2:00

The description goes on. Gabby

2:03

is quiet, friendly, sensitive,

2:05

kind, dislikes conflict.

2:08

And by the way, Gabby has done this

2:11

test before. She's actually really

2:13

into Maya's pranks. And

2:15

she says that this description, INFP, it

2:18

fits her like a glove. It's

2:21

kind of cringe that I'm exactly

2:23

like this profile that somebody had

2:25

constructed, like how basic. But

2:28

even though it might feel a little basic, Gabby

2:31

actually told us that finding out her

2:33

personality type was a game changer.

2:39

For her, it all started back in high school

2:41

when she was first doing these tests.

2:44

High school was tough for Gabby. She had

2:46

trouble making sense. It

2:48

was just hard to make sense of it

2:51

all. I was always trying to figure out

2:53

why are people doing the things

2:55

that they're doing? So like, why did my parents

2:57

get divorced? Why is my sister acting this way?

2:59

Why is my mom acting this

3:02

way? She felt like something was wrong with

3:04

her. But then seeing,

3:06

no, no, you have

3:08

this very specific personality type, the

3:11

same type as other people out there. Well,

3:14

that just felt so good. I

3:16

found something where I just

3:18

felt so represented in. I

3:20

just remember feeling like, OK, like you are not defective

3:23

at all. And

3:26

personality tests like Maya's Briggs have

3:29

kind of taken on this life of their own. Online,

3:32

people swear by them when it

3:34

comes to picking the perfect romantic

3:36

partner and also the perfect job.

3:39

For Gabby, it's helped explain parts

3:41

of her relationship with her parents

3:43

and also her very good friend,

3:45

Michelle. It made so much sense

3:47

to me, like, why we dealt

3:50

so well. This is what we do.

3:52

Yeah, we're so cute together. So,

3:54

well, Gabby is very into these

3:56

tests. The thing is, for

3:59

a lot of people. There's always been

4:01

this question behind tests like

4:03

Myers-Briggs, which is,

4:06

is this real? Or

4:09

is this just astrology dressed up

4:11

with a monocle? There

4:13

are headlines that call Myers-Briggs meaningless

4:15

and bullsh** while others defend it.

4:18

Here's Gabby. You try to

4:20

find anything helpful out on the

4:23

internet. You're

4:25

just going to get a lot of screaming matches or

4:28

misinformed and loud about it. But

4:32

I guess that's just the internet in general. What

4:34

do you have to say to people who just

4:36

say that MBTI is

4:38

bullsh**? Okay, now I'm going to go

4:41

really on enough people. It just bothers

4:43

me that people will reject this adamantly,

4:45

but then they'll be like, oh,

4:49

I'm anxiously avoidant

4:51

attached or I'm

4:53

the people pleaser in my relationship. Those are labels, right?

4:56

Why are people so rejecting of being a

4:58

personality type, but they're going to be a

5:00

type in some other way? So

5:04

today on the show, we are going to

5:06

get informed and loud about it. We'll

5:08

find out, are these tests really bullsh**? Is

5:11

anyone better than the rest? And

5:13

beyond personality tests, we are asking some

5:16

bigger questions. What can

5:18

our personality tell us about whether we're

5:20

going to be happy in love or

5:23

live longer? When it

5:25

comes to personality tests, there's a lot of,

5:27

yeah, we're so cute together, but then there's

5:30

science. Science

5:34

versus personality test is coming up just

5:37

after the break. Test

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players are subject to Ohio laws and

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commission regulations played responsibly. Welcome

6:20

back. Today on the show, we are looking

6:22

at personality tests and asking, are they

6:25

real? To tell us all about

6:27

this, it's Michelle Day. Hey

6:29

Michelle. Hey Wendy. Okay, let's get

6:31

into it. So our personalities

6:34

actually start showing up pretty early

6:36

on. Like you can see

6:38

that babies who are more scared of

6:40

strangers and new toys are more likely

6:42

to become introverts as they grow up.

6:45

Oh. And

6:47

the cool thing is that it's not just

6:49

humans that have personalities, squirrels,

6:52

spiders, even sea anemones.

6:55

Have them too. Sea

6:57

anemones have their own

6:59

personalities. Yes. But the question that

7:01

I have and you know that

7:03

Gabby has is that can you really put

7:05

people into these specific buckets?

