[0:00] Music.
[0:08] Back to It's an Inside Job podcast. I'm your host, Jason Liem.
Now, this podcast is dedicated to helping you to help yourself and others to become more mentally and emotionally resilient so you can be better at bouncing back from life's inevitable setbacks.
Now, on It's an Inside Job, we decode the science and stories of resilience into practical advice, skills, and strategies that you can use to impact your life and those around you.
Now, with that said, let's slip into the stream.
[0:36] Music.
[0:43] Hey folks, welcome back to It's an Inside Job.
I'm your host, Jason Liem. And also welcome to today's episode featuring Dr. Brian Little.
Now, Dr. Little is an acclaimed personality psychologist and author of two books, Me, Myself and Us, and his second book, Who Are You Really?
Dr. Little's work challenges the traditional view that our personalities are fixed at birth, shedding light on the concept of flexibility and our inherent capacity to shape our personalities over time.
In this week's episode, Dr. Little will guide us through the fundamental elements that influence personality development, biogenic, sociogenic, and ideogenic factors.
Don't worry, we will spend some time defining these factors.
He'll explain how our biological base, the cultural and social environments we navigate, and our personal values and projects contribute to the mosaic of our individuality, our personality.
We'll also be discussing the concept of core projects and what they are and their significance in fostering personal growth and authenticity.
You, dear listeners, will gain insights into how neurotic tendencies can impede our progress, the balancing act between risk and reward, and the pivotal role of personality flexibility in adapting to life's challenges, finding resilience.
Dr. Little will also delve into to the big five personality traits and their impact on our behavior and our interactions.
[2:09] It provides a framework for understanding and navigating the complexities of human personality.
You know, this episode promises to offer valuable perspectives and practical tools for anyone interested in deepening their self-awareness and leading a more fulfilling life.
Whether you're seeking strategies for personal development, aiming to enhance your relationships, or simply curious about the dynamics of personality psychology?
Well, this will be your episode. So now let's slip into the stream and meet Dr. Brian.
[2:38] Music.
[2:49] Welcome everyone back to It's an Inside Job. I have a special guest with us today, Dr. Brian Little. Brian, welcome to the show.
[2:58] Thanks very much. Delighted to be here. Yeah, our mutual friend Jim put us into contact and I find that your background and the books you've written to be very intriguing, especially when it comes to personality, because I think a lot of us get focused on personality and sometimes we think it's a fixed trait, sometimes it's a floating trait.
And that's what I'd like to do is dive into your expertise and your knowledge and to understand more about the dynamics of who we are.
We have some time together, just a little over an hour, and you've written two books.
Your first one was Me, Myself, and Us, The Science of Personality and the Art of Well-Being.
So I was wondering, maybe could you give us a sort of a conceptual understanding of what the book is about?
Yeah, the first book was really an overview of human personality in the broadest sense, and sort of covering a lot of the history of personality psychology over the last few decades.
And I start off with the most prevalent conceptual framework for looking at traits, which are called the big five or the big six or the big few is a nice term that I think captures the delimited number of basic traits of personality.
I go on to give some other types of dimensions of personality.
[4:23] And then just as I did in a TED talk, I stop halfway and say.
[4:33] Is this it? Is this all we are, just a bunch of traits?
And the second half of the book is in large part an answer to that question.
There are fates beyond traits.
And so the overall focus of that first book is examining the case for how traits are important in understanding understanding how we are and how we interrelate with other people, and then pivoting at the end towards how there are other aspects of personality, particularly the personal projects we engage in in our life, that will tip us into thinking of ourselves as far more active and less passive, of far more self-creating.
The second book is based on my TED talk and is much more.
[5:28] Zooming in on that latter part of the first book to look at what I call free traits and restorative niches and how personal projects and the sustainable pursuit of them is what what really comprises human flourishing.
So the two are basically covering similar territory, but the second book is more focused on my own research over the last 40 years.
Well, maybe we can begin with the first book, because it seems it's a much more general take, and then you do a much more refined approach in your second book.
In your first book, you talk about three factors, biogenic, sociogenic, and ideogenic. Yeah.
I was wondering for our listeners, can you sort of define what those three concepts are and how they shape our personalities?
[6:22] Yes. Biogenic.
Influences on personality are those that are in part genetic.
It's biogenic, meaning developed out of biological processes, not biogenetic. Genetic is just one part of it.
Neurophysiological, biochemical features, those that we bring with us to situations that are the result of our biological propensities.
And for example, people who are highly extroverted have a biogenic tendency to be under optimal levels of arousal.
So they need to seek out stimulation to perform effectively, whereas those who are more introverted or over the optimal level, they need to get a a quiet environment to achieve their most efficient and efficacious pursuits.
So the biogenic feature underlying that is differences in the arousability in the neocortex, for example.
[7:35] Sociogenic refers to the cultural norms and roles that we acquire as we develop. develop.
And these are the, in the case of extroverted and introverted conduct, for example, there are norms governing whether you act in what we would regard as highly extroverted ways, or whether you're more introverted, not by nature this time, but by nurture within the cultural context of your country or your region.
[8:10] Or subregion. So there are many cultural features that operate right down to the level, of your neighborhood and interpersonal norms governing your everyday life, so that you may be enjoined to act very extrovertedly because that's the kind of culture you are in.
So if you have a biogenic tendency toward extroversion and a sociogenic affordance for it in your environment, then that's going to increase the likelihood that you'll be extroverted in frequent aspects of your daily life.
Idiogenic comes from the same root as idiosyncrasy.
And it refers to those drivers of our everyday pursuits that are personally idiosyncratically constructed.
And this is where I think the richness of human personality comes in.
These are the self-reflections, the personal projects, the strivings that one engages in that in part, not solely, but in part can provide a resolution of the biogenic and the sociogenic claims on your life.
