From strikers to safety disasters to Deion Sanders to George Santos, the year 2023 was filled with many remarkable personalities, incidents, and even disasters. Yes, here are the 2023 derailers of the year.

The Hogan Development Survey (HDS) measures 11 performance risks called derailers. In Hogan terms, derailers are personality strengths that can get people into trouble during times of stress, burnout, complacency, or other moments when we aren’t self-monitoring. HDS scores can be used to help individuals recognize and mitigate potential areas for career derailment.

In their traditional year-end episode of The Science of Personality, cohosts Ryne Sherman, PhD, and Blake Loepp use newsworthy people or events from 2023 to represent the spirit of the derailers.

Excitable: OpenAI Board

To kick off the derailers of the year, the OpenAI board represents Excitable. The Excitable scale refers to emotional decision-making fueled by intense, volatile moods. The OpenAI board fired CEO Sam Altman on a Friday afternoon and rehired him early the following week. Subsequently, the board was reconfigured, including a seat for former competitor Microsoft—a corporate emotional rollercoaster.

Skeptical: Things in the Sky

In 2023, we experienced a lot of unusual sky events that led to uncertainty and questioning. One concerned public conversation about UFO phenomena, and another had to do with the so-called Chinese spy balloon. The Skeptical scale measures a person’s likelihood to seem cynical, distrustful, and fault-finding. These incidents related to things in the sky raised the level of skepticism toward governments, media, and the nature of evidence.

Cautious: Federal Reserve Interest Rates

The Cautious scale concerns deferring decisions to wait and see. Global inflation has created a worldwide effect of investment hesitance. In 2022, the US Federal Reserve interest rate was close to 0 percent; in 2023, it rose to 5.5 percent in an effort to curb inflation. This change has created a sense of caution among startup investors in tech and other industries, limiting business investments. It has also affected the US housing market, limiting real estate investment.

Reserved: John Wick

The John Wick franchise, which originated in 2014, features actor Keanu Reeves as a retired assassin who gets drawn back into crime. In the 170-minute John Wick: Chapter 4 (2023), the character speaks only 380 words. This represents the Reserved scale, which measures the tendency to seem socially withdrawn, tough, or uncommunicative. A high Reserved manager in derailment might lock themselves in their office and refuse to answer questions. Similarly, in the film, John Wick takes a phone call without speaking even once.

Leisurely: Southwest Airlines

The Leisurely scale involves overt cooperation but private resistance. High Leisurely leaders tend to seem polite and friendly on the outside but are resentful or resistant on the inside. Southwest Airlines represents this derailer because of a series of flight delays caused by system problems at the end of 2022 and throughout 2023. The airline’s consistent technical issues caused a snowball effect that arguably damaged the whole industry’s reputation.

Bold: Elon Musk

Last year, he stood for Diligent; this year, he stands for Bold. Elon Musk made an inexplicable decision to change the Twitter brand name to X and retire the blue bird logo. Brand changes should not be undertaken lightly, especially when the brand is a household name like Twitter was. However, the Bold scale is about overconfidence and having a supreme belief in yourself despite all odds.

Mischievous: Safety Disasters

The Mischievous scale concerns not following rules, regulations, or guidelines. In the business world, a Mischievous event would be avoiding safety procedures to gain more profit. One of the numerous safety disasters of 2023 was the East Palestine, Ohio, train derailment. The train, which was 1.75 miles long, derailed while carrying hazardous materials, causing the temporary evacuation of the area. Another was the Titan submersible implosion, which resulted in five casualties. Stockton Rush, CEO of OceanGate, who died in the implosion, had previously made statements about his lack of concern with safety.

Colorful: Deion Sanders

Deion Sanders, a former American football and baseball player nicknamed Coach Prime, is the head coach of the Colorado Buffaloes. The Colorful scale concerns grabbing the spotlight and catching attention. Sanders, who was named the 2023 Sports Illustrated Sportsperson of the Year, has received lots of media coverage about his leadership and performance.

Imaginative: George Santos

George Santos was expelled from US Congress this year for fraud and misuse of campaign funds. Upon investigation, his biography—including his employment record, education, and even criminal history—appeared to be fabricated. The Imaginative scale relates to creative, unconventional thinking characterized by impracticality and eccentricity. Santos seems to have dreamt up a story about himself that he pretended was true.

Diligent: Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour

Taylor Swift’s Eras tour represents the Diligent scale for its hard work and high standards to the point of perfectionism. The Eras tour is the first to gross more than one billion US dollars, a testament to the success of Taylor Swift, who was named the Time Person of the Year for 2023. In her 151 shows across five continents, Taylor Swift covered 44 songs in more than three hours. The planning, preparation, and effort necessary to average a show every 4.1 days for nearly two years is a seriously Diligent achievement.

Dutiful: Strikers

The United Auto Workers strike lasted for 46 days, the longest UAW strike in 25 years. Nearly all the UAW workers’ demands were met because they demonstrated commitment to the group. Also, the Writers Guild of America strike lasted for 148 days, tied for second longest strike in WGA history. Both strikes significantly impacted their respective industries because of all the people who maintained the strike. The Dutiful scale relates to loyalty, following orders, and staying in line.

Thank you to the guests of The Science of Personality for sharing your knowledge and experience. Thank you also to the listeners of The Science of Personality for supporting the podcast.

Listen to this conversation in full on episode 91 of The Science of Personality. Never miss an episode by following us anywhere you get podcasts. Cheers, everybody!

It’s easy to assume that baby boomers, Gen Z, millennial, and Gen X generations all differ significantly. After all, each generation entered the workforce under drastically different conditions. But how different are they in terms of personality? The Science of Personality cohosts Ryne Sherman, PhD, and Blake Loepp dive into decades of Hogan personality data to explore generational differences in personality.

A top takeaway from the data? It’s more valuable to focus on individual differences, not generational differences.

Studying Generational Differences in Personality

We naturally wonder whether generational differences in personality exist. In our daily lives, we encounter situations that can seem to be caused by generational differences, especially between people who grew up in significantly different technological eras. We also might be curious about whether the generation that entered the workforce during COVID-19 shows personality differences.

To address common questions about how to recruit candidates or motivate employees based on their generation, the Hogan data science team conducted an internal study about generational differences.

