For some strange reason, when you are growing up, nobody really teaches you properly how personality works. There's plenty of pretty good research out there now on how our personalities work, but at least when I was growing up, my parents and teachers would just give generic advice on "be yourself" or "you are special". In fact, science has pretty good evidence on a lot of more personal or sensitive topics like personality and intelligence that the average population just doesn't want to hear about. It's definitely in the category of uncomfortable truths.
Wouldn't it be nice if everyone was born equally smart or equally good? That's a comforting truth. Feels fair.
Here it is, you are born with a personality that is largely fixed. Ripped the bandaid off.
Well first of all, what is personality? After all how can we reason about something if we can't define it. Honestly, psychologists can't define this one super well. In fact the entire field of psychology is a bit hand wavy since it's based on observing behaviours and generally struggle to model the internal workings of the brain. Any how, it is roughly defined as characteristics, traits and patterns of thinking, feeling and behaving. As such, a good model for personality should be stable, predictive, and observable. In fact, personality is a powerful predictor for political leanings and other real world effects, like a Hitler.
The model I'm most familiar with after listening to many hours of Jordan Peterson (that's like a whole blog in and of itself), is the Big Five Model. It's like a video game where everyone has a value along a slider of each of the five traits which are relatively independent to each other. I did a test and in my own life have tried to infer the personality traits of others using this framework. It is neat and useful, and definitely not perfect.
1. Openness
This is how much you like to explore new stuff. I think my openness is in the top 1% of people. I like learning about new topics, reading about philosophy, trying out new experiences. People low in openness like to stick to what they know and live a relatively closeted, routine life. This is one of the best predictors for political leanings since left wing people are more open to change and new ideas, and conservatives want things to stay the same.
2. Conscientiousness
People who are conscientious love staying clean and organised. A lot of people can probably relate to the mum scolding the dad for making a mess of the house. There is a slight effect of women tending to be more conscientious than men, although the bell curves largely overlap. Hitler was high in cleanliness and would reportedly bathe every day and kept himself extra clean. Jordan Peterson has a theory that another expression of this trait (the next section of this blog), is to clean the nation of its "Jewish vermin". Being high or low in a trait is not inherently good or bad, as the mom who loves cleaning isn't quite equal to Hitler. I'm pretty average here.
3. Extraversion
This is the one everyone who's done a free MBTI can't shut up about. It pisses me off as a past part-time psychology student that people treat it as binary trait. It's a spectrum from being energised and loving social interactions to wanting to tinker alone in silence, and everything in between. I'm also pretty average here. Btw, the distribution of all of these traits are bell curves, which deserves its own blog at some point! This trait explains why some people never seem to be alone and some people can dwell in their mum's basement for days.
4. Neuroticism
I'd say this one is the only trait where generally, more is worse. It describes how much negative emotion you experience. In life, you some times meet people who emotionally crumble at every minor inconvenience and people who remain unfazed even if their arm gets cut off. As you can imagine, someone who's always filled with negative emotions tend to burden themselves and other people. However, sometimes higher neuroticism is good as it can act as a more sensitive alarm system or motivator for change. For instance, if you are easily stressed about your health, you may turn that into building healthier lifestyle habits. I'm pretty low in neuroticism and generally don't feel that bad. However, if something overwhelms me, it hits all at once and I don't have much practice dealing with it. This has led to some bad spirals.
5. Agreeableness
The doormatness index. It is determined by how willing you are to just comply as opposed to engage in conflict. I, for instance, dislike conflict, violence and argument. I am high in agreeableness and tend to be more empathetic and make way for others. Someone who's low in agreeableness tend to be more combative, speak their mind, and engage in conflict. People who express their disagreements healthily can be strong leaders and powerful social influences. People who express their agreeableness healthily can help de-escalate tension and build communities. A naive person higher in agreeableness will always lose to a disagreeable person.
Everyone is a cocktail of various amounts of each trait. Even though these traits are largely determined from birth, your culture, upbringing and life experiences can lead to them being expressed in different ways in different situations. I remember watching this video on James Fallon (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vii60GUGTQU), who by many biological markers is a psychopath. And not in the metaphorical, hyperbolical or insulting sense of the word. A psychopath who lacks empathy, care for others or respect for social order. The type of people that you would imagine to go on a killing spree. Yet he remained a well loved and respected neuroscientist. The explanation he gives to explain his own situation is that the genes are present but inactive due to the love and support he always had since childhood. Also some surveys (not super rigorous) seem to suggest that surgeons and CEOs have a higher percentage of psychopathic traits amongst them than the general population.
So what does this all mean? Well just like most things, like your athleticism, you are sort of born with a baseline and tendency that can be activated or shaped by what you surround yourself with and the actions you take. As such, the best thing you can do is understand your own baseline more deeply and try to build upon it in a constructive way that makes you prouder to be yourself.
Like I always say, play the hand that you are dealt and be the best version of yourself that your personality can support.