And so somebody who's very extroverted and lives in a highly introverted culture.
[9:39] Um, may find that ideogenically they need to shape their behavior in ways that sort of go against their first nature to accommodate, um, to the, um, to the sociogenic.
And so all three of these play a really important role in how we present ourselves in daily life.
And I think it gives rise to many of the, uh, conflicts and some of the delightful eccentricities we have as a species, because we often will say of a person, what's with Jim today?
[10:17] He's acting so reserved in this meeting.
And then you realize that for him, his personal project for this meeting is to show that he can be reserved.
[10:29] And so we have this capacity to gate or to shape or to craft our personalities way beyond nature and nurture, which most of us in personality science no longer see as a dichotomy.
They're blended.
And genes, for example, under the biogenic side of things, can reach expression only through the stimulation of of environmental contingencies and so on so we've moved way beyond nature nurture and into the intricacies of the choreographies of daily lives yeah because when you talk about idiogenic that's that's more sort of as you said personal projects and I'd like you to operationally define that in a second but that comes down to our our habits our passions things that we do in our lives that kind of light our internal fire.
And I was just wondering, because, you know, a lot of us, we talk about the social influences, the cultures that we live within and how they shape us.
And a lot of us can find it a struggle sometimes to conforming to societal norms, but also trying to find our own authenticity, finding our own sense of agency.
[11:49] I mean, this ideogenic, biogenic, I understand it's the nature, it's the genetics, and then sociogenic, is the societal or the nurture aspect.
But ideogenic, I find that very fascinating. I'd like to explore that.
But maybe you can expand on how individuals, if they do or if they can't, inform the societal norms while trying to pursue their own agency or personal authenticity.
[12:21] Authenticity is a fascinating word. I think that there are, three kinds of authenticities. And we tend to tell a person to be herself or tell him to act naturally.
And I sort of see it as a kind of fidelity.
[12:48] Authenticity is a fidelity to each of your natures, your first nature, your second, and your tertiary nature, if you wish. The first nature is biogenic.
And so this is showing authenticity in the sense of being true to how you feel, doing what feels good and natural, unedited by social constraint, unedited by what your own personal goal may be in that particular situation.
And so it may be more automatic.
It usually is automatic rather than cognitively constructed.
And when you say there's Dave, good old authentic Dave, he's being the loony tune at the party and, you know, wearing the wearing the hat made of beaver skins.
And that's a kind of fidelity to the biogenic.
But we can equally say that you can show a fidelity to your life tasks.
Being a mom, this is socially constructed.
[14:08] There's, of course, a blend of biogenic and social construction to parenthood.
But I'm thinking of being a scientist, being a professor, being a doctor.
Being a good sister. These have constraints and roles and rules that one can show fidelity to.
[14:32] And many people will say, I don't know what you mean by be myself.
What are you talking about? What do you mean authenticity?
I'm a mom with a kid who's sick.
That swamps everything about me. But whether I'm authentic or not seems almost to be a kind of cheapening of the nature of my experience.
I'm consumed with my social, she may not say social role, but we would say in personality science, she's overwhelmed by the sociogenic claims on her life that are embodied in a child that needs her commanding attention. attention.
And so that's showing fidelity to what one ought to do.
Maybe, first of all, in biogenic with what one wants to do, and then with what one ought to do.
And then the ideogenic is the much more personalized, idiosyncratic, singular aspect of George that makes him Georgian, or of Elizabeth that makes her Elizabethan.
These are proclivities, projects, tasks that you make your own, that you invest in, that you commit to, and give shape and meaning to your life.
[16:02] And that is also showing a fidelity. It's showing a fidelity to what matters to you.
[16:10] It's important to note that that doesn't necessarily mean at all that it's selfish.
It's simply that it's personally constructed. And that means that.
[16:23] We may be able to anticipate the biogenic and the sociogenic aspects of a person's personality by knowing where they are, how old they are, what culture they're in, and a bit about their biology.
But in order to understand the ideogenic, you've got to engage in a narrative.
You have to make inquiries of the person.
You have to ask them. They are the authors of their life, offended is in that ideogenic domain that you begin a conversation and i often say that you know we many of us in personalities lines um have grown accustomed to using trait measures um as the gold standard for assessing a person's personality and for a while i i was part of a movement that went against this, saying the situational and other factors is more important.
But there's no denying that the biogenic and the trait aspect of personality is really, really important.
And assessing that is important, but it's just the beginning of a conversation about you.
So your listeners, if I said, you know, we had a pretty good idea from where you're living of the sociogenic impact on your personality.
We have a pretty good idea of what you would regard as wrong or right or worthy or estimable.
[17:51] And we may know about your biogenic traits.
But if I want to know what really steers your life, what is creating the motivational force for you to get up in the morning and carry on.
I need to say.
[18:13] Marianne, tell me what are you up to? What matters to you? What's salient in your life right now?
She may say, well it's Doug, my husband.
[18:25] He's not well and let me tell you a bit about that project and helping him through his sickness.
And.
[18:35] Jason, once you get to that level of discussion with an individual about their personality, everything seems to change.
Instead of putting people in pigeonholes and saying that we can understand your personality, we're saying, let's talk.
You know a lot about what drives you that we can help.
We know a bit, too. we can help you frame that we can help you reflect on it in ways that can lead to improvements in your life and so one of the other main features of the um of the both books is a focus on human human flourishing.
And the central proposition is that human flourishing depends upon the sustainable pursuit of core projects in our life.
And the sustainability relates both to the biogenics.
It's easier to sustain a core project in your life if you have the personality traits traits that make that easier to carry out.
We can get into some of those traits in a minute if you wish.