7:08

Which is what these personality tests are trying to

7:10

do, right? It's very, it is very interesting because

7:13

I think the personality

7:15

types idea is

7:17

so attractive

7:19

because you do meet people in

7:21

your life where you

7:24

just sort of think, Oh, you remind me of

7:26

this other friend that I have. Or

7:29

if you're going on dates and you're

7:31

like, Oh no, you're like the other person that

7:33

I dated and I didn't really have a good

7:35

time. I'm not going to do this again. It

7:38

definitely feels like you could type

7:40

some people in your life, but

7:44

can we? Yeah. So let's start with

7:46

the big one, which is that test

7:48

that reeled Gabby and me in it's

7:51

the Myers Briggs type indicator.

7:53

Yes. So the MBTI. Some

7:57

of our audience might know that this test wasn't

7:59

born. in a university, like it

8:01

wasn't developed by scientists. It

8:03

came from a magazine writer called Catherine

8:06

Cook Briggs and her daughter Isabel Myers.

8:08

They got this idea of typing people, you

8:11

know, plunking everyone on the

8:13

planet into a bunch of categories

8:15

from Carl Jung, the Swiss psychoanalyst.

8:19

Now, Catherine Briggs was a super

8:21

fan of Jung. She

8:23

even wrote this sexy fan fiction novella

8:26

that seemed to be about him, where

8:29

a patient worships and starts

8:31

falling for his Swiss doctor,

8:33

who's, you know, a psychoanalyst.

8:36

Ooh, Catherine stuff it. Yeah.

8:40

Eventually, the daughter Myers decides

8:42

to write all these questions

8:44

and make the MBCI test.

8:46

Okay. That, you know, will

8:48

allow you to fit into these stereotypes.

8:51

Long story short, she sells

8:53

it to a testing company in the

8:55

mid-70s and it blows up. People fricking

8:57

love this thing. Okay. So

9:00

tell me a bit more about these four types

9:02

that we're getting plunked into. The

9:06

I, the N, the S,

9:08

the P. Yeah. So

9:10

they're asking, are you extroverted or

9:12

introverted? Sensing or

9:14

intuitive? Do you focus more on small

9:16

or big picture things? Thinking

9:19

or feelings? Do you

9:21

use logic or emotions more to make

9:23

your decisions? And finally,

9:25

judging or perceiving? Yeah, what is

9:27

that mean? Judging or perceiving? Kind

9:29

of ask like, do you live

9:32

your life in a more organized

9:34

or flexible kind of way? Mm-hmm.

9:38

I talked to Alexander Swan, a psychologist

9:41

from Eureka College about Myers Briggs. And

9:44

he told me that so many people like

9:46

Gabby get really excited when they see their

9:48

letters. They're like, oh yeah,

9:50

this explains a lot about

9:52

me. It almost, it's

9:55

almost like a superpower. I know my four letters

9:57

and I know what I can do in this

9:59

world with those. four letters. I'm just

10:01

blazing them on my chest so everybody

10:03

knows who I am. Wendy,

10:05

do you have your MBTI emblazoned

10:07

on your chest? No.

10:09

But I do know it. I

10:12

think it's ENTJ. Okay,

10:14

cool, cool. Let's look up the description.

10:17

Okay. The first sentence is,

10:20

Frank, decisive, assume leadership

10:22

readily. How do you

10:25

feel about that? I mean, it feels

10:27

pretty right. Like, I am

10:29

your boss. I have a show.

10:31

Exactly. Executive producer.

10:33

Executive producer. It

10:36

also says you're forceful in presenting

10:38

ideas. I think that kind of

10:40

lines up. Yes. Yeah. The show

10:42

is called Sides versus Not. Let's

10:45

chat about ideas. Yes. And

10:48

to top it all off, they

10:50

even have a chart that shows

10:52

you what kind of shoe fits

10:54

your MBTI profile the best. Oh,

10:56

okay. And you, an ENTJ, is

10:58

the classic work shoe. Smart,

11:02

business-like, and comfortable in the executive suite.

11:04

I mean, if you're going to be

11:06

a shoe, that's not a bad one,

11:08

right? Yeah. And I mean, shoe

11:11

the side, this test does pop out a

11:13

result that can really click for people. You

11:15

go, okay, so that's my true type. But is

11:18

it, though? There's always that

11:20

lingering question like, well, is

11:22

it your true type? So scientists wanted

11:25

to find out if we can trust this

11:27

test. And one of

11:29

their big questions was, how reliable

11:31

is this thing? Because if these tests

11:33

were your true type, then

11:36

you expect that every time you did

11:38

the MBTI test, you would

11:40

get the same answer, right? Yeah,

11:42

right. If I truly am ENTJ

11:44

in my heart of hearts, it

11:47

shouldn't matter if I'm doing the test

11:49

in January or March or whatever. Yeah.