Regarding the methodology of the study, keep in mind that Hogan has collected personality data over the past few decades. Although age is often confounded with generation, the two aren’t the same. The data science team analyzed three factors that impacted the assessment: (1) the person’s age, (2) the person’s generation, and (3) when they took the assessment. For example, someone who is age 55 and belongs to Gen X might have taken the Hogan assessments 20 years ago at age 35; these data could differ from those of people aged 55 and 35 who take the assessments today. To keep those millions of data points in line, Hogan data scientists used age-period-cohort analysis. This method of statistical analysis allows analysts to separate age effects from time-period effects from birth cohort or generation effects. “The analysis is pretty simple, but the mathematics behind it are complex,” Ryne observed.

The truth is that data don’t always support commonplace assumptions about generational differences. We might assume that adults in the youngest generation have more sexual partners—but data prove that they don’t.¹ Similarly, data show that there aren’t very many generational differences in personality at all.

Changes in Personality

On average, age effects represent a very small percentage of the personality pie, between five and 10 percent. Time-period effects represent somewhere between two and five percent of the pie. Generation effects represent somewhere between one and two percent of the pie. The rest of the pie is made up of individual differences unrelated to age, time period, or generation. “That’s the core part of the self that individuals take with them wherever they go and that makes up the majority of the variability in our assessment scores,” Ryne said.

Hogan data scientists analyzed data from all three assessments: the Hogan Personality Inventory (HPI), which describes everyday strengths; the Hogan Development Survey (HDS), which describes derailers, or potential shortcomings; and the Motives, Values, Preferences Inventory (MVPI), which describes values, drivers, and unconscious biases. Together, these assessments draw a portrait of someone’s observable behavioral tendencies based on reputational data.

Environmental and Social Effects in Personality Data

The environment someone experienced as a young adult—a recession, depression, crisis, or pandemic—doesn’t seem to have a generational effect on personality.

Although we don’t see significant generational differences in personality assessment scores, scores can change over time. “We’ve seen a slight rise in [the HDS scale] Skeptical over the time period that the HDS has existed,” Ryne said. The Skeptical scale measures perception and insight, which can appear as cynicism or distrust when overused or unregulated. Ryne attributes this slight change to people becoming less trustful of institutions around the globe. Increased scores on Skeptical might also be related to the amount of information people are exposed to every day.

The study also revealed an increase in the MVPI Hedonism scale scores over the last two decades. The shift could stem from changes in societal attitudes about work-life balance. People around the globe might be more likely to embrace the “work hard, play hard” concept we associate with the Hedonism scale, which measures preference for fun, lighthearted, open-minded work environments. Time-period effects can affect our perceptions of generational differences; even though all people have shown increased Hedonism, people might attribute the change to younger generations only.

Age Effects in Personality Data

Personality is highly stable, even to the extent that personality in elementary school can predict adult personality 40 years later.² Nonetheless, data show predictable changes in personality due to age.

Older people tend to score lower on average on many of the HDS scales, which is likely a sign of maturity. Describing older working adults, Ryne said, “You start finding different ways to deal with problems. Problems that you thought were a really big deal at one time aren’t actually that big of a deal. That just comes from experience.” The HPI scales and the MVPI scales show similar curvilinear effects in data, with some scale scores increasing and some decreasing over time depending on age.

Age Versus Generation Effects in Personality Data

Age effects trump generation effects. A person’s age is more likely to affect their personality than their generation is. In other words, the personality data of a baby boomer and a Gen Zer collected at the same age will show little to no difference because of generation, even though the time periods of the data may be separated by many years. “In this hypothetical world, 21-year-olds look like 21-year-olds, 40-year-olds look like 40-year-olds, 60-year-olds look like 60-year-olds—that’s just part of what it means to mature,” Ryne said.

When a person completes Hogan’s personality assessments, their results are scored using a global norm, which is a dataset collected from working adults around the world. This diverse sample is representative of the global working population. Up to 53 percent of the sample are under age 40, and about 47 percent are age 40 or older.

Hogan’s data show that early-career workers tend to be somewhat more emotional, bold, daring, and risk taking, on average. These personality strengths are likely to benefit someone with less work experience. In someone further advanced in their career, those same characteristics might seem immature or irresponsible. It makes sense for people to adapt their behavior as their roles change over time.

Takeaways from the Generational Differences Study

Hogan Assessments can provide a definitive answer to the question of generational differences in personality. “We’ve got millions of cases. In fact, there are no generational differences,” Ryne said.

What people want is not driven by belonging to a specific generation. If anything, it can be mildly affected by age. Adults entering the workforce today have characteristics in common with their baby boomer counterparts when the baby boomers were beginning their own careers. People who want to know how to recruit today’s generation should recall their own career goals when entering the workforce—such as stability with opportunity for development. However, neither generation nor age effects are the most significant factor in personality.

The greatest part of our personality comes from individual differences. Treating people as individuals rather than as members of a generation is the best approach in work and in life.

“Ignore generation. Ignore age,” Ryne said. “To me, it’s all about that individual focus.”

Listen to this conversation in full on episode 89 of The Science of Personality. Never miss an episode by following us anywhere you get podcasts. Cheers, everybody!

References

1. Twenge, J. M., Sherman, R. A., & Wells, B. E. (2017). Declines in Sexual Frequency among American Adults, 1989-2014. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 46(8), 2389–2401. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-017-0953-1
2. Hampson, S. E., & Goldberg, L. R. (2006). A First Large-Cohort Study of Personality-Trait Stability Over the 40 Years Between Elementary School and Midlife. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 91(4), 763–779. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.91.4.763

When demands on productivity escalate while resource availability and team sizes shrink, the pressure to do more with less fuels stress. With daily stress reaching an all-time high for the second year in a row, employee burnout remains a global challenge.¹

Although burnout is the result of unmanaged chronic workplace stress,² it’s not an exclusively individual problem. It’s also an organizational phenomenon with organizational causes and remedies. Due to this complexity, among other reasons, burnout is not a simple issue to address. Still, many talent professionals are tasked with the challenge of retaining and engaging burned-out workers—sometimes while facing burnout themselves.

Read on to discover causes of employee burnout, individual differences in burnout, and how personality can help with recognizing and managing employee burnout.

Causes of Employee Burnout

Two of the greatest causes of employee burnout have to do with organizational environment and expectations. Employees experiencing a toxic workplace environment are more likely to report burnout and leave their employers.³ Behaviors that contribute to a toxic workplace environment include the abusive, discriminatory, or unethical speech and actions of leaders and peers. Another driver of burnout is the systemic imbalance that causes organizational demands to exceed individual resources, such as when layoffs reduce team size without any adjustment to the team’s required work product.³ This condition leads to unreasonable expectations, overwork, and heightened stress for employees. These issues lie within the responsibility and control of organizations.