[20:00] It's also helpful for the advancement of the core project in your life if you have what we call the affordance of the environment, of the social context.
If you're driven to do X and your environment says don't even think about it, then it's not going to be sustainable unless you change society.
And so here is where we start getting into what I call the social ecology of human personality.
I think we've been far too focused on what the technical term is, integumented nature of personality that is stuck inside the person's head.
There is a social ecology out there of things that allow us, things that block us, things that provide paths, implicit barriers, explicit barriers.
From the level of the person you're living with to the global crisis in the world right now. God help us.
And I think we need, in the field of personality psychology, I think we take an extremely broad view of the human condition from neurons to narratives.
And that, for me, is part of the excitement of the field.
[21:22] Music.
[21:28] In the first part of our chat with Dr. Brian Little, he unravels the mystery of what makes us who we are by talking about three key things.
Our biology, those biogenic influences, the society we grow up in, or sociogenic influences, and our personal passions and goals, ideogenic influences. influences.
Now, this discussion is packed with useful nuggets for anyone interested in understanding themselves better and growing personally.
Now, Dr. Little starts with how our biology sets up certain traits from the get-go, like whether we're naturally outgoing or more reserved.
He explains that outgoing people might look for more interaction because they need more stimulation, while reserved people, such as myself, might seek quiet to keep from getting overwhelmed.
This bit about our biology helps us get why we naturally lean towards certain activities or settings.
[22:22] Dr. Little also talks about how culture and society we live in, well, they shape us.
The rules and expectations of where we grow up can push us to act in certain ways, sometimes even challenging our natural tendencies.
It's fascinating how our surroundings play a big role in how we act and present ourselves to the world.
Dr. Little also dives into how our personal values and what we're passionate about, our etiogenic influences, well, they allow our true selves to shine.
It is in these personal projects and goals that we really get to express who we are, beyond just our biology and what society expects of us.
He also places spotlight on something called core projects.
These aren't just any hobbies, they are what matters to us and reflect our deepest values and dreams.
They help us navigate between our natural tendencies and societal pressures, crafting an identity that feels right.
Getting involved in these projects is key to building a life that truly reflects who we are, mixing our innate traits with our societal roles in a meaningful way.
In this part of our discussion, Dr.
Little's insight shows us that our personality isn't something fixed but is always evolving.
It's shaped by a blend of our biology, our societal influences, and our personal choices.
[23:39] Music.
[23:50] Because you speak to fidelity or clarity when it comes to authenticity, and then you talk about human flourishing and the sustainability of a core project.
You know, some people seem, they just know what they want to do in life and their passion, it shows through their hobbies, through their focuses, through their profession, and they move through.
Then there's other people who seem to be spinning their wheels, who seem to be constantly in idle, who haven't found that direction.
You know, considering the biogenic, the sociogenic and ideogenic of that, you know, those people on, let's say, on the right who are able to kind of find their focus and way on the left, you know, who can't seem to gain any traction.
I mean, what influences those personalities? Why are some people so, they seem to be so well in tuned with what they want to do and they just chase after and their job becomes their life. it becomes their hobby, it becomes their passion.
Where other people, they could be 50, 60, and they still haven't kind of found their traction. Yeah.
It's a great question.
[25:01] Here is where certain stable traits of personality help tilt us in certain directions.
For example, the thing that would be probably most predictive of of the person who is frozen and is unwilling to take the risks to advance projects in their lives.
Would likely to be characterized by facets of what we call neuroticism, anxiety.
[25:37] Vulnerability, a fear of doing things incorrectly, doing things that are wrong, and a sensitivity to punishment cues in the environment.
Um the contrast here is with the extroverted personality um and the stable extrovert versus the rather more neurotically introverted person they make very fine contrasts in that the more neurotic introverted person is likely to get stuck at the inception stage of a of a project project whereas the the the more stable extroverted person uh is more likely to advance what why are they more likely to advance is in part only in part because they are highly sensitive to and responsive to reward cues in the environment so you know in a way they're they're half full full.
[26:42] Glass half full people, and may literally not see the negative aspects of a situation or an incipient project that their more sensitive or hypersensitive comrades and friends and partners may see all too clearly.
[27:11] They run the risk, the more extroverted, stable people, of going into situations or advancing passions and pursuits that are very risky.
[27:29] And risk is good if it's calibrated, and it's foolhardy if it isn't.
And so I believe there is a kind of superordinate aspect of personality, which is the capacity to be flexible, to know when to act extrovertedly, to know when to go for it, and when to pare back.
In other words, instead of seeing these as fixed traits, we can see them as free traits in which we are able to shift our personality style and set and perceptual processes to meet the challenges of the situation we're in or to advance the project that's got us excited and worried simultaneously.
Simultaneously so that would suggest you this would require a level of self-awareness to step back from our own internal narrative maybe redraw or rewrite that narrative if i need to be more extroverted in this case or i need to be whatever more introverted in this case so a level of self-awareness and maybe also self-compassion are necessary skills in order to be able to do this Yeah, very much so.
And I'm happy that you mentioned self-compassion.
[28:56] It's really important. Life is complex, and we have multiple claims upon us, and our first natures, our biogenic nature may impel us into situations where we're hurting.
We are excitable, agentic, extroverted people, and we suddenly find ourselves in a life situation where totally inadvertently we've hurt a lot of people around us because we're pursuing.
All the passion in the world are our projects, and life is a social ecology.
And you may find that the trade-off that you have perhaps inadvertently made between your own happiness and your flourishing is that you've alienated one of the major sources of the sustenance and the sustainability of your project, which could be your partner, your business partner, your romantic partner.
Or you don't realize after seven years of pursuing this goal that is the pinnacle of achievement for you that nobody you really care about likes you anymore.
You become a jerk.
[30:21] And you may say, what? Me?
