Big Five
How the OCEAN Personality Trait Scale Actually Works
The OCEAN scale measures each of the five big personality traits as a continuum: there are no "extraverts" and "introverts," just people at…
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Blog: page 2
Big Five
What Is Goldberg's Lexical Hypothesis?
The lexical hypothesis holds that the personality differences that matter most in social life have been encoded in the natural language of…
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Big Five
The Big Five Personality Trait Theory, Explained
When people talk about "the Big Five theory," they usually blend two different things. One is the FiveFactor Model, a classification: it sa…
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Enneagram
What Are the 9 Enneagram Personality Types?
The Enneagram is a personality model that describes nine types, each organized around an underlying fear and desire. It's used mainly in pe…
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Big Five
The Real Criticisms of the Big Five Personality Test
The Big Five model is the personality framework with the strongest empirical backing in psychology today. That doesn't spare it from critic…
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Big Five
The 5 Personality Traits of the Big Five Test, Explained
The Big Five, also called the FiveFactor Model or the OCEAN model, is the personality psychology framework that organizes differences betwe…
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16 Personalities
How Many Questions Does the 16 Personalities Test Have?
Questions on the official MBTI test (Form G and Form M) The official MyersBriggs Type Indicator (MBTI) has gone through several versions ov…
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Relationships and Social Life
Four Years Waiting for Her to Leave Her Husband: The Case That Explains Self-Deception in Love
A fortyoneyearold man has spent more than four years waiting for the married woman he's in love with to keep her promise to leave her husba…
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Learning Style
The Ebbinghaus Forgetting Curve: Within a Day You Seem to Forget Nearly 70% of What You Learn, and That's a Good Thing
In 1885, a German psychologist published the results of more than two years spent memorizing lists of nonsense syllables. He wanted to meas…
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DISC
Where Do the Words Choleric, Sanguine, Phlegmatic, and Melancholic Come From?
The four words we use today to describe a temperament (choleric, sanguine, phlegmatic, melancholic) come literally from the four bodily flu…
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Work and Productivity
Dependent Decision-Maker: you decide better with other people's backing
You feel more confident deciding with other people's backing or advice than being completely alone with the decision. This isn't indecision…
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Work and Productivity
Spontaneous Decision-Maker: you decide in the moment and adjust as you go
You decide in the moment, almost on impulse, and feel comfortable adjusting course as you go instead of planning everything in advance. Spe…
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Work and Productivity
Avoidant Decision-Maker: postponing as a way of deciding
Postponing the decision is, in practice, your way of deciding: committing to one option is hard while you can still keep others open. Keepi…
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Work and Productivity
Intuitive Decision-Maker: you trust your gut to decide fast
You trust your gut and decide fast from a general impression, more than from an exhaustive pointbypoint analysis. It isn't that you ignore…
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Work and Productivity
Rational Decision-Maker: you analyze before deciding
You analyze the information available and weigh options before deciding: logic and order guide your decisions more than intuition or urgenc…
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Business and Decisions
The Prisoner's Dilemma: What It Is, How It Began and Why Cooperating Is Still Rational
The prisoner's dilemma does not prove that people are selfish. It proves something more uncomfortable: that two reasonable people, each doi…
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DISC
C: The Cautious. Precision, data, and zero mistakes.
The C style describes a measured, taskfocused pattern of behavior, powered by the need to get things right and reduce the margin of error.…
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DISC
D: The Dominant. Decides fast and isn't afraid of risk.
The D style describes a fast, resultsdriven pattern of behavior, powered by the need to stay in control of the situation and see things thr…
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DISC
I: The Influencer. Contagious enthusiasm that connects with anyone.
The I style describes a fast, peoplefocused pattern of behavior, powered by the need to feel accepted, recognized and part of the group. Th…
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DISC
S: The Steady. The patient glue that holds a team together.
The S style describes a measured, peoplefocused pattern of behavior, powered by the need for stability, security and harmony with the peopl…
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Business and Decisions
The halo effect: the nurse who went quiet and the patient who paid for it
A middleaged man is admitted to hospital with chest pain. The doctor considers him low risk and keeps him on the ward with a monitor.