While the causes of employee burnout are often organizational, individual differences in personality can explain how burnout affects behavior. This is why understanding personality is an important metric in understanding burnout. Insights from certain well-validated personality assessments can help leaders, coaches, and talent professionals assist organizations in recognizing burnout.

Individual Differences in Employee Burnout

Although burnout can happen to anyone, how likely, quickly, or noticeably burnout might happen varies by person.

Two of Hogan’s three personality assessments can help explain who is most likely to burn out and what kind of behaviors they are likely to exhibit during burnout. The Hogan Personality Inventory (HPI) provides data about seven bright-side personality characteristics, which are the qualities that facilitate a person’s ability to get along with others and achieve goals. The Hogan Development Survey (HDS) assesses 11 dark-side personality characteristics, or derailers. Dark-side personality characteristics are typically strengths that, when overused, can interfere with professional reputations and careers. Overuse of these behaviors tends to occur when a person stops self-managing due to stress, overwhelm, complacency, or burnout.

Hogan researchers have identified relationships between burnout and scores on the HPI and HDS assessments. Specifically, low scores across the seven HPI scales correlate to burnout, and eight of the 11 HDS scales correlate to burnout.

Hogan Personality Inventory

All the HPI scales were significantly and negatively associated with burnout. The higher that people scored on an HPI scale, the less they reported burnout. Put another way, greater experiences of burnout were related to lower scores on HPI scales. Since it’s typical for people to have at least one low HPI scale, these results affirm that burnout can happen to anyone. If someone seems burned-out, their lower HPI scores could offer insight. Knowing the relationship between personality characteristics and burnout, talent professionals can help people better understand the factors contributing to their burnout.

To put this into perspective, Hogan research demonstrates that low scores on the Adjustment and Ambition scales have the strongest correlations to burnout among all the HPI scales. For instance, someone with a low Adjustment score may be more stress prone and less resilient. If they feel burned-out, they might need to reflect on whether they’ve been experiencing a lot of recent changes and stress. As another example, someone with a low Ambition score may prefer to pursue realistic goals versus difficult challenges. They might need to reflect on whether they’ve been challenged with leadership situations at work beyond their comfort zone.

Hogan Development Survey

Dark-side characteristics are also associated with burnout.⁴ Of the HDS’s 11 scales, scores high on the Excitable and Cautious scales but low on the Bold scale are most strongly correlated to burnout.⁵

Unlike the HPI correlations, the HDS correlations are not all negative. Some HDS scales were positively related to burnout, particularly in the Moving Away cluster of scales. This cluster includes Excitable, Skeptical, Cautious, Reserved, and Leisurely. During derailment, people who score high in the Moving Away cluster tend to withdraw from others. They might act emotionally temperamental, suspicious, risk averse, aloof, or resentful. Among the Moving Away scales, high scores on the Excitable and Cautious scales showed the strongest correlations to burnout:

• High Excitable – The Excitable scale relates to passion, energy, and drive; however, that same passion can also contribute to burnout.⁶ The Excitable scale is strongly correlated with the HPI Adjustment scale. This further demonstrates that individuals who have difficulty managing stress and emotions may report greater experiences of burnout.
• High Cautious – The Cautious scale relates to risk aversion and fear of failure. This HDS scale correlates with HPI Ambition, supporting the notion that individuals who are less comfortable making decisions and taking initiative are more likely to report greater experiences of burnout.

On the other hand, significant negative correlations to burnout appeared in the cluster of scales called Moving Against. This cluster includes Bold, Mischievous, Colorful, and Imaginative. Those who score high in the Moving Against cluster tend to overengage with others. They can seem excessively confident, risk taking, attention seeking, or eccentric. Among the Moving Against scales, Bold, Colorful, and Imaginative showed significant negative correlations to burnout. A negative correlation indicates those with high scores on these scales may be less likely to report burnout, whereas those with low scores may be more likely. Of the three scales, low scores on the Bold scale showed the strongest correlation to burnout:

• Low Bold – As an everyday strength, Bold relates to confidence and assertiveness. During derailment, those who score high on the Bold scale tend to seem aggressive, ambitious, and arrogant. Their belief in their abilities can contribute to a high level of resilience, which might mitigate feelings of burnout.⁵ Therefore, someone with a low Bold score who lacks confidence may be more likely to report greater experiences of burnout.

Burnout might not always be visible. Especially among people with Moving Away derailers, burnout can be difficult for even seasoned talent professionals to detect. Organizations should be proactive about remedying systemic factors in burnout and ensuring their cultures support employee well-being.

How to Manage Employee Burnout

Because burnout is associated with increased mental distance from work,² the ensuing disengagement can be expensive. Absenteeism and decreased productivity from disengaged employees can cost organizations 34% of each burned-out worker’s annual salary.⁷ Organizational intervention is essential to rescue employees from the occupational phenomenon that is damaging to both well-being and profitability.

Such interventions include gathering personality data and educating the workforce about personality characteristics and burnout. Leaders especially need to recognize signs of burnout and build work environments in which burnout is a safe topic of discussion.

Communication

Another meaningful intervention is transparent communication. This is a two-part endeavor. One element is to acknowledge that the nature of work has recently changed and that we all are likely to continue to perform work in a VUCA environment (that is, a work environment characterized by volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity). The other element is to set realistic expectations for leaders and workers so that employee daily stress can decrease from its current global level of 44%.¹

Surveys

Implementing an engagement survey to ask employees what they need and want can also help organizations apply targeted interventions. For example, by using a combination of survey data and personality assessment data, a healthcare organization learned that one category of practitioners desired more recognition. By understanding that group’s particular values and drivers, the organization was able to be direct and specific in its remedy of providing public acknowledgement.

Leadership Development

One of the best interventions for burnout is to invest in leadership development. Effective leaders build and maintain high-performing teams by promoting strategic self-awareness in themselves and team members. Understanding the role of personality in the workplace can reveal how leaders themselves react to stress and pressure. Those same leader personality characteristics, such as coping with stress or taking initiative, have a huge effect on workplace culture and employee well-being.

In these and other interventions, personality data are key to knowing how to support and retain burned-out workers and leaders. If layoffs do reduce team size, for example, leaders who recognize the personality strengths and limitations of their team members will more effectively redefine goals and reallocate work. They will also be vigilant for and sensitive to different signals of stress from individual team members.