How can you possibly say I'm a jerk? Well, how would you understand who's a jerk and who isn't a jerk?
And then you say, oh, my God, I'm being a jerk by asking that question.
And I think that these arise out of the conflicts between different ways of being as framed by these different sources, the eugenic, the biogenic, the sociogenic.
And it makes life complex.
And it means that sometimes we're going to hurt.
And we're going to hurt others. and here is where, this is why I say it's great that you raise self-compassion.
You can beat yourself up by saying, what the heck have I done after seven years of pursuing this fantastic project and I'm now at the pinnacle of my career and my kids aren't speaking to me and I've lost the only woman I've really loved.
[31:27] What What was I doing? I'm such a fool.
And I think you need to step back and say, this happens so often.
And don't keep beating yourself up. Change.
Make restitution.
Found new projects that are going to be more sustainable. Say, look, I could never have done what I did if it hadn't been for you guys.
And I've never told you that, and I'm telling you now, and if I keep talking, I'm gonna start crying.
So give me a beer and let me get out of this situation because it's very uncomfortable.
[32:07] Music.
[32:15] In part two with Dr. Brian Little, we tackle a fascinating question in personality psychology.
[32:21] Why do some people seem to sail smoothly through life's challenges while others get bogged down?
Dr. Little illuminates this mystery by discussing how our personalities, specifically certain stable traits, can either propel us forward or leave us feeling stuck.
Now, a key part of our discussion revolves around neurotic tendencies such as anxiety and fear and how they can make it tough for some of us to take risks or push ahead with our goals.
On the other hand, individuals who effortlessly move forward often focus on the positive and pursue their desires without getting weighed down by fears or failure or criticism, even rumination.
Dr. Little points out that maintaining a balanced view of risk is vital for this kind of progress.
Flexibility in personality is another crucial theme Dr.
Little brings up. It's the ability to adapt and adjust our approach based on the situation.
Whether that means stepping up confidently or knowing when to be more reserved.
This flexibility isn't about changing who we are, but about maneuvering through life's challenges more effectively, which requires a sharp self-awareness.
In essence, self-awareness allows us to understand our surroundings, to understand the situation, So we can adapt and evolve to the specifics of that situation.
So now let's slip back into the stream for my last part of the conversation with my brother.
[33:47] Music.
[33:57] Spoken to, extrovert and introversion. I think this dynamic, how we sometimes, your term was sort of pigeonhole.
Now you talk about these traits in your book. I was wondering if you could talk about sort of the nuances or the sort of the common misconceptions around these two traits, introversion and extroversion.
Could I maybe introduce very briefly the five traits, just so that the viewers where he's got a sense of each of those?
The big five, you mean the personality traits? Yes, please, please, please.
Yeah, great. Okay, I think this way we can get into nuances which you request, which I think is terrific and which I like to deal with. Please.
[34:42] So much of personality trait assessment is the fixed notion that you're either an extrovert or an introvert and or you're stable and neurotic and i find that very you know i find that misleading um and uh i think we've already seen the reasons why i i feel that is so, that said there's a very compelling set of literature now decades long that has shown showing that there are five major dimensions of personality, they spell out the acronym OCEAN.
So O stands for openness to experience, C conscientiousness, E extroversion, A agreeableness, and N neuroticism.
And in the context of how these predict human flourishing and human accomplishment
[35:43] and health and happiness and success and so on.
We might see these as things that the traits can predict.
They have a really interesting predictive.
[35:57] Capability, these traits. First, these traits are normally, I'm being a professor, I'm showing a normal curve with my finger and I can't help it.
They're distributed in the shape of a normal curve. So it just won't wash to say you're an extrovert or an introvert.
[36:18] They're normally distributed. So most people are actually going to be regarded as ambiverted right in the middle.
And then as it spreads out towards the extremes, you have people who are extremely extroverted, extremely introverted, and so on.
And it's the same with each of the other trades. So that's one thing.
They're normally distributed rather than bimodal, which means that you're clumped on one end or the other end. And most are in the middle.
The second is that they are independent of each other.
They're orthogonal, which means that if you're, let's say, open to experience, and the next one we look at is conscientiousness, you can be high or low in conscientiousness.
Or if you're high in extroversion, you may be high or low in neuroticism.
So each is independent of the other. And this means that when you look at them all together, statistically, they're able as a set of dimensions to predict outcomes very effectively.
If we go very briefly through each of them in the context of what do they predict.
[37:27] Let's start with the O of ocean, openness to experience.
Those who are high in openness to experience, in contrast to those who are more closed, really have a very low threshold for enthusiastic interest in things.
What's that? It's really interesting. Do you mind if we stop here?
I'd like to see what that is. Isn't that amazing?
This is a typical open to experience person. A closed person, I don't think so.
[38:01] Seems a little out of the conventional. I think we'll keep on driving.
[38:08] And the third major assumption that we proffer in personality science is that it's not the case that there's a good end and a bad end of these dimensions.
There's a tendency for us to see extroverted, agreeable, stable people as better people, and so conscientious certainly um but extremes on these can be very dysfunctional so if we take somebody who is open to experience they may be um so open to experience that they're empty-headed that everything is exciting to them and interesting and they have to explore everything and so it makes it more difficult for them to focus you're missing out right right and those Those who are lower on openness to experience can be, they do the tried and true.
They want to do things that are by the box and by the rule book.
And that can be very good. We need those people in society.
[39:28] But it can also lead to a very rigid way of living. and it does redound to the benefit of their own progress in life or of society.
[39:39] Um, so open to experience, if we just take the high end, very much associated with creativity and highly creative people are really fascinating.
There's a chapter in the first book just devoted to creativity and the characteristics.