11:51

And in fact, according to the people who

11:53

came up with this, your

11:55

personality type should stay the same your

11:57

whole life. But... And

12:00

the thing is, when you test

12:02

people a month later, even

12:04

two weeks later, in some

12:06

cases, they don't get

12:09

the same four letter combinations. For

12:12

example, one study from the 70s, it gave over

12:15

100 people the test twice. They

12:20

tested them five weeks apart. And

12:22

what they found was that on

12:25

the second test, about half of

12:27

the people got a different personality

12:29

type. Half. Yeah. About

12:31

a third of people slipped on just one

12:33

letter, but still that can

12:36

really change your personality description that you

12:39

end up with. And

12:41

other studies have found this kind of thing too. Even

12:44

the Myers-Briggs company says that

12:46

35% of people, so roughly

12:48

one in three, don't get the same type

12:50

after around a month. And

12:53

after four months, half of people get

12:55

a different type. Mm-hmm. So

12:57

maybe I'm not so forceful in

13:00

presenting my ideas for a show. Maybe

13:02

I'm one of those nicer ones

13:05

or whatever it is. Yeah. For

13:07

example, if you flipped from an E

13:09

to an I to an introvert, you

13:12

would become no longer a business shoe.

13:15

You would be

13:17

goth shoes. Is

13:20

a goth shoe I'm imagining like

13:22

a platform situation? Yes. That's really

13:24

large black platform shoes. Ah.

13:27

The description is self-contained, clever, and

13:30

just a little scary. Yeah. I

13:32

don't think I'm scary at all.

13:34

I talked to Emery Beck from

13:37

the University of California Davis about

13:40

why the MBTI isn't super

13:42

reliable. She's a personality

13:44

psychologist, which she really loves. I feel like I

13:46

very much have kind of won the

13:49

lottery that I get to do this with my

13:51

everyday life. So

13:53

Emery told me the reason people can flip

13:55

flop on the MBTI is because

13:57

this whole test likes to lump people in.

14:00

into black and white categories. They're

14:02

extroverted or introverted, and

14:05

people just aren't so simple. Like

14:08

for example, when scientists actually measure

14:10

how extroverted or introverted we all

14:12

are, we fit on a bell

14:15

curve, meaning that most people aren't

14:17

on such extremes. Most people fall

14:19

close to the middle, that's just probability.

14:22

I may be someone who is extroverted, but that

14:24

doesn't mean that I can't sit alone and read

14:27

a book. Yeah, when it

14:29

comes to extroversion, most of

14:31

us are what you would call an ambivert,

14:34

a bit of both. An ambivert, I

14:36

like this word, I like this word. And

14:38

it does feel really true,

14:40

I mostly am extroverted, but

14:43

I also do need to just spend time on my

14:45

own sometimes. What

14:47

about you? I'm introverted

14:50

pretty much most of the time, but I

14:52

do find myself wanting to be extroverted

14:54

sometimes. Now, if you are a

14:57

middle bell hump person, when

15:00

it comes to the MBTI, Emory says,

15:02

if you would take that test again, it's

15:04

actually quite likely, especially if you're in the

15:06

middle, and most people are, that

15:08

you are going to get the opposite letter

15:10

that you got previously. So

15:12

that's why we can switch a route on our

15:15

MBTI, but that's not the only problem here. Like

15:18

the Myers-Briggs test puts you in

15:20

this club, saying that you, Wendy,

15:23

are like all the other ENTJs out there,

15:26

and Gabby is like

15:28

all the other INFPs, but

15:31

Emory's like, let's say you're

15:33

just a teensy bit extroverted.

15:35

And you are in the

15:37

51st percentile, therefore you get

15:39

extroverted. Right, you're categorized as

15:42

eight. Yes. But then someone

15:44

else who's in the 99th percentile gets the

15:46

same thing that you do. So

15:48

the MBTI is bunching all these

15:50

people into the same bucket, even

15:53

though they might act super different. Mm-hmm,

15:56

that makes sense. But

15:58

I guess just to play the... double advocate, like

16:01

for people like you and

16:03

me, who I would say, I'm pretty

16:05

extroverted. You're pretty introverted.

16:07

It feels like we would

16:09

mostly fit into those

16:12

buckets. And at least it would

16:14

be accurate for people who are on those

16:16

ends of the spectrum, right? Yeah, but you

16:18

have to be on the end of the spectrum for like

16:21

each of the four different

16:24

categories, but let me take you to

16:26

the next group. So,

16:28

Wendy, if we take

16:30

a closer look at your

16:32

supposed personality type, for example,

16:34

ENTJ, you're

16:37

usually well informed, well read, and enjoy

16:39

expanding your knowledge and passing it on

16:41

to others. Yes. Yeah. I

16:44

mean, that is the basis of the show, right?