References

1. Gallup. (2023). State of the Global Workplace: 2023 Report. Gallup. https://www.gallup.com/workplace/349484/state-of-the-global-workplace.aspx
2. World Health Organization. (2019, 28 May). Burn-out an “Occupational Phenomenon”: International Classification of Diseases. WHO. https://www.who.int/news/item/28-05-2019-burn-out-an-occupational-phenomenon-international-classification-of-diseases
3. McKinsey Health Institute. (2023, 27 May). Addressing Employee Burnout: Are You Solving the Right Problem? McKinsey. https://www.mckinsey.com/mhi/our-insights/addressing-employee-burnout-are-you-solving-the-right-problem#/
4. Harms, P., Marbut, A., Johnston, A., Lester, P., & Fezzey, T. (December, 2022). Exposing The Darkness Within: A Review of Dark Personality Traits, Models, and Measures and Their Relationship to Insider Threats. Journal of Information Security and Applications, 71. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jisa.2022.103378
5. Treglown, L., Palaiou, K., Zarola, A., & Furnham, A. (2016). The Dark Side of Resilience and Burnout: A Moderation-Mediation Model. PloS one, 11(6). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0156279
6. Hogan, R., & Sherman, R. (2022, 19 May). Dark Leadership and the Fate of Organizations. In Derek Lusk & Theodore L. Hayes (Eds.), Overcoming Bad Leadership in Organizations (pp. 17-49). Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780197552759.003.0002
7. Borysenko, K. (2019, May 2). How Much Are Your Disengaged Employees Costing You? Fortune. https://www.forbes.com/sites/karlynborysenko/2019/05/02/how-much-are-your-disengaged-employees-costing-you/?sh=1be62ec23437

Recently on The Science of Personality, Roberto Affonso Santos, owner and managing director at Ateliê RH, an authorized Hogan distributor in Brazil, shared his research comparing the personality characteristics of Brazilian managers to those of global managers. Roberto also asked ChatGPT 4.0 to describe Brazilian managers, then compared the AI-generated description to Hogan data. His findings from the study call into question both ChatGPT and human assumptions about leadership in Brazil. Let’s take a look.

Researching Leadership in Brazil

The origin of this study emerged from two converging points: Hogan’s 2023 global norm update and ChatGPT’s explosion of popularity.

First, Roberto decided to compare data about Brazilian managers to global data. “I found more divergence than convergence,” he observed. Then, Roberto asked ChatGPT to list the characteristics of Brazilian managers. “To my surprise, it gave a list of elements that are stereotypes about resilience that you hear from people in other countries,” he said.

These results reaffirm that ChatGPT is not a fact-finding machine. Its response about Brazilian managers is based on data contaminated with stereotypes about Brazil.

Personality Characteristics of Brazilian Managers: ChatGPT vs. Hogan Data

Large language models such as ChatGPT are not reliable sources of facts about the personality characteristics of Brazilian managers (or any other group, for that matter). Insights about personality should instead come from validated personality data.

ChatGPT: ‘Flexible and Adaptable’

ChatGPT described Brazilian managers as flexible and adaptable. The Brazilian economic, social, and political spheres can be unpredictable. Thus, the description matches a common perception that leadership in Brazil requires being adaptable to changing environments. “This was not confirmed by Hogan data,” Roberto said.

Hogan data described Brazilian managers as rule following, conservative, change resistant, risk averse, and less imaginative compared to global managers. It also indicated they prefer stability and security. How can these differences be?

When data do not match our expectations, we first evaluate whether our expectations are built on stereotypes. What assumptions or biases might influence what we expect? We can also explore how the data compares with other facts by investigating the contrasts that might affect our perceptions. “When we put that contrast on, we see things a little bit differently,” said Ryne Sherman, PhD.

In this case, ChatGPT is trained on a body of text from publicly available sources on the internet—sources that can (and do) include biased information. Its responses are based on that text. By contrast, the Hogan data about Brazilian managers are filtered against the personality data of other managers via Hogan’s global norm. The global norm is a set of personality assessment data that is representative of working adults around the globe, across industries, and across demographics. “With [Hogan’s] global norm, we are getting to the core of human differences,” Roberto pointed out.

ChatGPT: ‘Enthusiastic, Passionate, and Charismatic’

ChatGPT also described Brazilian managers as enthusiastic, passionate, and charismatic. That description didn’t align with Hogan data either. “Brazilian managers are often described by others as being extraverted, expressive, charming, persuasive, and using strong emotional commitment to engage others,” Roberto said.

Hogan data described Brazilian managers, compared to global managers, as less affiliative, less desirous of social interactions, less sociable, and less extraverted. Global managers also tended to be higher in charismatic traits that can create immediate interpersonal impact.

Not only does Brazil have a different official and national language than other South American nations, but it also has many regional cultural differences that can diverge from stereotypes. Generalizations about personality characteristics, such as those generated by ChatGPT, often stem from unfounded perceptions of “national character.” In fact, very little data exist to support these stereotypes.

Roberto gave an illustration to demonstrate the pitfalls of assuming that all Brazilians conform to the classic Latin American stereotype of passion and charm. A hiring manager at a multinational company interviewed a candidate for leadership in Brazil but initially rejected the candidate because they didn’t seem to have charisma.

“There’s an expectation that Brazilians should be expressive, great impact, great charisma,” Roberto said. “When that doesn’t show up, it frustrates people.” Roberto explained to the hiring manager that some Brazilians build their impact with time, not on the first impression. After a second interview, the Brazilian leader was hired—and they became a vice president in the company.

Other Personality Differences of Brazilian Managers

Compared to other managers globally, Brazilian managers’ scores differed on a few scales across Hogan’s three personality assessments: the Hogan Personality Inventory (HPI), Hogan Development Survey (HDS), and Motives, Values, Preferences Inventory (MVPI). Specifically, Brazilian managers had lower scores on MVPI Hedonism, higher scores on HPI Interpersonal Sensitivity, and higher scores on HDS Bold. (These characteristics also conflict with the ChatGPT description of Brazilian managers.)

• Lower Hedonism – Brazilian people may have the general reputation of being soccer, beach, and festival lovers, but Brazilian managers scored lower than their global colleagues on the Hedonism scale. Roberto said they seek to avoid risks and follow rules, valuing professional, formal work environments.
• Higher Interpersonal Sensitivity – Brazilian managers tend to have a relational and collaborative nature with good listening skills, empathy, and concern for others. This everyday strength can sometimes cause Brazilian managers to avoid confrontation, direct communication, or tough conversations. “We tend to sugarcoat an issue not to hurt others,” Roberto observed.
• Higher Bold – Despite tending to be less assertive in their day-to-day professional lives, Brazilian managers showed a higher score on the Bold scale of the HDS. The HDS describes derailers, which are behaviors that emerge during stress or complacency. In this case, a high Bold score can indicate that someone might seem entitled, arrogant, and overconfident when they stop self-monitoring.