One of the characteristics of highly creative open people is that they have, um, they're, They experience both positive and negative emotions relatively more than those who are low on that dimension of creativity.
In the sense of intensity?
What's that? In the sense of intensity of those emotions?
Yes, in the sense of intensity and also frequency.
And the frequency and the intensity is partially determined on where in the creative project they are.
And so with a highly creative person, you'll often find that when they're stuck, they're terrible to work with.
They can be real jerks because, you know, don't bother. Go away.
[40:46] I'm busy transforming Western thought or at least a better game that I'm trying to create.
And so they're far more likely to experience these bouts of frustration and anger on the other hand when things are going well for them and they're exploring in their creative zone they are just experiencing the peak of emotional positivity they are flowing, they are happy, they are joyful they are exultant and so So working with highly creative people can be.
[41:28] A real challenge. And one of the chapters in the book called The Myth of the Creative Hero, we often say these highly creative geniuses are worthy of a great deal of admiration.
[41:44] This is true. No one can deny that. But by the same token, they would never have completed those creative projects without those who are less open to experience far higher on that next trade of conscientiousness that would allow them uh to um to without whom they would probably never get those creative projects finished so if we go to to um the conscientiousness this is a fascinating one Jason, because it throws up something that I think is unanticipated.
Highly conscientious people, as you can imagine, are those who get things done.
They get them done on time. They're efficient.
[42:30] They're reliable. They're dependable. They're hardworking. They're high in achievement orientation.
Consequently, they do better in school. They do better in organizations.
They get better grades. They get promoted. They earn more money.
Everything seems really, really great for a highly conscientious person.
The other thing is that they're also healthier.
[42:58] Early on in personality science, it was seen as interesting.
I mean, not terribly surprising, but interesting because the other domains seem logical, but why are they healthier?
Well, I think it gets down to them being more likely to follow up on health regimens.
You know, they stick to the doctor's recommendations.
They will internalize a plan for aerobics or whatever whatever it is that then enables them to, um, to keep fit.
Um, and, uh, they actually live longer, um, than those who are the opposite end of the, of the, of the, um, of the spectrum.
Um, but, but again, in terms of overdoing it, a highly, highly conscientious people can also become obsessive compulsive.
Uh, and so they have to get, and you, you've got aspects of perfectionism.
[43:54] That can compromise the forward thrust of a person's concerns because they just can't live with not getting everything perfect.
And, you know, it is the enemy of the good in many cases. And I guess almost what springs from that is almost like imposter syndrome.
You know, the sense that, you know, people are going to discover that I am not as conscientious, is that I should not be here, that someone's made a mistake.
And so they will go, again, that leads into perfectionism. They will work.
Logically, they know they've done a good job, but emotionally, they're doing it three or four times, repeating it, just crossing everything, the I's and the T's and such.
It's a very good point. Yeah, it's a very good point.
They can engage in this compensatory and over-the-top behavior.
Behavior, George Kelly has a really interesting definition of behavior.
Of hostility, which is the attempt to extort validation for a viewpoint you know.
[45:04] Is probably wrong. And so this is an attempt to extort validation, for people saying it was right when you know that maybe you're not that good. good.
So it's really interesting how that fits in with the whole notion of hyper-conscientiousness.
[45:31] The extraversion, the E of ocean, is something we could spend more time on.
I'll just simply say that these are individuals who seek out positive reinforcement and are very sensitive to reward cues.
They're characterized by what are They're called immediacy cues.
When they're interacting with people, they stand close for comfortable communication.
They engage in a lot of gesticulatory behavior and so on.
The more introverted people stand back more. They're much more comfortable in environments that have low levels of stimulation.
And they can end up having some considerable periods of of awkwardness in their in their.
[46:29] People who are agreeable, or in this case, the other end of the dimension, disagreeable, tend to be very blunt and straightforward.
And I have a favorite anecdote that I have of an extremely extroverted guy who was a colleague of mine.
We did consulting work together, and we'll call him Tom because that was his name.
And he was as different for me as two people can be. First, he's 6'5", and I have a tendency not to be.
[47:01] He's a classic extrovert. I am an extreme introvert, and that may surprise people because I don't sound like an introvert, I guess.
Certainly, when I'm lecturing as a professor, I don't. uh and uh we had seconded to our project a person who was as different who who basically caused major schisms in the in the project team and the person who seconded him found out about this and said to to uh tom so what do you think of michael and uh tom responded in classic extrovertise i'll I'll tell you what he said in a moment.
And then they said to me, Brian, what do you think of Michael?
And I said, well, Michael, and this is classic introvert speak.
You know, we hedge things. We use weasel words.
So I said, well, Michael has a tendency at times of behaving in a way that some of us might see as perhaps more assertive than is normally called for.
And Tom just rolled his eyes. he said, Brian, that's what I said. He's an asshole.
[48:16] As an introvert, I might gently allude to certain assholic qualities in this man's behavior, but I'm not going to lunge the A word.
But Tom was a classic extrovert.
He's a bit disagreeable as well. And, we were very close friends. And as long as you realize that these are our natural propensities, these are our biogenic propensities then you can say oh you're a funny little guy there you go again and it is instead of pointing at a person and indicting them on a charge of introversion or extroversion it's a way of saying that's a really interesting kind of feature of personality you have and I love you Yeah.
[49:09] I guess it's almost like when you're given feedback, you want to be describing a person's behavior. You want to label the behavior because the behavior is very situational.
If you start talking about you are this or you are that, then you're labeling their personality. And who are you to tell me that I am this?
Yes, you can observe my behavior. And maybe I was a little overly assertive or not diplomatic enough in that case.
Hey, but, you know, the pain to, you know, to paint everything the way that Jason is, his personality is this.
I think that's probably a little slippery slope.
Behavior is easy because behaviors can be changed, at least from my perspective.