16:46

I expand my knowledge and then I pass it

16:48

on to others in the podcast. Like that

16:51

feels very accurate. Yes. So

16:53

you agree with all those, right? Yeah. Here's what Alex

16:55

would have to say about that. People

16:58

think that that is

17:00

speaking directly to them when

17:03

in fact, it's just a vague and general statement. I'm

17:10

very, I'm really a little nicer. So

17:12

I am an ENTJ. Oh, it's twin

17:14

Z's. I very much

17:16

am high in extroversion. So I'm like, yeah,

17:18

that, that tracks. And,

17:21

you know, I am a scientist, so, you

17:23

know, I spend most of my time thinking

17:25

that is my job, but there

17:27

have been studies that have given people

17:29

false feedback on their personalities. And

17:32

what we actually find is that reliably, even for

17:34

people, you know, like me, who would, you know,

17:36

would say I would high scores, I would score

17:39

high on these dimensions that would make

17:41

my, you know, Myers-Briggs profile make sense.

17:44

I would make sense of something that is the opposite

17:46

one. And I could make that fit

17:48

in sort of like, you know, with my narrative

17:50

of my life. Okay, Wendy,

17:52

let's, let's do a little test. All right. I

17:55

want to know if you think this fits

17:57

you. Okay. Curious quick.

18:00

to see possibilities can be

18:02

catalyst for implementing ideas. Yes,

18:05

that very much feels like me. What number is it? It

18:07

does sound like you. Right. That

18:09

is an INFP. INFP.

18:13

Which is three letters different than you. All

18:16

right, wow. Yes, yes, yes. Okay. So,

18:19

you know, you can kind of see here that,

18:21

and studies have found as well, that

18:23

when you give people random vague

18:26

statements, they tend to think, yeah,

18:28

that's me. Oh,

18:31

yeah. It's so funny because in

18:33

the context of like, is this

18:35

you, it doesn't, they don't feel

18:37

that vague. Yeah, and it's

18:40

not just about the statements being vague.

18:43

Alex has also done this work suggesting

18:45

that when people use

18:47

this sort of like profound and complicated

18:49

sounding words, people think

18:51

that they're getting this very deep

18:54

insight. Mm. So

18:57

yeah, you gotta be careful by

19:00

big words, people throwing around

19:03

flowery language, pseudo profoundness

19:06

that's meant to obfuscate

19:08

and redirect and

19:11

make you think that it's doing more

19:13

than what it's actually doing. Pseudo

19:16

profoundness, right. I guess

19:18

like a catalyst for

19:21

implementing ideas falls

19:23

into that category. I mean, I'm

19:25

obviously not an enzyme. Yeah,

19:29

so maybe our brains are tricking us

19:31

into thinking that these test

19:33

results are more insightful than they

19:35

really are. And this

19:37

doesn't just happen with personality tests. Like

19:40

you might have an influencer or a politician

19:43

using complicated, deep sounding words

19:45

where audiences think, oh,

19:48

that person is so smart. Psychologists

19:50

actually call it the guru effect.

19:53

Oh man. Yeah, you

19:55

say that all over. So

19:58

can I just ask, how does... Gabby

20:00

feel about all this. Yeah, I

20:02

asked her. I've come

20:04

to the conclusion that these tests

20:06

are, there's

20:09

no evidence for them. You know, that's

20:11

totally fair. For

20:13

me, it's reliable and has given

20:15

me a lot of insight into myself and other

20:18

people. So why so hateful?

20:22

You know, I mean, I don't

20:25

know if anything can offer you a

20:28

springboard to be introspective. Why

20:31

hate on it? You know, why gotta

20:33

be a hater? She makes a good point.

20:36

Why gotta be a hater, Michelle? What

20:38

is the homie? Yeah, scientists, they

20:41

told me that, you know, sure, if

20:43

your personality type kind of rings true

20:45

for you, then probably not a big

20:47

deal. But where

20:49

it gets dicey is when people use this

20:51

sort of thing to make big decisions in

20:54

their life. Things like what

20:56

kind of job you should get or who

20:58

you should hire or the kind of person

21:00

you should be with romantically. But

21:03

the thing is, research doesn't back

21:05

this up. There isn't a strong

21:07

link between people's types and what kind

21:09

of jobs they gravitate to or what

21:11

they're good at. Even

21:13

today, the MPTI company explicitly

21:15

says that employers shouldn't screen

21:18

out job applicants based on

21:20

their personality type. Uh-huh,

21:22

and then what about if using

21:24

it to find a romantic partner?