Avoiding Bias in People Decisions

“ChatGPT tends to base its responses on common sense, popular publications, stereotypes,” Roberto said. If ChatGPT were to make a candidate selection decision based on its assumptions about Brazilian managers or leadership in Brazil, it would be susceptible to similar biases as a human interviewer.

Comparing AI-generated descriptions to Hogan data can be very revealing about the differences in popular perceptions and scientifically measurable reality. Errors in this regard can often lead people astray and create conflict, which is why accurate, reliable, and valid personality assessment data are essential.

Simply put, AI-generated information is no replacement for sound science. “I tend to rely much more on the objective, impartial, scientifically validated measures that we have,” Roberto said.

Listen to this conversation in full on episode 88 of The Science of Personality. Never miss an episode by following us anywhere you get podcasts. Cheers, everybody!

Hogan is excited to announce Personality Guidance AG as the newest member of the Hogan International Distributors Network, covering the market for personality assessments in Switzerland.

Headquartered in Zürich, Personality Guidance offers talent acquisition and talent development solutions, as well as coaching and team development. The organization was founded in April 2021 by CEO and longtime Hogan practitioner, Nicole Neubauer. Neubauer has been active in the Swiss market since 2005.

“Nicole has a been strong Hogan advocate for nearly two decades, combining her wealth of expertise in personality psychology with an unwavering commitment to helping organizations thrive,” said Hogan CEO Wendy Howell Hogan. “She has a proven track record of success, and we look forward to the big things she has planned with this new endeavor.”

The team Neubauer has assembled at Personality Guidance has an in-depth knowledge of the Swiss market, in both the German-speaking Deutschschweiz region and the French-speaking Romandy region. Personality Guidance will be delivering Hogan certification workshops in Zürich, Lausanne, and Geneva.

“With my experience as a Hogan distributor for more than fifteen years, Personality Guidance will be a strong voice for Hogan in the very dynamic Swiss market and its Swiss Market Index companies,” said Neubauer. “But there are also many thousands of very successful small and medium companies in Switzerland that are niche players on the global market and have great potential to become new Hogan clients.” 

As Hogan’s authorized distributor in Switzerland, Personality Guidance advises on placement, selection, and development decisions. The company’s top priority is always to find a custom solution that focuses on individual personality and contributions to a company or organization.

To learn more about Personality Guidance AG, visit personalityguidance.ch.

What will it take for cryptozoologists to prove the existence of bigfoot?

Recently on The Science of Personality, Cliff Barackman, former star of Animal Planet’s Finding Bigfoot, cohost of the Bigfoot and Beyond podcast, and owner of the North American Bigfoot Center, spoke about cryptozoology and the search for Sasquatch.

Cryptozoology is the study of animals whose existence is disputed or unsubstantiated. About the existence of bigfoot, Cliff said, “It’s easy to believe in things that are real. All you have to do is start looking at the evidence that’s been collected and decide for yourself.” He encouraged podcast listeners to be skeptical and fact-check his statements.

Cliff explained the common characteristics of cryptozoologists and the current state of Sasquatch evidence and research, including his own experience searching for bigfoot.

The Characteristics of Cryptozoologists

The goal of cryptozoology is to study undiscovered animals and verify their reality, introducing them to the scientific community. “Every year, dozens and dozens of amphibians and reptiles and even mammals are recognized by science for the very first time,” Cliff said.

Cryptozoology is a large field globally, but bigfoot research is smaller, with perhaps a dozen serious practitioners. Cliff’s interest in the so-called “hairy hominoids” or “mystery apes” originated in college when he read publications by cultural anthropologists about North American apes. This inspired him to conduct additional academic and field research, for which he is now known internationally.

A common personality characteristic of cryptozoologists is perseverance to the point of stubbornness. Cliff observed that skeptics and debunkers tease or ridicule this level of commitment. Another common characteristic of cryptozoologists is self-belief. This strong conviction in the face of others’ doubts can sometimes seem like arrogance. Cliff called himself eccentric but reasonable, inclined to prove things himself, rather than rely on the expertise of others.

People who aren’t interested in cryptozoology tend to believe media portrayals of the unsubstantiated animals. They are unaware of the evidence and may lack the drive to interrogate their assumptions. “It’s like their belief system is a nest that they feel comfortable in and don’t like being brought out of,” Cliff said. He considers himself to be an amateur scientist, tasked to disprove his own claims. “If you can prove yourself wrong in science, that’s a victory,” he added.

Bigfoot Fact and Fiction

Few cryptozoologists are liars because the field receives such rigorous scrutiny. A handful of notable fakes have persisted for several years or decades, but overall, evidence of bigfoot is verifiable and persuasive.

Scientific Evidence

Numerous eminent academics have published studies and books about North American apes. Cliff named Grover Krantz, PhD, one of the first anthropologists to write about bigfoot; John Bindernagel, PhD, wildlife biologist and author of The Discovery of Bigfoot; and Jeff Meldrum, PhD, an anatomist who specializes in primate feet.

Historic Evidence

Nearly every indigenous North American tribe from Florida to Alaska has traditional stories about giant, hairy people living in the woods. They are likely true stories, not fictitious. Cliff explained that truths from paleoanthropology can be applied to cryptozoology: evolution is not linear. “Different forms [of a species] coexist, many of them in the same landscape at the same time and place,” he said.

Within the last 100,000 years—which is a short time span in evolutionary terms—multiple types of hominin coexisted. (Hominin refers to all living and extinct species on the human branch of the evolutionary tree.) “Right now, scientists believe that we have discovered less than 2 percent of all the different species that have ever existed. How many more hominin species are left to be discovered?” Cliff said, mentioning two found within the last decade.

That’s what Sasquatches likely are—relics of an undiscovered hominin species. “There’s probably a handful of these things still existing on the planet,” he said.

Photographic Evidence

Video, film, photographs, and drawings paired with tracks and fossils all contribute to recent evidence in favor of bigfoot.

The Patterson–Gimlin film is famous 1967 footage of a tall, bipedal, hairy figure that seems to be a Sasquatch. The film of “Patty” has been extensively analyzed, along with casting taken of the footprints found at the site. Cliff described Patty as clearly detailed in the images, about 10 or 15 years old, and likely quite intelligent based on tracking data of her movements in the area.

Eyewitness Evidence

“The best reports are the ones with multiple eyewitnesses and physical evidence found at the scene,” Cliff said. Reporting accuracy often relies on how good an observer and communicator the eyewitness is, as well as the skill of the researcher or investigator.