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Business and Decisions
Proactive Doer: Acting Before the Plan Is Perfect
The proactive doer style prefers to act as soon as possible: it takes the initiative quickly and learns by doing, rather than overplanning.…
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Business and Decisions
The Art of Saying Less: The Power of Silence in Negotiation
In 1944, a writer going through a rough patch ran into two men, by chance, at New York's famous 21 Club, both capable of deciding the rest…
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Business and Decisions
The Psychology of Never Committing to Anyone: Kissinger's Double Game in 1968
In 1968, while the United States chose its president, a foreign policy adviser with no official position did something unusual: he promised…
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Relationships and Social Life
The Delete Button: Why Ghosting Hurts So Much in the Age of Dating Apps
A single line, recorded in a real University of Bath study and cited by Zygmunt Bauman, explains why online dating displaced the singles ba…
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Self-Awareness
The Smarter Brain Burns Less Energy, Not More
Over half an hour, a group of people were injected with a small dose of radioactive glucose and asked to solve reasoning problems. The bett…
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Chronotype
The Scientist Who Went Into a Cave to Discover Chronotype
On July 16, 1962, a 23yearold French caver descended 130 meters underground, into a cave in the Alps, with no watch, no calendar, and no wa…
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Self-Awareness
The 2,000-Year-Old Advice Psychology Took Centuries to Take Seriously
In the 1st century AD, a Roman teacher was already telling other teachers to watch closely for differences in talent among their students.…
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DISC
The Creator of the DISC Model Also Invented an Early Lie Detector
Before DISC existed, William Moulton Marston investigated the link between blood pressure and lying, work considered a forerunner of the mo…
6 min readRead
Self-Awareness
The Noonday Demon: Why Depression Survived Evolution
Sometime in the 4th century, in the Egyptian desert, a monk named Evagrius Ponticus began writing about a demon with a very specific schedu…
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Relationships and Social Life
The Detective a Jealous Husband Hired, and Who His Wife Left Him For
A fiftytwoyearold man, afraid his wife, fifteen years younger, would be unfaithful, set up a surveillance system in his own home with detec…
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Attachment Style
The Rebound Effect of Trying Not to Think About Your Ex (Wu Wei for Heartbreak)
The Rebound Effect of Trying Not to Think About Your Ex The harder you try not to think about someone, the more that person spins around in…
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Relationships and Social Life
The Psychological Price of Never Fully Belonging to Anyone: The Life of Alcibiades
Alcibiades managed, at some point in his life, to make Athens, Sparta, and Persia all want him close at the same time. He also managed, bef…
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Lifestyle and Attitudes
The Englishman Who Invented the Scottish Kilt (and the Welshman Who Invented His Own Druids)
Ask any Scot which tartan belongs to their clan and they'll tell you without a second's hesitation. Few suspect that certainty, and the ver…
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Relationships and Social Life
The Problem a Phoenician Merchant, a Medieval Monk, and You Have in Common, According to Erich Fromm
According to Erich Fromm, a primitive caveman, an Egyptian peasant, a Phoenician merchant, a Roman soldier, a medieval monk, a Japanese sam…
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Attachment Style
The Psychologist Who in 2012 Described 'Phone Addiction' as an Attachment to 'Now'
"I don't talk to people, they talk to me and I ignore them, I laugh to myself, I never look up. I'm worried, what do you think I have?" a p…
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Self-Awareness
The Test That Predicted Who Would Die Young, on the Road Too, Better Than Medical History
A study of Australian exservicemen pitted dozens of variables against each other to predict who would die young. Medical history, behaviora…
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Self-Awareness
The Doorway Threshold: Why Crossing It Is Actually a Ritual
Bowing before a doorway. Kissing it.
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Emotional Intelligence
The James-Lange Theory: You Don't Cry Because You're Sad, You're Sad Because You Cry
Common sense says you lose something, feel sad, and cry. In 1890, William James argued the order runs the other way.
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Emotional Intelligence
Empathy: Recognizing What Others Feel
A tone of voice, a silence that runs longer than usual, an "I'm fine" that doesn't sound fine. Empathy is the ability to pick up on what an…
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Enneagram
Enneagram vs. 16 Personalities: Two Different Ways of Typing Yourself
The Enneagram and 16 Personalities look like cousins because both sort people into named categories, but they answer different questions: o…
3 min readRead
Enneagram
Enneagram Type 1: The Reformer
Enneagram Type 1 describes an ethical, demanding personality pattern organized around the fear of being in the wrong and the desire to act…
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Enneagram
Enneagram Type 2: The Helper
Enneagram Type 2 describes a personality pattern that turns its attention to others to secure affection, often leaving its own needs unspok…
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Enneagram
Enneagram Type 3: The Achiever
Enneagram Type 3 describes a personality pattern based on adapting to the environment and pursuing achievement as a way of proving one's ow…
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Enneagram
Enneagram Type 4: The Individualist
Enneagram Type 4 describes a personality pattern organized around the search for a personal identity and the private sense of being differe…
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Enneagram
Enneagram Type 5: The Investigator
Enneagram Type 5 describes an analytical, reserved personality pattern organized around the fear of not being able to cope with life's prac…
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Enneagram
Enneagram Type 6: The Loyalist
Enneagram Type 6 describes a personality pattern focused on anticipating risks and seeking security and support in their surroundings. In R…
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Enneagram
Enneagram Type 7: The Enthusiast
Enneagram Type 7 describes a personality pattern driven by the desire for stimulating experiences and by keeping pain or anxiety at a dista…
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Enneagram
Enneagram Type 8: The Challenger
Enneagram Type 8 describes a personality pattern based on strength, initiative and protectiveness, organized around the desire never to be…
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Enneagram
Enneagram Type 9: The Peacemaker
Enneagram Type 9 describes a personality pattern oriented toward inner and outer harmony, which often puts its own needs on the back burner…
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