21:26

Yeah, studies can't see that couples

21:28

with the same type work better

21:30

or worse than couples with vastly

21:32

different types. They

21:34

also can't use a couple's MPTI

21:36

to predict how many relationship problems

21:39

they'll have. And we

21:41

did reach out to the Myers-Briggs company to ask

21:43

about the stuff we're talking about. They

21:45

didn't get back to us. But they

21:48

do say on their website that, quote,

21:50

there are no best or more successful

21:52

combinations of types in relationships, end

21:55

quote. Oh, so even they

21:57

say quite explicitly, like, do not.

22:00

use this for compatibility matching. Yeah,

22:02

bottom line, when I asked Alex

22:05

about stuff like partners or jobs,

22:07

he said, when you take this

22:10

test and out pops his personality type. That

22:12

by no means should indicate who

22:14

you should work with, how

22:17

you should work, who you

22:19

should be with, how

22:21

you should be with them in a

22:24

relationship or a friendship. Okay,

22:27

all right. It's,

22:30

you know, years ago, Rochelle, I did

22:32

a personality test. It wasn't a BTI,

22:34

but a very similar one with my

22:38

college boyfriend. And

22:40

I was just about to break up with him.

22:43

Had a terrible sense of humor. And

22:45

we did this personality test and it felt

22:48

like it described him so perfectly,

22:51

like his individual description. I

22:54

remember one of the things it said was, your

22:58

facial expression looks like you're

23:00

thinking deep thoughts, but you're

23:02

actually thinking nothing. Oh.

23:05

And I was like, oh my God, it

23:07

goes in so well. And

23:09

it did a compatibility testing too.

23:12

And we were like the perfect

23:14

match. Wow. And Michelle, I

23:17

stayed with him for another six months

23:19

because of it. Wait, because of

23:21

the result? Because of the stupid

23:23

personality. And I was like, ah.

23:28

Even after I told you that there's nothing going

23:30

on in his head. Yeah, but

23:32

then it still said we were the perfect match for

23:34

each other. Okay. So, yeah, I was

23:36

like, all right, maybe I'll give it another go.

23:39

Six months later, I broke

23:42

it off. So,

23:45

wish I'd had this podcast then. It's

23:48

really funny. Yeah. I guess to

23:50

be fair to me, it wasn't

23:52

Myles Briggs that I was basing this

23:54

off. There are other tests out there.

23:57

Are any of them better than

23:59

Myles? things more trustworthy? I'd

24:02

say the popular ones are Enneagram

24:05

and Socionics. When

24:07

I looked into them, I found a

24:09

lot of the same problems. Right. Okay.

24:11

So they're often putting you into buckets

24:14

or types that just don't really

24:16

exist. Okay. So here's

24:19

where we're at, I think, Michelle. These

24:22

personality tests, they do

24:24

sound quite a bit like astrology. They're

24:27

using these fancy words, putting

24:29

us into these buckets.

24:33

And sure, they might be a bit of

24:35

fun and give you a tiny bit

24:37

of insight into who you are just by virtue

24:39

of the fact that you're reading something and thinking,

24:41

Oh, is that me? Is that not me? But

24:44

you should absolutely not use them

24:46

to stay in a cringy relationship

24:48

for any longer than you want

24:50

it to be in that relationship. Is that about

24:53

right? Yes, that's right. Okay,

24:55

but there is a scientifically backed

24:58

personality test that can

25:00

predict things like your longevity,

25:02

your chance of divorcing and

25:04

whether or not you'll get

25:07

dementia. That's coming up after the break. Welcome

25:22

back. Today on the show, we are

25:24

giving personality tests, a test of their

25:26

own, a science test.

25:29

Producer Michelle Dang promised us

25:31

that there is a test that we can take to

25:33

reveal the deepest mysteries of our soul.

25:36

Is that

25:38

what you said? Not

25:40

necessarily the deepest mysteries. No,

25:42

just not dementia risk. Tell

25:44

us about this test. Okay,

25:47

so back in the 1920s, scientists

25:50

started this quest to find out what

25:53

are the core personality traits in

25:55

humans? Like, what

25:57

fundamentally makes you different? Openness,

28:02

what's number four? Extraversion, how

28:05

social are you? Okay. And

28:08

lastly, there's neuroticism. People

28:10

who are hiring neuroticism tend to sort of

28:12

be vigilant about sort

28:14

of noticing anything. I

28:17

feel like neuroticism in public

28:20

pollants means something slightly different. So

28:22

to scientists, neuroticism

28:24

is that you notice things. Yeah, it's

28:27

like you can kind of think about

28:29

it as being more anxious about things.