Cliff also told the story of his encounter with a bigfoot. Near the colloquially named Bigfoot Creek in California, Cliff and his partner were conducting field research. They heard a large animal coming down the creek bed. Through the thick foliage, they perceived it to be bipedal. It stopped about 60 feet away, snapped a 70- to 80-foot-tall alder tree, then moved quickly away upstream. “They’re very large, potentially dangerous animals. It was a shock to me,” he said.

The State of Bigfoot Research

Apes and humans tend to be group-living species. Cryptozoology research on bigfoot social structure suggests parallels to that of orangutans—that is, half a dozen or so females and offspring living together within a narrow geographic area and solitary, wandering males. The rarity of Sasquatches limits cryptozoologists’ ability to study them. This might also explain why individuals rather than groups tend to be observed and tracked.

Like other apes, individual Sasquatches would likely have individual personalities informed by their life experiences. A Sasquatch that has lived near a human community might demonstrate curiosity. Yet a Sasquatch that has been shot at might be more averse to human proximity and might even become aggressive.

Cliff discussed the method of proving the existence of any animal species. Until the very recent past, a holotype specimen was obtained, meaning a dead animal. “I think that, with Sasquatches, it’ll come down to a dead one because of the resistance of scientists to accept the animals as being real based on the current evidence,” he said.

A chance exists, however, that a new formal DNA study will help identify unknown hominin species. “If Sasquatch are hominins as I suspect, maybe we can prove these things to be real without killing one. Killing every species we come across just to prove our own curiosity is correct shows who the real monsters are,” Cliff said.

Listen to this conversation in full on episode 87 of The Science of Personality. Never miss an episode by following us anywhere you get podcasts. Cheers, everybody!

What characteristics do ufologists tend to have? Who is likely to report sightings of UFOs? How long has humanity been interested in unidentified flying objects, anyway?

To answer these questions, The Science of Personality cohosts Ryne Sherman, PhD, and Blake Loepp spoke with Greg Eghigian, PhD, professor of history and bioethics at Penn State University. Greg, who studies the history of supernatural and paranormal phenomena, is the author of After the Flying Saucers Came: A Global History of the UFO Phenomenon and has appeared on television as a subject-matter expert.

“The boundaries, historically speaking, between the abnormal and the paranormal are porous,” Greg observed. “When societies assess supernatural claims, decisions and judgments are being made as to what is a socially acceptable experience and what is not.”

In this episode, Greg covers the psychology of ufologists (and deniers), the history of ufology, what makes a claim legitimate and credible, and the type of UFO eyewitness he finds most persuasive.

The Personalities of Ufologists

In researching the history of UFOs, Greg has seen that people who tend to become amateur experts in UFOs are excellent investigators of the unexplained. Both groups, for and against, have similar social backgrounds and certain common values. Ufologists tend to be middle-class white males who are highly educated and interested in science and engineering. They also tend to be voracious readers and belong to certain geographical areas, such as the Pacific coast of the US.

Regarding values, the crusading ufologist and classic debunker share a moral imperative to educate people about reality. “Both see themselves as these protectors of the common good of public welfare by exposing truth and exposing deceit,” Greg said. They differ as to their motives: providing evidence of alien existence, identifying UFOs as natural phenomena or human hoaxes, supporting a religious belief system, or otherwise.

Confirmation bias, the tendency to look for information that supports our existing beliefs and values, affects the psychology of ufologists, whether academic, amateur, or bystander. For instance, UFO sightings tend to occur in waves, or intense periods with a dramatically higher number of sightings in a particular place. One explanation for UFO waves might be confirmation bias, Greg said. People who hope to witness unidentified flying objects might well do so.

The History of UFO Sightings

“People across the world have been seeing strange things in the sky since recorded history,” Greg said. Some of the sightings may have been comets, meteor showers, or atmospheric phenomena that were unknown at the time. Many were interpreted as divine communications or omens.

Greg explained that the modern concept of the alien flying saucer originated in the summer of 1947. An American private pilot flying over Washington State saw several objects moving quickly through the air in formation. When questioned by journalists, he described the objects’ movement as being similar to a saucer skipping over some water. Thus, the term “flying saucer” originated through media coverage.

Since the 1940s, UFOs have taken a range of shapes, including triangles, globes, pinwheels, and cigars. The most common type of UFO is light in the sky that lasts just a couple of seconds. People are likely attracted to the UFO phenomenon because of the vague, fleeting, and mysterious appearance—and disappearance—of the objects. In the 1950s, many people responded to news of flying saucer sightings by claiming the dawn of an age of harmony and peace with aliens from space. This interpretation is comparable to that of ancient people seeking otherworldly messages in the sky.

UFO Witness Credibility

Among reports of UFO sightings, legitimacy and credibility are not the same. “Witness descriptions can be largely accurate, but they can be incomplete when it comes to being true,” Greg said. The atmospheric phenomenon called a sun dog, which causes two bright spots to appear on either side of the sun, sometimes accompanied by a halo, has been often misidentified as a UFO. Historical witnesses of sun dogs described them accurately but erroneously attributed them to alien presence.

“Outsiders make judgments not about the sighting, but about the reliability and even the character of the person reporting the sighting,” he said. “Witness sightings often devolve into personality assessments and personal attacks.”

Since the 1940s and ‘50s, flying saucers have been associated with extraterrestrial life. A negative stereotype holds that witnesses of UFOs must also believe in aliens. This connection between UFOs and aliens has likely deterred reporting of UFOs by people who didn’t want to be stigmatized.

Statistical data about UFO sightings are only reports of sightings. It is highly likely that most sightings go officially unreported. The data we do have are biased by the fact that people must be willing to report and know where to report. The authorities who take the reports factor in the accuracy of the data too. Without a dedicated office or agency to collect the data, people tend to report UFO sightings to local police, who might not take the information seriously enough to pass on to another body. Unofficial reporting to local UFO groups can be inconsistent or inaccurate. “We don’t have a lot of good information on sightings because of this process,” Greg said.

UFOs: More Questions Than Answers

People who report encounters with either UFOs or aliens are often puzzled and troubled about their experience. Instead of always attributing the anomalous occurrence to aliens, they will sometimes say they are not convinced about what they saw or felt. They might refer to divine entities or altered states of consciousness.

Ufologists can be affected by the same social stigma as UFO witnesses. It’s as if anyone who asks questions about UFOs is seen as attention-seeking, dramatic, and irrational. Yet despite this stereotype, sincere UFO witnesses, ufologists, and debunkers want to find answers to their questions about UFOs.