[49:49] Yeah, very much so. And this is why I think that when we start moving from traits to projects.
[50:00] If I can get into just a little bit of the science of the statistical aspect of it, that we can look at how much traits influence such things as happiness and positive emotions, negative emotions, and so on.
And there's research that shows that there is a link between those, but they're mediated by the experiences you have with your personal projects.
If you take projects out of it, then those links are going to diminish.
And so the beauty of that to me is that while it is possible to change our trades, and we might talk about that perhaps, it's a lot easier to change the mediating projects which help bring about change.
Positive life outcomes. You can, you know, if one of the reasons that extroverted people.
[51:01] Have, or let's reverse it, introverted people are less likely to make advances in domains of the social is because they don't engage with people, then instead of changing introversion as a fixed trade, you can provide strategies whereby they can learn how to introduce themselves without being embarrassed or do various things to increase themselves.
This could be like a personal project, a very mini personal project.
How to, for example, speak in front of people or how to engage.
[51:35] Okay. Yeah, exactly. And many personal projects are actually projects to change your personality.
Personality um one of the most frequent projects is um to um be less shy to be less introverted or to be less anxious and so these are each of these is is a variation on the theme of of one of the big fives wanting to change it if you ask people if they want to change their personalities they They most say yes, and most say yes in the direction of wanting to be, let's go through the ocean, more open, more conscientious, more extroverted, more agreeable, and less neurotic.
Yeah, that's what I was going to say. I hope less neurotic.
Yeah, yeah. More neurotic. That's the one reversal. Yeah.
[52:35] And just a couple of words on those last two, because we haven't talked about this explicitly.
The agreeableness is highly agreeable people are great to have in groups because they lubricate things.
Everything, you know, they're, they're, they're reversed to conflict.
And so if somebody is getting snarky, the highly agreeable person says, well, okay.
[52:58] Bud's doing his usual stick-to-us stuff.
Let's take a look at it. And so they'll move it along, and people who are getting a little uncorked because of Bud are happy to have that agreeable person there.
[53:17] On the downside of agreeableness, they can be taken advantage of.
They there's a certain degree of compliance that comes with agreeableness because they don't like to be involved in conflict situations.
And and that that's a kind of personal downside on the highly disagreeable side.
There's some really interesting evidence that they are more likely to experience health challenges, particularly relating to cardiovascular events.
And part of this is that a key feature of low agreeableness is hostility.
[54:05] And we know that you know we used to talk about the type a personality and used to think it was this hurry sickness or somebody was always busy busy busy busy and that was the pathogen leading to cardiac problems it's not that it's the hostility and leads to a really interesting conundrum which is if you have somebody who's very extroverted and very busy busy busy but it isn't particularly hostile.
And you're at a beach holiday with your spouse and you've been away for a couple of weeks and your partner says, you're going back to the room, aren't you?
And check your email. I know you're going to do that. I can tell.
Sit, stay there. Don't get up. Stay Stay where you are.
You're going to relax on this. This is our bloody holiday. So relax.
[55:00] Ironically, if he's just an extrovert, he's not a type A, he has no hostility.
You're likely to increase hostility, which is precisely the pathogen you're trying to steer him away from.
So, again, it gets into these delightful, very, very human features that make us intriguing as a species and make living with each other sometimes a bit of a challenge.
[55:29] Yeah, I think that's a very good way of looking at it.
You know, in your books, you describe as personalities are not fixed and that
[55:38] are not unchangeable, that they are fluid per se.
I'm curious more about a little more about how technology impacts this I was you know with the rise of social media and digital communication how do these technologies affecting our personalities and also to your title our well-being, Oh, boy, that's timely, isn't it?
And I wish I had a really clear answer to that.
My answer is going to be a typical professorial, introverted, contingent, weasel word one, if you could forgive me, at least this one.
Fire away. And that is it depends a great deal on the kind of medium.
It depends on the personality. A couple of my students actually did theses on the impact of social network on well-being as mediated by personality.
[56:38] And the results were complex. Basically, you know, you raise this in the context of free trade.
Right. So it's really it's a really perceptive way of framing it, because it may be that when we're on social media, we can act out of character in ways that we were never allowed to before.
You can be a blunt jerk on social media, or you may present yourself in ways that appear to be, to those who know you, as being very unlike you.
Who on earth are you pretending to be when you were on your blog?
You sound like you're from the wrestling fraternity rather than a professor of divinity at Yale.
And so I think that the media give us an opportunity to stretch the bounds of our presentation of self to the world.
[57:48] I think the jury's out on whether it is a net good or bad.
An awful lot of people decry the fact that we have lost direct contact with people.
And this was particularly so during COVID, so that we're spending a lot of time away from natural interactions with other individuals.
And having 600 friends take the place of having three or four intimate friends.
You know, for some extroverts, it might.
For some highly agreeable, intimate people.
[58:35] Maybe more introverted individuals, it could never even come close to simulating what you have when Debbie and Gary come over and Sharon and you hang out on a Thursday night and you just, you love each other.
And there's no substitute for that for some sensitive people.
And so it's, again, that combination of medium, which we can think of as being sort of on the contextual side of things, of the big equation, and personality interacting to create good outcomes or bad outcomes.
So I'm sorry if that was too much. No, no, no.
It was just more of a curiosity for me, because when it comes to the big five, as you said, the openness, the conscientiousness, the extra extra being extroverted, agreeableness and neuroticism and how you said, you know, sometimes you find, you know, people on the extremes and most of us fall somewhere in the middle of the bell curve.
You know, I wonder sometimes if social media, because, you know, we can sort of hide behind a mask or a pseudonym or whatever, that sometimes the ones on the extreme ends, you know, the social media allows them to even express themselves in even a much more destructive or volatile or hostile kind of way.