28:32

Right, because you notice them and then you can worry about

28:34

them. Yeah, it

28:36

also includes things like feeling

28:38

more negative and irritated though,

28:40

how emotionally stable you are. Oh,

28:42

okay. So these are big, big

28:45

umbrellas. Yeah. The

28:47

big five. It's funny, like I have heard

28:50

of the big five, but

28:53

it really doesn't sound that scientific, does it? So

28:56

you didn't know if you were an alien onto this

28:58

world and someone was like, you can take the Myers-Briggs

29:01

type indicator, or you could take

29:03

the big five, which is science.

29:05

Yeah, it's a bit flashy. And

29:09

the main reason why science likes this

29:11

is that it doesn't end

29:13

up putting you into a bucket like

29:15

other personality tests do. Right. You

29:18

know, like whether it's a Myers-Briggs or

29:20

what, a Harry Potter house

29:22

you're in or whatever. It's

29:25

Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff. Because

29:29

as we mentioned, humans are more

29:31

complicated and the big five accounts for that.

29:33

Uh-huh. So like what do they tell you

29:35

at the end of the day when you

29:37

answer all of their questions? Like

29:39

you're super extroverted. You're a little

29:42

neurotic. You're not very agreeable. You're

29:45

kind of open and organized and

29:47

done. There's no

29:50

club that sticks you in. Mm-hmm.

29:52

Here's Emory. I'm not categorizing

29:54

people as conscientious or not or

29:56

neurotic or not. Instead, you

29:59

know, I have... people with these distributions

30:01

of scores. And so instead of

30:03

coming out of this test with

30:05

lovely statements like, you're

30:08

quite a non-judgmental. You're a

30:10

business shoe. Yeah, you don't

30:12

have a shoe. It'll

30:15

just say this. Be like, oh,

30:17

you're in the 75th percentile of conscientiousness

30:19

and the 30th percentile of agreeableness. Now

30:22

that we have this test,

30:26

what do we do with it? Because it's not as fun

30:28

as the other one. You're not

30:30

going to whip it out of parties

30:32

and say, you're in the 86th percentile

30:34

for neuroticism. So

30:36

reasons that scientists like Emery want

30:39

to understand our personality is

30:41

to find out what our personality can tell

30:43

us about what's going to happen in your

30:45

life. So that

30:48

is something yucky is going to happen to us.

30:50

Can we intervene somehow? In

30:53

a way, can our personalities give us a

30:55

little crystal ball into the future? If

30:57

I measure your personality now in 10, 15, 20 years, does

31:02

your personality predict these things that happen to you

31:04

or that you do? So

31:07

recently, Emery and her colleague published a

31:09

study. They took people's scores on

31:11

the big five and tried to predict things

31:13

like who gets married, who gets divorced, who

31:15

has a kid, work-related ones

31:18

who get a college degree, who

31:21

is going to retire, who's going to get

31:23

a first job, who's going to get a

31:25

promotion. And this study was

31:27

really, really huge. We had

31:29

about 170,000 people. How

31:32

did you feel when you finally got all this data in front

31:34

of you? Overwhelmed.

31:37

I was just a feral animal in

31:39

my house for four months, just staring

31:41

at my computer and documenting these data.

31:44

But the most exciting part was obviously once the models were

31:46

done and I got to finally extract what

31:51

we were finding. They ended

31:53

up finding dozens of cool patterns. And

31:57

this was one of the most interesting ones. who

32:00

are higher in neuroticism are more likely to

32:02

die sooner. They're more likely to get dementia. They're

32:04

more likely to, again, get all of these

32:06

different chronic conditions. Neuroticism

32:08

really is this kind of robust predictor of

32:10

mortality. Why? Why

32:13

is that? Because I would have thought,

32:15

like, if you notice things, you would notice

32:17

that weird mole on your arm and get

32:19

attacked. Yeah, that can be true. But

32:22

neuroticism also correlates with other risk factors

32:24

of mortality. Things like

32:27

smoking, but even

32:29

pessimism, anxiety, and depression,

32:31

stuff that maybe makes it harder for you to

32:33

take good care of yourself. And were any of

32:35

them linked to living longer? Interestingly,

32:38

openness was the opposite. People

32:40

who are more open do tend to live

32:42

longer. What about relationship stuff?