Regarding the recent congressional hearings about UFOs, Greg said, “Discussions about UFOs are often not about UFOs.” He mentioned classification of information and funding exploitation as topics that overshadow the issue of UFO identification. He also thinks it unlikely that world governments would be able to conceal the presence of UFOs successfully because of the vigilance and skill of civilian scientific organizations.

Interest in the unknown, unexplained, and unidentified should be encouraged. “The way people have understood them [paranormal phenomena] has changed over time—and that’s fun to see,” Greg said.

Listen to this conversation in full on episode 86 of The Science of Personality. Never miss an episode by following us anywhere you get podcasts. Cheers, everybody!

Hogan is excited to announce Artisan Consultoria as the newest member of the Hogan International Distributors Network, covering the market for personality assessments in Brazil.

“Brazil holds immense potential and is a focal point for Hogan,” said Simon Castillo, Hogan’s practice manager for international distributors. “We are confident that Artisan will significantly contribute to our market presence and relevance in the country.”

Based in Rio de Janeiro, Artisan specializes in evidence-based people solutions aimed at enhancing organizational performance. Since its inception in 2006, Artisan has cultivated a skilled team deeply experienced in consulting, training and facilitation. Today, Artisan serves an array of local and multinational companies across Latin America.

“Having utilized Hogan assessments in executive development for over a decade, stepping up as a distributor feels like the next logical evolution,” said Felipe Paiva, founder of Artisan Consultoria. “The Brazilian market stands to gain from an expanded range of services.”

As an authorized distributor of Hogan personality assessments in Brazil, Artisan is positioned to be a comprehensive provider of talent management solutions for organizations to improve and accelerate growth, development, and effectiveness in every level of the workforce.

Hogan looks forward to a fruitful partnership with Artisan and continued growth in the Brazilian market.

Learn more about Artisan at artisanconsultoria.com.

Personality can affect our memory, which is not as reliable as we’d like to believe.

Recently on The Science of Personality, cohosts Ryne Sherman, PhD, and Blake Loepp spoke with Ryan Rush, PhD, a consultant on the corporate solutions team at Hogan Assessments, about the science of memory.

A former professor of psychology, Ryan has conducted research on the social nature of memory, including false memories and the effect of emotion on memory.

“We cherish our memories. They make us who we are. It’s often hard for us to accept that they’re not always accurate,” Ryan said.

Keep reading to learn more about memory and personality, memory recall, and eyewitness memory.

Memory and Personality

Specific personality characteristics are likely to influence how we perceive the world. In turn, this influences what information we notice and how we encode that information in our memories. When we recall a memory, personality can also affect how we perceive the information.

Ryan used the Hogan Personality Inventory’s Adjustment scale as an example. This scale measures the degree to which a person appears calm and self-accepting or self-critical and tense. Someone with a high Adjustment score might tend to ignore critical feedback but remember positive feedback. In such situations, they might hear all the feedback but encode only the more positive feedback into memory. Another possibility is that they hear and encode all the feedback but shape it more positively during recall.

Conversely, someone with a low Adjustment score might hear moderately critical feedback as highly critical in the moment. Upon recall, they might focus on the critical feedback but ignore the more positive feedback.

Personality also can affect how likely someone is to claim to have a good memory. Most people who would say, “I have a good memory,” probably don’t have extraordinary memory abilities. What they probably do have is confidence in their ability to recall information. Having good capabilities in short-term retention is likely part of their identity, the narrative they have created about themselves.

Memory Recall: The Social Contagion of Memory

The social contagion of memory is the idea that memory can act like a virus. “The details that we share with one person can infect another person’s memory or contaminate it with incorrect details,” Ryan explained. Errors can be transferred into someone else’s memory. “Additionally, we sometimes get correct information from others,” he added. Both errors and accuracy can be transmitted across people’s memories.

An experiment of Ryan’s involved details in photos of everyday scenes, such as a kitchen or an office. The photos contained both stereotypical and unusual items for each setting, such as a lamp and a spatula together in a living room. Two people viewed the photos separately, had a conversation about what they recalled, and then recalled the photos again individually.

“We found that if you start out with a more accurate memory before you collaborate with someone, you are likely to spread that accurate information to your partner,” Ryan said. “If you start out as less accurate, you are likely to spread some incorrect details to your partner.”

This goes beyond merely regressing to the mean. It suggests that when you’re recalling details of a meeting or studying for an exam, you can improve your memory by recalling correct details with others. If false memories can contaminate good memories, accurate memories can also contaminate inaccurate ones.

“Be careful who you recall with,” Ryan quipped.

Memory Recall: Eyewitness Identification

The social contagion of memory has significant application in eyewitness accounts of crimes. Two witnesses who see the same crime might discuss their memories of details, and these memories can contaminate each other. Suppose Witness A saw a suspect wearing a blue baseball cap. If Witness B does not initially remember any headgear but also recalls a blue cap after talking with Witness A, is that detail an error?

Eyewitness identification in real life isn’t how it’s depicted on screen. One thing that television dramas get wrong is that lineups aren’t usually conducted live behind two-way glass. They are typically photographs on paper or a screen.

Another dramatization is the pace at which witness interviews take place. Instead of solving crimes within 24 hours, investigators might question a witness days or weeks after the event. The longer the interval between the crime and the lineup, the less detailed a witness’s memory is likely to be. The memory may even become less accurate, especially if it has met inaccurate information in the meantime.

How do we make a judgment about somebody else’s recollection? “Without corroborative evidence, it is basically impossible,” Ryan said.

Wrongful Convictions

Wrongful convictions happen for many different reasons, but eyewitness misidentification is the leading cause. The Innocence Project states that 69% of DNA exonerations involve a mistaken eyewitness. Many different variables influence eyewitness memory, including stress and exposure duration (how long the witness saw the suspect). Variables of this type, called estimator variables, are outside of anyone’s control.

In researching eyewitness memory, psychologists use two types of lineups: target present and target absent. A target-present lineup has a picture of the perpetrator in it. A target-absent lineup has a picture of an innocent suspect who resembles the perpetrator.

When memory conditions are worse, witnesses are worse at identifying perpetrators in a target-present lineup. However, they remain the same at identifying the innocent suspect. While they’re less likely to identify a guilty person, fortunately they aren’t more likely to provide false identification.

Identifications of an innocent suspect do increase when system variables are poor. System variables include lineup composition, police procedures, and administrator knowledge of the suspect. Whether consciously or not, a lineup administrator who asks, “Would you like to look at this photo again?” while using certain nonverbal signals might contaminate the eyewitness’s memory. In real investigations, of course, all lineups have a genuine suspect and are conducted with unbiased administrators.

