplishment as a please like me person I initially tried to feed their egos, but when I stopped they turned on me. How can we best handle narcissist without losing our own self esteem right? And hopefully we've we've talked a little bit about that, but it is tough, it is tough and you and I think that that that you know you raised this point that those people who I mean thiss common and raised a very good point, which is if you are the sort of person who is very agreeable, wants to please other people you can really get sucked into the orbit of the narcissist, and it is important to recognize that even though generally speaking you want people to like you that it's okay actually to stand up to the narcissist and teo and to really try and exert some amount of individuality because they're not going to like it right, but hopefully hopefully within the organization enough people will begin to recognize what's going on that um that you'll get a little bit more oversight within within the group on guy if you have ah very, very low narcissism is that are you started like not like a doormat, but is that sort of something that you need to be thinking about right? So the if you're very very low in it than what you then really that reflects often it reflects ah fairly high degree of introversion write that in and we talked about this a little bit earlier you know that you really don't necessarily like that, you know, people to be paying attention to you is that a problem depends on what you do for a living, right? Um so one of the things we're gonna talk about it a little bit is that that for example, one of the profiles for people who are really effective managers is that really effective managers need to have a least a moderate degree of extra version because a manager needs to be able to bring attention to the accomplishments of their group, right? If you work for a big organization and you're managing a group of people you want everyone else in the organization and know what great things are being done by your group, then if you hang back at the edge of meetings of people atyour managerial level nobody finds out what great things were being done, and it doesn't help you. And it doesn't help the people working for you. So if you find yourself in that kind of role and you're scoring really low on that narcissism index, it's, probably because you're, you're not the sort of person who's gonna want to take that step into the spotlight and tell people what great things are going on in your group and that's, the place where you might want to develop some strategies for making sure you're bringing attention to those kinds of accomplishment. All right, so I was narcissism. You know. We're gonna pick a pick another one here and again, we'll take another question in a second, while some people who have the pdf or downloading the pdf as we speak um have a chance to look at one of the other scales this is the risk tolerance scale and this is an interesting one is well, I want you to read this over you'll notice that there are letters after the different questions and I left those letters on there if you normally took the scale, you wouldn't get these letters and I left thumb on there because they refer to different kinds of risks and I want you to see what sort of risks air out there so just take a quick look this is on page twenty nine of the booklet take a quick look at some of those questions we'll uh we'll answer one more and while you're doing that on dh will come back right now. This one comes from the joy project, and they say, what is the relationship between narcissism and habits and goal setting? Okay, so the relation between narcissism and habits and gold setting well, you know, a narcissist has a particular set of habits that they're likely to have developed because they really again wantto wantto angle themselves to be in situations in which they can be recognized for the good things that they've done and a cz one of the questions pointing out earlier we also get a tendency for people to be blamed for the failures that they go on when so other people are going to get blamed for the failures. So these air habits actually, that narcissists have gotten into a narcissist, you know, can engage in the normal processes of of trying to set goals and habits. But the big problem is if your habit is to externalize the the sources of failure. So we talked yesterday a little bit about the importance of failing and that failing is a learning experience and not so failure shouldn't be punished. The problem is, if you're a narcissist and you fail at something, you come to believe that that failure is a bad reflection on you as a person, and so you really want to avoid that bad reflection. So what do you do? You cast blame on others or other things for the for your failure. So you say it wasn't my fault, you know, she didn't do our job and the economy tanked and, you know, and I was tired that, you know, it's all of these external situations that were the cause of your failure, and so when you externalize all of that, you don't necessarily take responsibility for your role in the failure, and that makes it difficult for you, too, to make corrections to do things better the next time. So one of the places where narcissism khun get in the way of good habit formation and behavior change is that if you're not learning enough from failure, then you're likely to keep repeating a certain number of mistakes. So so that's. One of the places where I think narcissism could get in the way.