Big Five Personality Test - Neuroticism

In this talk, I go over Neuroticism, which is one of five personality type traits in the Big Five personality test model. Specifically, I go over how people who are high in neuroticism (prone to anxiety and stress) vs. low in neuroticism (laidback and centered) differ in lifestyle and career choices. I also go over some of the advantages and disadvantages of being high or low in this trait.

Transcript

Hey,

This is Ishar,

And in today's talk,

I want to go over the last trait of the Big Five personality type test,

And this is neuroticism.

So in my previous talks,

I went over the other four traits,

And this is openness,

Conscientiousness,

Extroversion,

Agreeableness,

And now I'm going to be going over neuroticism.

So with this particular trait,

This ranks how prone you are to stress,

Anxiety,

Depression,

Self-consciousness,

Just feeling vulnerable in general.

So someone who scored very high in this trait,

And again,

This is a spectrum,

So you can score anywhere between zero to 100,

Someone who scored very high in this trait tends to be very anxious,

Their mood goes up and down,

And they are very hyper vigilant to different threats in their environment,

And they are constantly reacting to their environment rather than being proactive.

And you may know a lot of people like this,

Where they are constantly stressed out about every little thing,

And they make small things very big in their lives,

So they're constantly just paranoid,

Stressed out,

Panicking all the time,

And they never seem to keep their positive emotions ongoing.

So their positive emotions are very fleeting,

And then the rest of the time they're very negative.

So dwelling in a lot of rumination,

Negative rumination,

Poor self-talk,

They feel self-conscious,

They feel anxious,

Angry at the world,

That kind of mentality.

Now someone who is very low in neuroticism tends to be very laid back,

So they're not as worried.

They kind of lead a very stress-free life,

They're not worried about little things,

And they tend to make a lot of big things small,

Which can be a pro and con,

And they're generally very laid back and have a general sense of well-being.

So if you score very low in neuroticism,

You're not really bothered by too much.

Now when we look at high levels of neuroticism,

You can probably see right away that there's a lot of things that aren't as beneficial,

So feeling stressed out all the time,

Feeling anxious,

Depressed and angry,

Those are not things that people generally try to seek out.

However,

What's not talked about as much is that there can be some benefits by being very high in neuroticism,

And that is the fact that since you're overly cautious and very paranoid about things not going away,

You have an extra level of focus to detail,

And you will double check your work if you're in a business-type environment to make sure that you're producing the best results.

So that's one of the things,

And especially if you're high in conscientiousness as well,

That tends to go hand in hand,

Where you tend to make a lot of perfect pieces of work,

Rather than someone who's lower in neuroticism who says,

Okay,

This is good enough,

Let me just put that out there.

And because you're hyper-aware of things that may go wrong,

You tend to be good at planning,

And you dot all your i's and cross all your t's in the sense that you take care of things beforehand,

And you're pretty prepared for what could go wrong.

So that's a bit better than not being prepared at all,

Which is sometimes what people who are low in neuroticism tend to do,

And I'm accused of that because I'm pretty low in neuroticism myself.

So the advantages of being very low in neuroticism is that you generally have low levels of stress,

And I can't tell you the last time I was actually stressed out about something.

So your life tends to be pretty just laid back,

And if you're also low in conscientiousness,

That also contributes to that,

Where if you're low in conscientiousness and also low in neuroticism,

We have the go-to-flow kind of attitude,

And that also has its cons to,

But also some pros.

But people who are low in neuroticism generally don't get caught up by different strong emotions,

And they're able to let go of things very easily.

Now what I will say is that although neuroticism can be caused partly by genetics and different factors in the environment,

There's certain things you can do to lower your levels of neuroticism.

So one thing is meditation,

And I talk about it all the time,

And I personally noticed this myself because I started meditating at a young age,

And I've dramatically noticed how worried I am about different things or paranoid or cautious compared to my peers or the same age.

And I also noticed that on the days that I don't meditate,

And it's been almost a decade since I missed the day of meditation,

But the days I do miss,

I have missed,

I have noticed that my mind will start to wander and I'm ruminating about things,

Or I'm self-conscious and all that as well.

So meditation actually lowers your levels of neuroticism.

So if you are feeling very paranoid or anxious or prone to all these negative emotions,

Well,

Embarking on a meditation practice,

Say doing like an hour or two hours a day,

Can certainly dramatically lower your levels of neuroticism.

And if you go further,

I don't think,

Can you point me a monk or someone who's been meditating for decades who is very frazzled or very stressed out?

It's very hard to find.

So meditation definitely lowers your levels of neuroticism.

And generally what I find as far as like general overall lifestyle and how people who are high in neuroticism and low in neuroticism kind of operate on a day-to-day basis is that people who are high in neuroticism tend to worry.

So if you are high in neuroticism,

You do want to make sure that you're conducting your life in a way that has a lot of the stresses removed,

Or at the very least is predictable and stable.

And that will help lower those levels because if you have a job that has a lot of variables and things just go up and down,

You will very much stress yourself out.

So having a stable job that is consistent and has a work that is familiar,

This will allow you to have ease about yourself and lower your levels of neuroticism.

However,

If you're also very low in neuroticism,

You may enjoy that work also that's very chill,

But you may feel restless.

So you may want a bit of challenge or can handle a bit of challenge or unknown if you are low in neuroticism.

And if you're also high in openness,

In addition to being low in neuroticism,

Then you definitely need things that change in your job.

But if you are high in neuroticism and like say low in openness or even high in openness,

You do want to be mindful of the amount of change because too much change if you're high in neuroticism can stress you out.

So just be cautious of that.

In terms of how people in different levels of neuroticism approach friendships and social interactions,

I typically find that people who are higher in neuroticism tend to need a bit more validation and reassurance from their partners.

So if you do know someone who is generally just all over the place,

A bit anxious,

They are a bit insecure about themselves,

Then you can provide them a bit of reassurance and validation and this will help them ease up a bit.

Now someone who is low in neuroticism may be careless at times because they're very low in neuroticism because they just don't care at times.

So they may be insensitive at times or be neglectful of a partner's needs.

So if you're very low in neuroticism,

Then it might be helpful to be a bit more mindful and see how the other person is doing.

Now if you're both very low in neuroticism,

Then it's a very chill relationship,

So no ups and downs,

No crazy fights or nothing like that,

But it tends to be very easy in nature.

So I hope you liked this talk on neuroticism and I hope you liked this whole series where we went over the Big Five personality type test.

So again,

This is another tool which we use to help understand yourself.

And once again,

What I find very fascinating about the Big Five test is that it works on a gradient,

So where you fall between the spectrum will make your results very different from someone else.

So this is a bit different from the Myers-Briggs systems where you're just like,

You know,

Four letters,

Right,

Like the INFP,

Which is my type.

But with the Big Five personality type test,

You can be like,

Say,

40% in extraversion,

You could be 20% in agreeableness,

You can be like,

You know,

39% in neuroticism,

And all this and the ratio of your percentages and the unique combination of that will make you a bit different from someone else of the same personality type in the Myers-Briggs system.

So it's kind of cool that it adds another level of complexity,

Where understanding results can help you really inform yourself on how to conduct your overall life.

So friendships that you have,

How you approach friendships and relationships,

Dating situations,

How you approach career choices,

How you live your overall lifestyles,

What cities would you live in,

All these different decisions you make can be influenced by understanding your Big Five personality type test results.

So again,

I hope you like this talk and the series.

And let me know if you'd like to hear future personality type talks.

Thank you.

Reviews

Very insightful. Now I want to learn the other four 😄.Thanks