32:45

Okay, so people who were more

32:47

extroverted were more likely to move in

32:50

with their partners and get married. That's

32:53

maybe because you have more opportunities to meet

32:55

people, you put yourself out there. Other

32:59

studies have found that being more neurotic

33:01

is linked to not having such great

33:03

relationships with either partners

33:05

and friends. You may

33:07

even be more likely to get divorced. And

33:11

then there was one study of

33:14

400 newlyweds, straight couples, that

33:16

found that, at least in the woman, being

33:18

more open was linked to having

33:20

more sexual satisfaction. Ha!

33:24

And let me guess, in men, just

33:26

living in the patriarchy was also linked

33:28

to more sexual satisfaction. Perhaps.

33:31

And you might have noticed, I know this kind

33:33

of test won't tell you who's your perfect match

33:36

or that you should work in the arts

33:39

because there's so much

33:41

more about us. There's so much more than

33:43

the big five. Even

33:45

though it's been scientifically approved,

33:49

it doesn't cover every single bit of

33:51

ourselves and our personality. Yeah, that makes

33:53

sense. That makes sense. Okay,

33:55

so Michelle, I think my

33:57

last question is, if you have...

34:00

a crap personality. I don't

34:03

mean like a crap personality,

34:05

but you just told me that

34:07

being neurotic is associated with early

34:10

death and not having a great

34:12

relationship. So like can we

34:14

change our personality? I

34:17

talked to Ted Schwabber, a personality

34:19

psychologist from Michigan State University, to

34:21

find out. How would

34:23

you describe your personality? Oh,

34:26

that's good. I always ask other people about

34:28

their personality, but I don't often get asked

34:30

about my own. I would say that I

34:32

am like 99th percentile

34:34

in terms of like curiosity.

34:37

You know, I'll try any food once or I'll go to

34:39

any place. And even if I don't like it, I'll be

34:41

like, well, it was cool to try something

34:43

new. Yeah, so Ted

34:45

and other researchers have done these

34:47

amazing studies where they get big

34:49

five data from thousands and thousands

34:51

of people across different ages. Some

34:54

have even been tracked across decades of their

34:56

life. Cool. You know, repeated the test when

34:59

they're 20, 30, 40. And then, you know, Ted looks to see, does

35:04

personality change? Or are we stuck with

35:06

what we got? So I

35:08

asked him, is our personality

35:10

fixed? The answer is extremely

35:12

no, which is good. I

35:15

mean, think about how organized and responsible you were

35:17

when you were five. You probably

35:19

could not survive as an adult with

35:22

that level of responsibility. When

35:26

we're teenagers, we don't tend to

35:28

have great conscientiousness. We're

35:30

not organized and we're less agreeable.

35:33

You know, think of the angsty

35:35

teen. Yes, that checks out. And

35:38

then through the next few decades, things get

35:40

better and better. We see

35:43

these huge increases in

35:45

conscientiousness and agreeableness and

35:47

emotional stability throughout people's

35:49

20s. It's like, yeah, like

35:51

my 20s, I got through them. I am

35:54

now much more organized, much more

35:56

responsible, much more capable

35:58

of doing these things. So scientists

36:01

have described this as kind of like

36:04

maturing, basically. Like you can see maturity

36:06

and throughout the rest of adulthood these

36:08

three things just keep going up. That's

36:11

awesome. But then later in

36:13

life, like past our fifties,

36:15

things do drop a little bit. We

36:18

get less extroverted, less open

36:20

to new experiences, and

36:22

less conscientious. Mm-hmm. So

36:26

that's how our personalities generally

36:28

shift with age. But Ted

36:30

wanted to know, are there big

36:32

life events that people have that really

36:34

changed their personality? And

36:37

so he looked at people's big five

36:39

data over time and asked them, in

36:42

the last 10 years, did

36:44

you experience a life event that changed you?

36:46

And some of these events were absolutely wild. Like

36:49

one person told this really long story. So we

36:51

have like a little text box. You're not supposed

36:53

to put in too much. Some person wrote us

36:55

an essay about how they adopted a horse and

36:57

that opened their heart to the world. And once

37:00

they have this horse, now they see the goodness

37:02

in people. And I'm like, that's sick and we

37:04

would not have known to measure that. That

37:08

is just a variety of

37:11

experiences was really what struck

37:13

us. Some people are like,

37:15

I lost a loved one. You know, my

37:17

spouse died. And actually, it was

37:19

sort of freeing in a way. And I'm like,

37:21

oh, that is not what our theories say. Our theories

37:23

say that when your spouse dies, you should become depressed.

37:26

And some people are like, nope, my spouse died and

37:28

I became more emotionally stable. And we're like,

37:30

okay. And then we look at their data and they're

37:33

becoming a little more emotionally stable. Wow.

