Paranoid Personality Traits Should Capture Our Attention

Some suspiciousness is healthy. If we get a text, for example, we may resent the intrusion and question its legitimacy. What do they want? Access to an account? Our money? Too much suspicion sends other signals. Paranoia is that unwarranted feeling that people are out to do us harm. To rise to the level of […]

How to Intentionally Change Your Personality

When we talk about our personality, many of us treat it as a fixed, unchanging part of us. But the truth is our personality can evolve and often does, even without us deliberately trying. For example, many of us are more open to new experiences and willing to take more risks when we’re younger, and […]

Personality vs. Trauma Coping: A Misunderstood Distinction

The difference between someone’s personality and their trauma coping and survival strategies is often misunderstood, leading to increasingly pernicious misjudgments about individuals’ character, intentions, or behavior. While personality refers to enduring, largely context-independent traits, trauma-coping and survival strategies and behaviors developed in response to (mostly unhealed) traumatic events. For the most part, trauma-coping and survival […]

How Does Your Personality Affect Your Happiness?

Many of us don’t necessarily have the kind of lives we want. We may not enjoy intimate relationships, jobs that fulfill us, the ideal home, or enough income to do what we want to do. But do these circumstances dictate our happiness? According to a new study led by René Mõttus of Edinburgh University and […]