What makes people who they are

Extraversion versus introversion is possibly the most recognizable personality trait of the Big Five. The more of an extravert someone is, the more of a social butterfly they are. Extraverts are chatty, sociable and draw energy from crowds. They tend to be assertive and cheerful in their social interactions. Introverts, on the other hand, need plenty of alone time. Introversion is often confused with shyness, but the two aren't the same.

Shyness implies a fear of social interactions or an inability to function socially. Introverts can be perfectly charming at parties — they just prefer solo or small-group activities. Agreeableness measures the extent of a person's warmth and kindness. The more agreeable someone is, the more likely they are to be trusting, helpful and compassionate. Disagreeable people are cold and suspicious of others, and they're less likely to cooperate. As you might imagine, agreeableness has its benefits.

In a year study published in Developmental Psychology in , agreeable kids had fewer behavioral problems than kids low in agreeableness, and agreeable adults had less depression and greater job stability than adults who were low in agreeableness. But being agreeable isn't always rewarded.

A article in Harvard Business Review by Miriam Gensowski, an assistant professor at the Department of Economics of the University of Copenhagen, stated that, "more agreeable men, who tend to be friendly and helpful to others, have significantly lower earnings than less agreeable men. A study published in Personnel Psychology suggested that disagreeable men may pitch in less at home, allowing them to devote more time and energy to their work and thus make more than agreeable guys.

To understand neuroticism, look no further than George Costanza of the long-running sitcom "Seinfeld. He worries about everything, obsesses over germs and disease and once quits a job because his anxiety over not having access to a private bathroom is too overwhelming.

People high in neuroticism worry frequently and easily slip into anxiety and depression. If all is going well, neurotic people tend to find things to worry about. A study found negative association with neuroticism and earnings. Although, even when neurotic people with good salaries earned raises, the extra income actually made them less happy. Because people high in neuroticism tend to experience a lot of negative emotion, neuroticism plays a role in the development of emotional disorders, according to a paper published in Clinical Psychological Science.

Personality was once thought to be very difficult to alter, but evidence is accumulating that personality can change in adulthood. In a study, people who took psilocybin, or hallucinogenic "magic mushrooms", became more open after the experience.

More recently and in a paper published in the Journal of Psychopharmacology in , the hallucinogen MDMA has been found to increase openness when used therapeutically, which could be helpful for treating post-traumatic stress.

And you don't necessarily have to go on a hallucinogenic trip to make real change. A study published in the January journal Psychological Bulletin synthesized published research papers and found that personality may be altered through therapy, Live Science reported previously. The film Human , by director Yann Arthus-Bertrand, juxtaposes breathtaking landscapes and images from throughout the world with conversations with diverse individuals from different cultures and viewpoints who share their stories.

It profoundly demonstrates the power of awe to open us to new perspectives. Research by Melanie Rudd, consumer behavior scholar at the University of Houston, and her colleagues seems to show that feeling awe can increase openness to learning and willingness to volunteer. Another pleasant emotion, pride, can be exceptionally powerful.

Researchers have found that people anticipating feeling pride in helping the environment were more likely to take positive action than those anticipating guilt for having failed to do so. Several organizations and movements have shifted to invoking pleasant emotions, with great effect. Greenpeace, for example, has focused on hope rather than fear, anger, or guilt. In the early years of their work, Greenpeace was known for angry acts by a small group of champions chaining themselves to trees to demonstrate their anger toward environmental offenders.

More recently, however, they have moved toward a strategy that includes optimism and inspiring others. Their message strategy now includes this passage:. We will tell stories using language that is optimistic, bold and includes a humorous wink.

We will rebel against convention and make beauty in the face of dreary and stale. Communications strategists know they have to be deliberate in identifying their goals and target community. We have to use the same intention with the emotions we choose to invoke. Each emotion can lead people to different actions, and pleasant emotions can be especially effective. As you think about what it is you want people to believe and do, use emotion with intention.

Then think about stories that would make them feel that way. They may leave people feeling like their efforts will be mere drops in a bucket. Calls to action that leave people feeling that they will not make a difference on the issue will likely result in inaction.