37:36

Ha ha. Other research

37:38

has found that trauma can

37:40

also affect your personality, potentially

37:42

making some people more neurotic,

37:44

but also perhaps more open

37:46

and able to adapt. So

37:49

I guess like a lot of the stuff

37:51

that we've talked about that could

37:53

change our personality, we can't really

37:56

control trauma for one,

37:58

but also just aging. and getting

38:00

more introverted. Other than

38:03

buying a horse, is there anything we

38:05

can actively do if we want to

38:07

change our personalities? Yeah.

38:09

Um, Ted told me about the study

38:11

out of Switzerland where they

38:13

created a personality coaching app. They

38:17

had over 800 people say

38:20

what they wanted to change about themselves. And

38:22

so, you know, say you ticked,

38:25

I want to be more extroverted. They'd

38:27

give them these little challenges that are like, say

38:29

hello to a cashier next time you see them

38:32

or make sure to do something social

38:34

this weekend. And it

38:36

turns out people's personalities changed in

38:39

the ways they wanted them to once they did this

38:41

intervention. And the changes stuck after

38:43

the intervention ended and close

38:45

others were able to say like, Oh

38:47

yeah, that person's becoming more extroverted. And

38:50

it seems like people who want to change their

38:52

personality, if they follow through with these things, um,

38:56

it seems like they can make these changes, which is

38:58

kind of crazy because we think of personality as like

39:00

this very deep down thing, but like,

39:02

Hey, if I'm introverted, but I'm going

39:04

to parties and I'm striking up conversations,

39:07

maybe I'm becoming a little more extroverted.

39:10

That's cool. That's really cool. I

39:13

mean, I find this all very

39:15

hopeful because as

39:18

I've been growing up,

39:22

I have noticed things about my personality

39:24

that are changing in ways that I

39:26

don't really like, I think

39:29

I am becoming more neurotic. And

39:32

I didn't know that was the word for it

39:34

until you were telling me about neuroticism,

39:38

but I have been noticing things

39:40

more worrying about things more than

39:43

I, and in a way that I didn't used

39:45

to before. And it's really nice to

39:48

know that, um, that

39:50

I can change it. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. It's

39:52

way more helpful than knowing that I'm

39:54

a business shoe. Can I guess were

39:56

you, I could imagine you being

39:58

like a fashionable. but comfortable

40:01

sandal. Ooh. Well,

40:03

I'm kind of the opposite. I

40:07

am well-used, high-tech

40:09

trainers. And

40:11

the picture is like muddy,

40:13

muddy hiking boots. You

40:18

know, for all the bullsh**

40:20

that Maya's brings me is, and

40:22

obviously typing us by a shoe

40:25

is kind of stupid, it

40:28

is still pretty fun. That's true. Well,

40:30

thanks, Michelle. Thanks, Wendy. And while

40:34

you're here, how many citations in this week's

40:36

episode? Oh, this week there are 81 citations.

40:40

Yes. If people want to

40:43

read more about personality tests or find out

40:45

where we got our information from, how do

40:47

they find these 81 citations? Just

40:50

head over to our show notes and click on the

40:52

link to our transcript. Excellent. And if

40:54

you want to tell us anything

40:57

about your personality, come find us on

40:59

Instagram where science underscore VS

41:01

tells what you thought of the episode.

41:03

I'm also on TikTok at Wendy Zuckerman.

41:06

Come and say hello. See you, Michelle. See

41:08

you, Wendy. Bye. Bye.

41:11

This episode was

41:13

produced by Michelle Dang. We helped

41:15

Fundy, Wendy Zuckerman, Nick Del Rose, Rose Rimla, and

41:17

Joel Werner. We're

41:22

edited by Blythe Terrell. Back checking by Eva

41:24

Dasher. Mix and sound design by

41:26

Bumi Hidaka. Music written by

41:28

Bumi Hidaka, Emma Munger, Peter Leonard, So Wylie,

41:30

and Bobby Lord. A special

41:33

thanks to all of the researchers

41:35

that we spoke to for this

41:37

episode, including Dr. Nicholas Turiano, Professor

41:39

Howard Friedman, and Professor Paul Zuberstein.

41:42

An extra special thanks to the Zuckerman family

41:44

and Joseph Lavelle Wilson. Science

41:46

VS is a Spotify Studios original.

41:48

Listen to us for free on

41:50

Spotify or wherever you get your

41:52

podcasts. Apple, whatever, wherever

41:54

you want to find us, Science VS

41:56

is there. But if you are

41:58

listening on Spotify. Then

42:00

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42:04

when new episodes come out. I'm

42:07

Wendy Zuckerman, back to you next time.