Why do we worry about personality in interpersonal relationships?

"Please describe your personality in one word." What do you think when asked this question? Many students will have trouble answering this question. This is not due to a lack of self-analysis. Human personality is extremely complex, and personality is built up by a combination of various factors.

Nevertheless, every day we come across words that express personality, such as "That person is sociable" or "You're optimistic." Sometimes you may feel hurt, thinking, "I'm not really optimistic...'' and this may be troubling to everyone who is living a student life.

People try to organize complex things by dividing them into themes and simplifying them. It's similar to when searching for a restaurant on the Internet, searching for what you want to eat, such as "ramen,'' "curry,'' or "set meal,'' and then landing on the website of an individual restaurant. This is because trying to understand every phenomenon in the world accurately and in detail requires a huge amount of time and effort. Therefore, humans use socially shared fixed ideas, "stereotypes''.

This stereotype is often wrong. A typical example would be men and women. I don't hear the words "masculine" and "feminine" very often anymore, but what about preconceived notions? In psychology, masculine traits are sometimes expressed as "agency" and feminine traits as "communion," but the emphasis is on the premise that people possess both characteristics, regardless of gender. However, in the real world, things seem to be changing.

For example, let's say there's a woman who makes sharp comments on the Internet. Even though she is actually a kind person, people judge her as "She's smart, but she's not kind.'' For some reason, people sometimes think that "smartness" and "kindness" are incompatible and cancel each other out. People only see one side of others and predict other personalities in their heads. When doing so, we want to strike a balance and avoid straying too far from stereotypes.

This is how prejudice is born. At seminars, student club, or part-time jobs, you may be forced to assume a personality that is different from your true self, or put in a position you don't want. In middle school and high school, it can cause bullying and school caste, but prejudice also occurs in college, where it is relatively easy to choose the people and groups you associate with. This is because it is a phenomenon that always occurs when people are confined in a small group and communicate with others. The same goes for your company, community, and social media, and will continue for the rest of your life.

Throughout history, humankind has lived in a society of struggle. In an environment where you don't know when someone will attack you, you need to be able to instantly discern the personality of others. This ability has probably been passed down to the peaceful modern times. Unfortunately, I don't think prejudice will go away, but it is possible to understand what it means to be "prejudiced.'' Knowing that "instantaneous and short-sighted judgments of personality are dangerous'' and keeping a distance from prejudice is the best way to protect your own mental health.

Considering the true nature of personality from the world of psychology

However, knowing your personality correctly is extremely important in understanding yourself and others. So, what exactly is personality? I'll think about it.

In psychology, there are two main ways to express personality. They are "typology" and "characteristic theory."​ ​Typology is a method of applying things to categories, such as "kind/unkind" or "kind/smart." Many psychological tests and fortune telling are based on this method. However, in the real world, there are people who have multiple characteristics such as being "kind and smart,'' and people who have subtle nuances such as "a little kind'' and "not so kind.'' Typology is not suitable for understanding personality in detail. Think of it as an effective method when you have limited time and effort, or when you want to express the whole thing roughly.

By the way, a psychological test called "MBTI" (*) has recently become popular, but this is also based on typology. It is popular because it is easy to understand because it guides you to 16 types. However, it is not good to be overconfident in the MBTI. It seems better to think of it as a tool for enjoying the "rough understanding" that is unique to typology.

*Myers-Briggs Type Indicator.A personality test based on Jung's type theory and based on international standards.

On the other hand, the "trait theory" is a method that divides personality into small elements and expresses each one in terms of quantity or degree. I think it's easier to understand if you imagine how characters are represented by numerical values such as attack power, defense power, and speed in a game. In trait theory, the more detailed the elements, the more accurate a person's personality can be grasped, and the more individual differences and changes due to growth can be expressed.

Typologies, which are close to simple intuition, have been used by humans since ancient times. Its history dates back to ancient Greece and Rome, and continued until the 19th century, when modern medicine developed. In the 20th century, trait theory was developed as a more scientific method for studying personality. However, human personality has vague boundaries and can be expressed using a variety of complex words, so it is difficult to define it like a game character. Therefore, in the world of psychology, numerous studies have been conducted and attempts have been made to establish ``axes'' for determining personality. Learning this method will help you know your true self. Next, let me briefly introduce it.

You can deepen your understanding of your personality by looking it up in a dictionary.

In fact, dictionaries are tools that have greatly contributed to the study of the world of complex personalities. Dictionaries contained words used in each era and region, and it was thought that by extracting words that describe humans, it would be possible to enumerate all the characteristics of humans. From the end of the 19th century to the 20th century, attempts to do this were carried out all over the world. American psychologists Allport and Odbert extracted 18,000 words to describe people from a dictionary and created a list of about 4,500 words to describe personality.

Reading dictionaries is not the prerogative of psychologists. When you want to understand your personality, look up various words in the dictionary and try to find the words that say, "This describes me.'' What you can truly agree with can be said to be your personality. In the first place, personality itself is expressed through words, so the more words you know, the more sophisticated your understanding becomes. If you look up a dictionary, you will come across thousands of words that describe your personality, but these are only a shortcut to understanding your personality correctly. This is the most recommended method for university students who have plenty of time.

