The Theory Of Five Personality Traits: an Overview

Ever wondered why some individuals are more successful than others? Even though, they possess the same level of educational, same years of job experience, similar backgrounds. And many times better qualitifications to do the job, but the job goes to someone else. Well scientific research has strong evidence pointing to personality traits play a major role on the level of success an individual will enjoy on their jobs. Thus, translates to higher income.

Scientists have found evidence on five major personality traits that human exhibit.

The big five personality are empirical or observable traits and the majority of people fall into those categories. A scientific study based on the big five personality traits done by Timothy A. Judge et all include the 5 personality traits, which are neuroticism, extraversion, openness to experience, agreeableness, and conscientiousness. The study also found that those personality characteristic tend to remain stable throughout life and that the influence heredity is a relevant on what personality a person is going to have.

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Each personality trait has its good and bad impact on much money people earn in their life time it makes sense. For instance, how can someone who is an introvert could be a successful salesperson normally those kinds of jobs are done by extroverts who have no problems talking to people for that reason they are called people person.

This article will give an overview of personality characteristics, and the whys of how it affects income. For starters, neurotics or neuroticism are more prone to experience negative emotions like loneliness, feelings of worthlessness, and are quick to anger.

Neurotics tend to hold negative emotions longer than other personality traits. For those reasons “neuroticism will be negatively related to extrinsic career success” (Timothy 627). Extrinsic career success refers to outside factors connected to career success such as how much money a person earns and the status they hold in their careers. It is expected of neurotics to always think they are right and do not consider the opinion of others, which hinders their capacity to work and groups and be successful at it. Depending on the level of neuroticism and individual with a low level of neuroticism tend to fare better because their emotions are more in check. But overall, it is well corroborated that neurotics “they may earn less money than their less neurotics peers” (Mauro 1). Perhaps it has to do with their low patience tendencies and temperamental nature that they do not stay in a job for a very long time or are not able to follow directions from others that explains why they have lower salaries.

Secondly, extraverts or extraversion is another personality trait also known as the life of the party personality. They tend to have a large social network, outgoing personality, and they are the type who talks before they think this may get them in hot water. At the beginning of their careers extraverts enjoy the advantages of having gregarious personality because they know a lot of people and that is a positive in their earnings. But a gregarious personality will only take an extrovert so far, if an individual does not perform well in the job that characteristic is not very helpful. Extraverts also report intrinsic success, in other words they enjoy their jobs or job satisfaction. In a study done by Angelina Sutin et all named Personality and Career Success: Concurrent and Longitudinal Relations study they found that extroverts “individuals who are assertive by nature may be more likely to ask for raises or actively seek better paying job opportunities” (81). This individuals do not wait for good fortune to come to them they go after it and they do not shy always form an argument. Extroverts tend thrive on careers such as politics, finance, communication, business, and law. Those careers are most of the time related to high incomes and prestige. Extroverts also earn more money than Neurotics.

Thirdly, Openness to experience is another personality type of the big five personality traits. This personality tend to like things that look and feel good for the senses, interested in learning, and in their I pods is full of diverse music genders because they enjoy variety in everything that they do. Since openness tend to like variety it is safe to assume they do not stay in a job for a long time and that has an effect on how much money they would make. Depending on how low or high the range of openness a person has it results in very traditional to liberal tendencies. Studies done on personality and it effect on income has found that “Openness to be associated positively with prestige, because of its association with education…but unrelated to income” (Costa qdt in Sutin 74). It is not hard to see the reasons why income is not related. This personality type is attracted to jobs such as writers, sculptors, artists, and composers. These careers choices are usually not well paid and most of the time a person has to excel in those professions in order to make a good living.

The fourth personality type and one of the most benevolent one is agreeableness. As it names implies people possessing this personality trait are cooperative, considerate of others, kinds, consider the feeling of other first and are well like by their peers because of their easy going personality. This personality trait is a good tea m player but “negatively related to management potential” (Timothy 664). It is easy to understand the why they are not good at team leaders. People in team leader do not shy away from giving directions to others, and being like by others is not one of their main concerns contrary to a person who has an agreeableness personality. Agreeable individuals generally enjoy careers such as psychologists, counselors, nonprofit organization workers. In those career field their personality trait their care for others can be observe. But it comes with a price because agreeadable individuals exhibit lower extrinsic career success “including lower wages” (Nyhus qdt Surti 73). Most likely they are not affected by not earning as much money their satisfaction derives from the feeling of helping others.

Finally the fifth personality trait which is Conscientiousness, this individuals are perfectionists in nature, do not act in the spur of the moment, do not like to procrastinate, and are very diligent in their work. The drawback of having such personality trait is that conscientious people do not cope well with changes and in wanting to keep their surroundings as perfect as possible. Their mental and physical health may be affected. Because of conscious people capacity to do the job no matter how they feel emotionally, they do well in jobs such as managerial positions, correctional officers, chief executive officers. If the job environment is favorable and well organized conscientious people report intrinsic job satisfaction. In a study that followed the lives of conscientious male subject found that “men with a self directed orientation (Conscientiousness) earn higher salaries” (kohn qudt in Sutin 74). Similarly, another study with conscientious female subject reached the same conclusion that conscientious individuals do earn more money.

In conclusion, the big five personality traits theory is powerful tool to predict intrinsic and extrinsic success in the workplace. Even though, individuals usually will display two personality traits, the dominant trait of the two personalities is the predictor of monetary success. Personality is a good indicator if a person is going to be a higher earner or a lower earner in his or her career. The time, effort, and dedication someone puts into their work have to do a lot with personality and that is directly related on how much money they will make. Neurotics because of their difficult personality earn less than the rest of personality traits. Extraverts in some studies were found positive correlations with earning. Openness has shown mixed results in studies of personality. Agreeableness is “associated with lower with lower extrinsic career success” (Sutin 73). Conscious people because of their core value, work ethnics they are the ones who are more likely to earn the most money and the personality characteristics they posses are worth noticing and emulating. Personality Tests like the Myers-Briggs type indicator which measures personality traits, how much a person knows attitudes, and abilities. This type of test can give a better inside to individuals so they know their dominant personality trait. And by knowing which personality trait a person have they can have a better idea of what aspects of their personality is hurting their potential earnings. But no matter if someone is a neurotic, extravert, open to experience, agreeableness, conscientious. We all need to remember money does not buy happiness.