The Times - UK (2022-05-23)

6 Monday May 23 2022 | the times

life

T

he more recent consensus

from decades of scientific

research is that human

personality is best mapped

on to a spectrum rather than

separated into types.

What has been found is that five

broad dimensions or “traits” (often

known as the “big five”) capture the

totality of human personality. Each of

these dimensions is measured on a

spectrum from low to high: openness

to experience, conscientiousness,

extraversion, agreeableness and

neuroticism. (The acronym Ocean is a

useful aide-memoire here.)

To get an indication of how you fare

on each of these, try answering the

questions below. For each question

give yourself a score from 1 to 7 using

this scale:

1 = Disagree strongly

2 = Disagree moderately

3 = Disagree a little

4 = Neither agree nor disagree

5 = Agree a little

6 = Agree moderately

7 = Agree strongly

How open-minded are

you? Test yourself

‘A

ll of us are a little

bit uncomfortable

with uncertainty,”

says Professor

Elaine Fox, who has

just relocated from

the UK to Australia,

aged 59. She made

this move after an executive search

firm got in touch mid-pandemic to

persuade her to become the head of

the University of Adelaide’s School of

Psychology. (They also offered her

husband, the psychologist Kevin

Dutton, a full professorship.)

Until this January Fox was director

of the Oxford Centre for Emotion and

Affective Science — the laboratory

she founded at the University of

Oxford to research what makes us

thrive. “It wasn’t ideal timing,” she says

— back in the UK to launch her book

Switchcraft: Harnessing the Power of

Mental Agility to Transform Your Life.

“But if we didn’t go for it, we thought

we’d probably always regret it.”

Clearly some of us are more

uncomfortable with uncertainty than

others. And that can be an issue

because, she says, “it’s just a fact of life.

Not just in the big things” — a global

pandemic, say — “in our everyday life.

The more used we can get to that

uncertainty, the more likely we are to

be resilient in most situations.”

If we can nurture our innate ability

to adapt mentally to change and

challenges, and use awareness and

intuition to pick whatever strategy

suits the occasion, we boost our

chances of happiness, wellbeing and

success, Fox says. Switchcraft explains

how we can grow to acquire “a variety

of options in our armoury” so we’re

equipped to manage any circumstance.

It’s no coincidence, meanwhile, that

“intolerance of uncertainty” is one of

“the absolute key features of anxiety”,

Fox says, particularly at clinical level.

Anxious people often try “to create

a world that’s perfectly predictable.

So they try to control everything.”

Family, work life, the whole caboodle.

“Of course it’s impossible.”

Plus, worrying about what-ifs is

precisely the wrong tool to apply here.

It is only by exposing yourself to small

gobbets of uncertainty (travel is a

great method) that you can increase

your tolerance, she says. Even if we are

cautious or neurotic by nature, even if

we are prone to a “sticky” attentional

system — where negative thoughts

cling and promote a rigid mindset —

“we can train ourselves to change a lot

of these things”.

Fox — who also coaches sporting,

business and military elites to achieve

their full potential — emphasises that

there’s no right or wrong way to be.

Are you resilient enough for 2022?

From Ukraine to

inflation, it’s a time

of flux: to thrive

you must assess

your ‘big five’

traits, a scientist

tells Anna Maxted

“Very few traits or personality

characteristics are ideal for every

situation we’re likely to be faced with.”

That said, I have taken her “big five”

personality quiz, which gauges one’s

degree of openness to experience,

conscientiousness, extraversion,

agreeableness and neuroticism, and it

certainly feels as though there’s

potential for wrongness. “These five

traits provide the skeleton for our

understanding of personality,” she

says. I score decently for openness to

experience — a low score means one

resists change and is at possible risk of

“mental arthritis”.

My score, though, was also high “for

being bloody agreeable” (my words) —

which relates to caring about being

“nice”. Fox laughs. “Women tend to

score much higher on agreeableness

actually.” This can be unhelpful. “If

you’re in a very toxic situation, being

persistently very agreeable probably

isn’t functional. You need to be a bit

more angry or a bit less agreeable.”

One way to shift tack, when

required, is to emulate a role model.

One might seek inspiration from a

fictional heroine like Elizabeth Bennet,

or your best friend. Though I probably

need to ask myself, “What would

Christine from Selling Sunset do?”

Fox also warns against unfettered

empathy in, say, a business situation.

More politic is “perspective taking”,

which is “the ability to see someone’s

standpoint through the lens of your

own interest”. Ah, corporate empathy,

the empathy of the psychopath.

It takes work to improve our mental

agility, as we are naturally “cognitive

misers” who use familiar beliefs and

routines to save energy — the brain’s

priority. But it’s double-edged, she

says: “On the other hand it can make

you very rigid.” With a complicated

decision, the brain will tend to go for

the easy option. If you can open your

mind, you might find a better way.

Open-mindedness necessitates

“intellectual humility”, or IH. Fox

provides a quiz (see right) for readers

to measure theirs. Features of a high

IH include respecting others’

viewpoints, being able to separate your

ego from your intellect, and a

willingness to revise your opinion in

light of new evidence.

You might have to risk being seen as

indecisive, Fox says, because the

intellectually humble bother to sift

through all available information

before reaching a conclusion. Yet,

“because of that, you tend to actually

make better decisions, particularly

with very complex problems”. A

willingness to learn is implicit. “It

doesn’t mean not trusting your own

opinions. It’s almost the opposite.”

The intellectually arrogant,

meanwhile, “have a very firm belief

based on whatever evidence they’ve

been given and they just will rigidly

not change from that. Which can

come across as being much more

decisive and confident, so politically it

can be a real advantage to be

intellectually less humble.”

Please, don’t encourage them.

However, Fox adds: “Overall, the

quality of decisions is better the more

intellectually humble you are.” Can we

muster the grace to keep this in mind?

Extracted from

Switchcraft by Elaine

Fox, which is published

by Hodder & Stoughton

at £16.99

Resist

change and

you risk

‘mental

arthritis’

GETTY IMAGES