It was more of a curiosity for me. Oh, yeah.
[1:00:01] Yeah. In a way, you've taken the opposite tack to what I took.
And I think in a way, yours is more plausible that it does allow those who are at the extreme who otherwise might feel they need to modulate their behavior to just pull out the plugs and let themselves go.
And, you know, the angry person who in everyday interaction is likely to curtail those extremely hostile responses is just free to let blast.
Whether that's going to redound to their well-being or not is a really interesting question.
For example, we know that people who are very low on agreeableness are happiest when they're engaged in situations where they're having conflictful exchanges with other people.
So managers who are firing somebody who are low on agreeableness are really happy.
You're fired. Whoa, that felt good.
There's some serious research on this. And it seems that there are – maybe it is that the media –.
[1:01:21] Gives a much broader array of routes through which we can be happy, including those that certainly don't lead to increases in human happiness at larger scale, but may prove satisfying to the individuals themselves who are freed, as it were, to pursue their natural natural biogenic um proclivities yeah i just i just found it fascinating you know a strong part of your your the content of your book is the adaptability of personality you know i was wondering you know listeners might be thinking okay i'm this i'm this i'm this and a lot of people have the the misconception that personalities are they're static they're written in stone own but according to what you've written two volumes that is not the truth so my question is how can individuals or listeners if they wanted to cultivate more psychological uh flexibility effectively are there some sort of concrete things they can do is there certain focuses that they can pay attention to yeah i think that acting out of character is is a key point here and there's one One aspect of it that actually resonates with one of your other interviews that you did on restorative environments.
[1:02:47] Which is really fascinating and is I work with some of those researchers to
[1:02:55] look at what I call restorative niches.
So let me just make the case for what I call free trait behavior and how it helps us survive, develop, but sometimes create problems for ourselves.
Could you first begin maybe by operationally defining what you mean by a free trait? Sure. Just to begin with.
[1:03:21] Yeah, it deserves a simple explanation to clarify at the beginning.
A free trait is when you engage in behaviors that people in general might see as a particular trait, like extroverted, when in fact your own biogenic disposition is of the opposite.
You're an introvert or you're a highly agreeable person, but for some reason over the last three weeks, you've been extremely disagreeable.
And so you're engaging in a free trait there um and my um meaning that it's not yoked to your biogenic disposition it's it's you're acting out of character as you exactly you're acting out of.
[1:04:11] But those are two very frequently invoked examples.
The introverted teacher who acts extrovertedly because she loves to get her class excited.
The why is Emily, who is very the most sweet, the sweetest and most agreeable person you can imagine for all of August.
She's a hurricane of abuse because she's trying to get her mom into a care facility.
Facility, she's stopped at every turn, and she's just laying into the administration.
[1:04:43] She's engaged in free trade disagreeableness. Why?
Because she has a core project, that is to take care of my mom.
And the case of the teacher, she has a core project to excite my students.
Um and you can do this um for a bit and it it's okay um but if you protractedly act out of character um it can take a toll on on your on your um sympathetic uh nervous system and you can start to feel the um the physiological signs of of incipient burnout and so on but for example you You know, as I've mentioned, I'm dispositionally very introverted, but I just adore being a professor.
I love my students. I put on a show for them, you know, and it's genuine passion.
[1:05:42] Remember we were talking about fidelity early on? It's genuine in the ideogenic sense in that I just adore them and I want to engage with them, but I'm not an extrovert.
And so if I do that for a protracted period of time, I'm really overstimulated.
And unlike an extrovert, if there's a break in the class and we come back after 10 minutes, I have to leave.
[1:06:07] And a true extrovert would stay and talk to the students.
But i have to go and i often go to the washroom and put my feet up and make sure nobody sees me so i can get a restorative niche where i can lower my stimulation level often others a student will come in the cubicle next door and if anything's guaranteed to constipate an introvert for six months is talking to a student in the john but i uh that that is why we need restorative niches that actually work and um when you were uh talking um about restorative cities it's not just restoration in the sense of of having environments that are green and and close to nature but it's It's also providing niches, spaces, but also states and other projects that you can engage in that are restorative for you.
[1:07:13] Restoration for me means it gets you back for a time to your first nature, to your biogenic state.
So it allows you, if you're an overstimulated introvert, to settle down where you're in a much more comfortable position.
And that, I think that...
[1:07:38] We often act out of character for two reasons.
We do it professionally because we have to.
If you're a disagreeable neurotic person, you're not going to do very well in a lot of life's professional niches.
You're going to have to change.
[1:08:04] And so we do it out of professionalism, but we also do it out of love.
And many people will say that they have had a long-term relationship where they're just beginning to realize, and I've had people write to me about this, I've been acting out of character for 15 years because I love my partner.
And she's a flaming extrovert. and we go out and go out and go out and go out and i'm burnt out but i love her dearly and i but i'm feeling i need well what i have called a free trade agreement now it's a pun on free trade agreement but uh it means that i will act out of character character for you if you reciprocate and and act out a character for me and or if you will grant me a restorative niche so let's take the reverse a person who is um very introverted who has in a sense inhibited his extroverted partner, after a period where they've been in for a long time.
[1:09:33] A free trade agreement will say, yes, of course, you can go out with the girls on Friday night.
I encourage you to do that. Of course, you're able to. You can do that.
You're an agentic woman. But I fully think this is a great idea because when you come back, you will have been restored.
You need this. And that's the free trade agreement. And it's perhaps as difficult to negotiate as the Middle East agreements right now.
But it's something that I strongly recommend as a way of sustaining the joint projects of a marriage.
I really like that term, restorative niche. I haven't come across it until I, obviously it's a term that you've, uh, you've created, but I really love that because what you just characterized that relationship.