It is also easy to conflate goals with calls to action. But they are not the same thing. The Montgomery Bus Boycott aimed at Jim Crow laws in public transportation sought to end segregation of the bus system as a step toward ending racism. So how do we create calls to action that motivate people to take action and will make substantial progress toward our goal?

Effective calls to action follow three rules: They are specific; the target community sees how the solution will help solve the problem; and they are something the community knows how to do. First, make your call to action concrete and super-specific. In one study, marketing professor Melanie Rudd and her colleagues provided two different calls to action to two distinct groups. In a follow-up survey, the researchers assessed how happy the participants were with their action.

Participants who had the concrete goal of increasing resources for recycling reported greater happiness. They are left feeling good about what they were able to accomplish. The researchers theorize that when people are more satisfied and happy with their action, they are more likely to help again.

Second, people need to see how their action will help solve the problem. Calls to action that leave people feeling as though they will not make a substantial difference on the issue will likely result in disengagement or inaction.

Paul Slovic, social psychologist at the University of Oregon and president of the Decision Science Research Institute, and his colleagues argue that when people feel as though their actions will not make a difference, they are less likely to take action. The negative feelings outweigh any positive feelings they might have had from the action.

In another study, when people were asked to donate to a single child facing starvation, the number of donations decreased as they were made more aware of millions of children who would still be in need of aid.

Third, people need to know how to do the thing you are asking them to do, and be able to easily incorporate it into their daily routines and habits. The Ice Bucket Challenge—a viral social media campaign that persuaded people to post videos of themselves pouring ice water over their heads to raise money for additional research about ALS—did this well.

People habitually scroll through their social media feeds. Asking people to post videos of themselves dumping ice water on their heads or donating money to ALS and nominating others in their social network taps into these habits. How to apply this insight: Review your calls to action. Are you asking communities to do something specific that they value, that will connect them to the cause, and that they know how to do?

Storytelling is the best tool we have for helping people care about issues. People are more likely to remember information they get in narrative form.

Leaving some specific details out of your story creates an empty space for your readers to insert their own experience. Gregory Berns, a neuroscientist at Emory University, and his colleagues suggest that reading a novel creates new connections in the brain, which leave us thinking about the story long after it ends. When we experience a captivating story, we emerge from it changed and often remember the events and experiences in the story as if they were our own.

While the social sector has embraced the importance of storytelling, many people are not actually sharing stories.

Instead, they use vignettes or messages. Stories have characters; a beginning, middle, and end; plot, conflict, and resolution. If you do not include these elements, you are not telling a story. Scholars and data scientists have studied thousands of stories to understand universal themes. When we tell stories to help people care about our issue, we should figure out which plot structures we wish to use. As people hear a story, they seek cues about how the story will unfold and who the protagonist is.

This is particularly important for communicating with audiences that may not be familiar with the issue you are working on. But for audiences that are very familiar with the issue, playing with plot structures that break expectations and surprise them may be more important for capturing their attention and avoiding fatigue from hearing the same story one too many times.

Organizations that have adopted a strategy of incorporating stories in their work frequently reuse the same plot structures, emotions, and types of characters. Keith Bound, media scholar at the University of Nottingham, studies horror films and consults with the movie industry to make horror films scarier. In other words, we enjoy the comfort of knowing where a story is headed, but surprise keeps our attention. Similarly, computer scientists at MIT recently found that false news stories can travel faster than true stories because they defy expectations.

They found that stories were more likely to be shared when they included a surprise or caused disgust. Great stories leave space for the audience in two ways. One is allowing people to put the pieces together for themselves.

Then the members of each group rated how much every other member made them feel eight different emotions: stressed, bored, angry, sad, calm, relaxed, happy, and enthusiastic.

Read: Mixed signals: Why people misunderstand each other. They also got more romantic interest from others in a separate speed-dating study. He and his collaborators have found that leaders who make other people feel good by their very presence have teams that are better at sharing information, which leads to more innovation.

Subordinates are more likely to voice their ideas, too , to a leader with positive affective presence. Positive emotions are important for that. It may have to do with body language, or tone of voice, or being a good listener.