Since then, in the world of psychology, attempts have been made to organize words extracted from dictionary research into groups. As a result, the idea that human personality can be expressed in five dimensions has now become mainstream. These are called the "Big Five" and are briefly summarized below. To what extent do the emotions and characteristics that you tend to have apply to you?

Please note that the Big Five is a theory of traits. As with typology, it is incorrect to say, "Oh, I'm an extrovert!" It is appropriate to measure each characteristic quantitatively, as in a game character or an academic ability test, and it is effective in understanding the strengths and weaknesses of the five characteristics. Then you can see your strengths and weaknesses. Also, pay attention to characteristics that may seem like weaknesses at first glance. For example, people with strong neuroticism tend to have negative emotions, but on the other hand, they also have the strength of being able to notice small details and make thorough preparations. On the other hand, although "diligence'' may be seen as positive, it also carries the risk of being a perfectionist and falling into self-loathing when failure occurs.

If you have a big goal and your weaknesses are a barrier, fill in the gaps like you would exercise. On the other hand, if you can approach it in a way that takes advantage of your weaknesses, there is no need to make any improvements. In this way, analyzing your own personality and considering your next action is the only way to truly understand yourself.

In this way, the accumulation of psychological research over many years supports us in understanding personality. In recent years, with the spread of the Internet, free personality diagnostic tools have become available, but what you need to be careful about is whether the tool is truly based on scientific knowledge and reliable. In the first place, it costs a huge amount of money to create a test. If it's available for free, it's likely serving another purpose, such as collecting personal information or generating advertising revenue.

First, let's look at the dictionary. If you want to know more, check out a specialized psychology book. If you find it difficult to take the time, you can try describing the characters' personalities when reading movies, novels, or manga. By increasing the number of words that describe your characteristics, you will be able to judge your own personality correctly.

How to deal with personalities in student life

What should you do if you know a certain amount about your personality and want to change yourself? In fact, I often encounter students who have such concerns in my psychology lectures. Psychological problems such as "shyness," which makes it difficult to stand in front of people, "procrastination," where people don't work on reports or assignments until the deadline, and "HSP (Highly Sensitive Persons)," who find it difficult to live in lively places like universities. There are various trends that apply scientifically. If you worry too much about the "bias'' introduced at the beginning, it may be due to the "spotlight effect,'' which is common among young people, and can interfere with discussions and presentations.

So, is it possible to change your personality? This issue is complex, but I often say,  "You can't change it like height, but you can change it more than weight."Personality, like height, does not suddenly stop changing at a certain point, but like weight, it changes little by little over the course of a person's life, being influenced by various factors.

In order to intentionally change your personality, you need a little exercise. If you want to increase your extroversion, try taking classes that include discussions, if you want to lower your neuroticism, imagine good things happening when you wake up every morning, and if you want to improve your cooperativeness, try taking classes that include discussion. If you want to increase your openness, try "trying to help a friend with their work,'' or if you want to increase your openness, "expose yourself to foreign news and literature,'' or if you want to increase your diligence, "don't look at your smartphone while working,'' and so on. Please try it.

On the other hand, there is no need to force yourself to change your personality. There is a term in psychology called the "principle of maturity." The idea is that people change their personality over time as they age in order to better adapt to their daily lives. Even if we have many worries when we are young, as adults we find a comfortable place in society and are able to live peacefully and happily. We may be unconsciously seeking to find the right person in the right place.

An important future path. Should we decide based on personality?

One of the most typical situations where personality troubles everyone is job hunting. When you become a third year student, you rush to self-analyze, write a version of yourself that is not your true self on the entry sheet, convey your personality in a short interview, and prepare for the SPI or aptitude test by thinking, "I think it would be better to answer this way.'' I read a lot of books... If you have understood the story up to this point, you may feel that much of job hunting is fruitless.

Japan has a deep-rooted culture of hiring new graduates all at once, and it is necessary to evaluate compatibility with a huge number of companies and students in a short period of time. Normally, if you want to test students' work ability, it would be best to give them a test that is similar to work, such as having them write articles for a newspaper company, but there is no time for that. So we try using psychological tests and self-analysis tools, but companies don't really trust us. In the midst of this gap, students who lose sight of their individuality may find themselves in a mismatch with job prospects after graduation.

In addition, in recent years, the media has been buzzing with statements such as  "The generation that has spent their student lives during the coronavirus pandemic lacks communication skills.'' From a psychologist's point of view, I don't think that a phenomenon of a few years will change the personality of an entire generation. I have the impression that things are getting a little too heated, but it is also true that there are companies and students who are influenced by one-sided and short-sighted information from the media.

In an age of information overload, if personality analysis is to be applied to choosing a career or career path, it is better to limit it to broad categories such as  "I like interacting with people'' and  "I like working alone.'' It may be. Personality is multifaceted and variable. This is because seemingly negative elements can prove powerful in unexpected situations.

Personality analysis is essentially a tool to discover and create a comfortable environment for yourself. It's not about giving up on something you really want to do just because it's not suitable for you or doesn't suit your personality. For those of you who are about to enter society after completing your student life, I want you to live your life independently, without being swayed by misinformation or prejudice regarding your personality. I think so.