My wife is quite extroverted. I'm quite introverted.
And so we go out to dinner and we go out with friends sometimes and I'll do that. It's, it's a.
[1:10:31] How can I say this? I'm more introverted than extroverted. It depends on the situation.
I don't mind social events, but just like you, I have to retract myself.
[1:10:41] And I think I've been with my wife since 95. We've been together forever.
But I think what makes, you know, such opposite personalities work is that ability to negotiate, you know, these complexities sometimes.
Yes, we get in arguments, of course, and they'll blow out. And then sometimes everything Everything is smooth.
[1:11:00] But I think being able to have that flexibility with each other.
So sometimes when we are out of character, right, that we move back to that restorative niche where we can recharge our batteries. We can come back to ourselves.
We can find that refuge, per se, just to kind of, I guess, recharge ourselves.
That's the best term I can come up with.
I really like that. And I think three things that really came out to me,
[1:11:25] what you've been talking about.
First of all, is self-awareness to be able to switch that's how we can become flexible the adaptability understand the the ecosystem you're moving into and what traits does it require i think uh self-compassion to understand that sometimes you'll mess up but it's okay you'll learn and adapt the next time but i think also what you've also talked a lot about was sort of self-efficacy The ability where I can focus my energies and what I can do in order to maybe I'm out of character for a while, but then I can find alignment in these restorative niches.
Those are the kind of three selves that I see that you've kind of, at least in my head, that you've kind of touched on that are very important.
[1:12:12] That's a beautiful way of putting it. And I love the example.
Example um i think what i found over the years is just having people be aware of this issue um it doesn't require counseling or anything like that just being aware that sometimes your own personality um throws you into situations where without you realizing it and certainly not not intending it.
Your partner may be giving the illusion of comfort, but really uncomfortable.
And so after people hear a presentation on this, the kind that you've been curating so effectively, they'll often say on the drive home, how are you doing?
Are you okay? Do you feel blitzed?
And the answer is yeah. I need...
It's not very efficacious, but I think I need a G&T, but it'd be better if I just had a little walk by myself, not even the dog.
Just let me unwind.
[1:13:31] And to realize that the restorative niche for her may be the very opposite of a restorative niche for him.
Or a restorative niche for a person who's acted pseudo-introverted as so many people do in the office every day, is to go out and get stimulated.
Go and talk to a bunch of people.
[1:13:56] The very opposite of what is my restorative niche, or it might be yours, Jason.
I think that it's again, it goes to the complexity of personality, but the utility of views that give the general advice that you need to be flexible to adapt and survive and thrive.
And I think that's the theme of both books.
Well, thank you, Brian. It's been a very stimulating conversation.
I learned a lot and I've got some terms that I'm going to be adopting.
I'm not saying they're my terms, but they're They're going to be part of my vernacular now. Restorative niches. That was my favorite.
That's great. I really appreciate your time and sharing your experience and your knowledge today.
It was a pleasure and the questions were really stimulating.
[1:14:48] Music.
[1:14:57] In this insightful episode with Dr. Brian Little, we explored the intricacies of personality development, self-awareness, and how these understandings could lead to a more fulfilling life.
Dr. Little unveiled the complex interplay of factors that shape our personalities and influence our paths in life.
In part one, we zeroed in on three key influences of personality, biogenic, sociogenic, and ideogenic.
Biogenic factors were our innate biological predispositions, such as the tendency towards extroversion or introversion, which dictated how we engaged with the world around us.
Sociogenic factors stemmed from our social and cultural environments, influencing our behavior through societal norms and expectations.
[1:15:41] Ideogenic influences were the unique personal values and goals that defined our individuality. Now, Dr.
Little emphasized the role of core projects or meaningful pursuits aligned with our values in integrating these influences to forge an authentic self.
Now, in part two, we tackled the question of why some people advance in life while others seem stagnant. Dr.
Little pointed to neurotic tendencies like anxiety and sensitivity to negative feedback as obstacles to taking risks and moving forward. Conversely, those with a positive outlook and a balanced approach to risk were more likely to progress.
He highlighted the importance of flexibility and self-awareness in adapting our responses to different situations, and self-compassion is essential for navigating setbacks and fostering personal growth.
[1:16:31] And in the last part of our conversation, we introduced the big five personality traits encapsulated by the acronym OCEAN for openness to experience, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism.
Now, Dr. Little explained that while most people exhibited these traits to varying degrees, it was the extremes that could be dysfunctional.
For instance, high openness could foster creativity, but at an extreme levels might lead to impracticalities.
[1:17:00] Similarly, conscientiousness promoted reliability, yet its excess could result in compulsiveness.
[1:17:07] Now, this segment underscored that no trait was inherently good nor bad, but functionality was affected by how these traits were balanced.
You know, throughout the episode, Dr. Little offered a comprehensive look at the dynamic nature of personality, providing insights into self-awareness and personal development.
This conversation not only deepened our understanding of personality psychology, but also equipped us with practical tools for navigating life's complexities and pursuing a more authentic and satisfying life.
A personal thank you from me to you, Brian, for spending a good amount of your time, your valuable time with us today. And I appreciate the conversation.
I learned a massive amount and I will be thinking long and hard about this conversation long after this is launched. Well, folks, I am sure this has piqued your curiosity about your own personality.
I would highly recommend picking up either of Brian's books or both of them. They are companions.
They are almost like a volumes one and two. I will leave all the links into the show notes where you can pick one up or pick both up.
But anyways, folks, we have crossed the finishing line of yet another episode.
I appreciate you showing up.
And if you have any questions or feedback for me, please send them my way.
You'll find the contact information also in the show notes, and I always look forward to hearing your comments But until next week until the next time we continue this conversation keep well.
[1:18:34] Music.
