A layperson's attempt to understand personality. If it inspires professional psychologists to use it as a starting point for a more robust theory - all the better.
Interesting post. I like the idea of viewing Big 5 as a measurement, not the property being measured (e.g., the difference between "meters" and "length"). That said, "personality" to me is not a full description of someone's behavior, which this post seems to assume. I would list things like habits, environment, memories, and maybe even interests as things orthogonal to personality -- two people with similar personalities could be in very different environments, have different habits, memories, or interests (to some degree). The environment in particular seems to shape your personality, but not be part of your personality. Just different linguistic intuitions.
I found the properties you listed interesting, but I'm not sure I find them all well-differentiated or the list comprehensive. I prefer simple categories like "cognitive, emotional, and physical" aspects of personality. I think the main application of this theory is to separate the hard-to-change elements of personality from the malleable ones, so I found the table in the middle to be the most interesting part. But taking desires or aversions as an example, I think the malleability of a desire/aversion depends on how it's rooted. A cognitive desire (you logically want something) is easier to change, while an emotional desire (something feels necessary) is harder.
My rough idea is that the influence on behavior goes "physical > emotional >> cognitive", and that the malleability tends to go in the reverse direction. But drugs are the exception, and allow us to intervene directly on the physical level, and so should be a primary part of a personality change.
Indeed I have an all-encompassing view of personality, I define it as all relatively stable (long term) characteristics of a person, that make them different from other people.
So that would include neurodivergence, interests, etc... not just what Big 5 measures.
But I do appreciate your more restrained view of personality as well. There is perhaps some value in focusing just on some aspects of behavior when we talk about personality. But the thing is that I feel that such limitation is a bit artificial, as what we see as core personality traits, they are all related to other things in our mind, and perhaps even caused to some degree by those other things. It's difficult to isolate just personality form the rest of mental content of our minds. I feel this is all connected and we need to have a holistic understanding of a person.
Perhaps there is indeed some part of personality that is inborn, fixed, and given, and that is in a way, essential, fundamental, and not caused by other things in our minds - this is what I call natural temperament, and this can be displayed very early in childhood, even babies have it.
But I think adult personalities are not based just on this natural temperament but are caused by and strongly related with many other things in our mind, and so it's difficult to study personality in isolation from all those other things.
Regarding environment, you're maybe right. It was a bit clumsy to say it's a part of personality, as it's obviously external, but my intuition is that it has a strong causal effect on our behavior, so perhaps it makes more sense to include this, as a part of personality, then more abstract traits like extroversion, that are just measures of behavior that is actually caused by other things.
The list is definitely not comprehensive. Probably there are other factors that I missed. This theory is far from being complete. My main point is to establish some kind of framework, or to give a direction, in which I think the proper theory should be built. I think it makes more sense to study factors that shape personality and that causally influence behavior, rather than traits, which feel just like test results or benchmarks.
(To make an analogy with medicine: I feel it makes more sense to study underlying pathology to understand disease process, rather than to study just symptoms of disease. Symptoms are manifestation of disease, just like measurable traits and behaviors are just manifestations of personality. Actual disease is caused by factors that aren't visible from the outside, just like actual personality is shaped by factors inside our minds and brains that aren't easily measurable)
Yes, those factors can also be grouped in various ways. Regarding malleability of factors, those are just my guesses, estimates. Extensive research would be needed to confirm all this.
Interesting post. I like the idea of viewing Big 5 as a measurement, not the property being measured (e.g., the difference between "meters" and "length"). That said, "personality" to me is not a full description of someone's behavior, which this post seems to assume. I would list things like habits, environment, memories, and maybe even interests as things orthogonal to personality -- two people with similar personalities could be in very different environments, have different habits, memories, or interests (to some degree). The environment in particular seems to shape your personality, but not be part of your personality. Just different linguistic intuitions.
I found the properties you listed interesting, but I'm not sure I find them all well-differentiated or the list comprehensive. I prefer simple categories like "cognitive, emotional, and physical" aspects of personality. I think the main application of this theory is to separate the hard-to-change elements of personality from the malleable ones, so I found the table in the middle to be the most interesting part. But taking desires or aversions as an example, I think the malleability of a desire/aversion depends on how it's rooted. A cognitive desire (you logically want something) is easier to change, while an emotional desire (something feels necessary) is harder.
My rough idea is that the influence on behavior goes "physical > emotional >> cognitive", and that the malleability tends to go in the reverse direction. But drugs are the exception, and allow us to intervene directly on the physical level, and so should be a primary part of a personality change.
Hey, sorry for a late reply!
Indeed I have an all-encompassing view of personality, I define it as all relatively stable (long term) characteristics of a person, that make them different from other people.
So that would include neurodivergence, interests, etc... not just what Big 5 measures.
But I do appreciate your more restrained view of personality as well. There is perhaps some value in focusing just on some aspects of behavior when we talk about personality. But the thing is that I feel that such limitation is a bit artificial, as what we see as core personality traits, they are all related to other things in our mind, and perhaps even caused to some degree by those other things. It's difficult to isolate just personality form the rest of mental content of our minds. I feel this is all connected and we need to have a holistic understanding of a person.
Perhaps there is indeed some part of personality that is inborn, fixed, and given, and that is in a way, essential, fundamental, and not caused by other things in our minds - this is what I call natural temperament, and this can be displayed very early in childhood, even babies have it.
But I think adult personalities are not based just on this natural temperament but are caused by and strongly related with many other things in our mind, and so it's difficult to study personality in isolation from all those other things.
Regarding environment, you're maybe right. It was a bit clumsy to say it's a part of personality, as it's obviously external, but my intuition is that it has a strong causal effect on our behavior, so perhaps it makes more sense to include this, as a part of personality, then more abstract traits like extroversion, that are just measures of behavior that is actually caused by other things.
The list is definitely not comprehensive. Probably there are other factors that I missed. This theory is far from being complete. My main point is to establish some kind of framework, or to give a direction, in which I think the proper theory should be built. I think it makes more sense to study factors that shape personality and that causally influence behavior, rather than traits, which feel just like test results or benchmarks.
(To make an analogy with medicine: I feel it makes more sense to study underlying pathology to understand disease process, rather than to study just symptoms of disease. Symptoms are manifestation of disease, just like measurable traits and behaviors are just manifestations of personality. Actual disease is caused by factors that aren't visible from the outside, just like actual personality is shaped by factors inside our minds and brains that aren't easily measurable)
Yes, those factors can also be grouped in various ways. Regarding malleability of factors, those are just my guesses, estimates. Extensive research would be needed to confirm all this.
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