Reducing the Risk of Inaccurate Memories

“Memory is not perfect by any means,” said Ryan, “but if we can identify the best practices when it comes to those police procedures or how to conduct those lineups, we can minimize the risk as much as possible.”

Implementing an intentional process to minimize memory errors is beneficial in the workplace too. If all three people in a meeting remember the outcome differently, the inaccuracy could cause serious organizational repercussions. Taking thorough notes or using recordings by agreement can help provide the corroborative evidence for what was decided and why.

Ryan said that memory research is important, especially when someone’s memory is evidence in a trial. “Witnesses don’t always get it wrong, but when that is the only piece of evidence, you have to be careful,” he said.

Listen to this conversation in full on episode 84 of The Science of Personality. Never miss an episode by following us anywhere you get podcasts. Cheers, everybody!

Reference

1. How Eyewitness Misidentification Can Send Innocent People to Prison. (2020, April 15). Innocence Project. https://innocenceproject.org/news/how-eyewitness-misidentification-can-send-innocent-people-to-prison/

Is patience a virtue? Well . . . according to a new theory, there’s a much more fruitful way to think about the psychology of patience.

Recently on The Science of Personality, cohosts Ryne Sherman, PhD, and Blake Loepp spoke with Kate Sweeny, PhD, professor of psychology at University of California, Riverside, about the psychology of patience.

A social psychologist with more than 100 publications and 4,000 citations of her research, Kate is a Society of Personality and Social Psychology (SPSP) fellow and three-time faculty of the year award winner at UC Riverside.

Let’s dive into this conversation about different types of waiting, the benefits of worry, and a new theory of patience.

How to Wait Patiently

Waiting is a stressor. It can keep us in a state of unpleasant mental paralysis for a variety of reasons. “Can we build a toolbox for people for coping with waiting that we could teach people to use?” Kate said. “We’re getting there with some solutions, but nothing ameliorates entirely the experience of stressful waiting.”

Types of Waiting

The different types of waiting can be classified according to their outcomes—positive, negative, or neutral. Positive waiting is eager anticipation, such as a child waiting for birthday presents. Negative waiting is stressful dread, such as a patient waiting for a diagnosis. Neutral waiting is when the outcome is mundane and expected, such as waiting at a bus stop. Our responses to these situations require different kinds of patience, which can be further complicated by boredom, frustration, anxiety, or uncertainty.

Kate focuses her research about the psychology of patience on times when someone faces a big, stressful, looming unknown, such as an unpredictable and potentially life-changing situation. What are the steps to leveraging the psychology of patience under those circumstances?

Three Steps for Patient Waiting

Kate provided a three-part plan for addressing uncertainty with patience.

1. Try to affect the outcome – If you’re waiting for the results of a biopsy, for example, you aren’t likely to have any control over the outcome. But if you’re worried about someday having breast cancer, you can behave differently today to improve your overall physical health. “Let your worry motivate that action,” whenever it may be possible, Kate said.
2. Prepare for a negative outcome – Making plans for how you will respond to potential bad news can keep you from being caught off-guard. An example of this would be reviewing your insurance coverage or organization’s short-term leave policies during a health crisis. “Preparation provides reassurance that I’m getting a little bit of control back from the universe in a situation where I don’t have much,” Kate explained.
3. Seek a flow state – As well as maintaining daily practices of health and wellness, Kate mentioned flow and mindfulness as more helpful types of distraction than binging television. “If you can really get in that zone, there’s nothing else your mind can do while you’re there. That’s the joy and the benefit of flow,” she said.

Research on the flow state suggests that the mind doesn’t wander during flow because it’s fully engaged in a single task. Similarly, mindfulness can encourage coexisting with uncertainty in a calm or peaceful way. “You can’t turn your worry off, but there are some ways you can combat it,” Kate said, particularly by engaging deeply in an activity.

Why Worrying Is Helpful

Evolutionary psychology theorizes that the emotions that most humans experience must provide more benefit than harm for our species overall. The fact that nearly everyone worries reflexively means that while worry may not be good in every instance for every person, it has some advantages for humanity. For one, it can bring our attention to potential threats. For another, it can spur us into action to prevent negative outcomes. Excessive, paralyzing, or demoralizing worry doesn’t tend to promote positive action. But when worry is functional, it can be quite helpful!

Worry and Religiosity

Kate’s research found that people who reported being more religious tended to worry more than those who were less religious. People who reported being more religious also tended to rely more on coping strategies that can be beneficial under the right circumstances. Of course, correlation is not causation. But religiosity tended to correlate with a coping strategy called preemptive benefit finding, or preemption.

Preemption means looking for the bright side to cope with bad news before the bad news arrives. “In the context of waiting, that means essentially lining up your silver linings in advance,” Kate said. This beneficial strategy means imagining the good that might come from a potentially negative situation or outcome—another tool for the patience toolkit.

The Psychology of Patience and Personality

Some personality characteristics, such as emotional stability, conscientiousness, and dispositional optimism, can be predictive of patience and worry. In preparing for an exam, students experience two types of waiting: the period of preparation leading up to the exam and the period of waiting following submission of the exam. In situations where the student still has a measure of control—that is, before the exam—personality has different effects on their approach to waiting. After the exam is submitted and the student no longer has control, personality seems to have less influence on how patiently the student copes with waiting.

This personality approach to the psychology of patience underlies a new theory of what patience is and its utility for handling uncertainty.

Is Patience a Virtue?

The famous adage, “Patience is a virtue,” originated in a poem from the 1300s—so it’s not exactly a new concept. Rather than a virtue, which implies morality, Kate proposes that patience is an emotional action.¹ “When that emotion of impatience arises, we can manage it and regulate it through the process of patience,” she said. “That really takes patience quite out of the virtue realm and situates it in the nerdy research on emotion regulation. It’s not quite as poetic, but I think it’s much more practical.”

Patience is a specific, situational form of emotion regulation. When we feel the emotion of impatience, patience is the name of the self-regulation tools we apply to cope with that feeling. Whether that’s self-talk, deep breaths, or preemption, those subtle or explicit self-control strategies in the face of uncertain, stressful waiting are acts of patience.

“Patience may or may not be a virtue, but it is something we can learn to do better,” Kate concluded.

Listen to this conversation in full on episode 81 of The Science of Personality. Never miss an episode by following us anywhere you get podcasts. Cheers, everybody!

Reference

1. Sweeny, K. (2023, August 2). On (Im)Patience: A New Approach to an Old Virtue. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/trh4b