Understand Personality & Empathy For Beginners
I use this information to:
- Accept other people's behaviors.
- Stop judging people
- Accept me.
This is how I do this.
Every morning when I wake up. I tell myself that I know nothing and I am most likely wrong in my assumptions. By doing that I have a different angle of understanding the world around me every day. Everything you do when you are awake is interpreting the world. For each day.
It gets more and more detailed depending on how much you expose yourself to it.
That is why Neuroticism and Emotionality decrease with age. But when you reach around 80 years of age. You start losing connection to your memories which creates anxiety.
That is when older people start getting more neurotic or emotional again.
To give you an easy way to understand neuroticism or emotionality.
Stand in a room and look at a place in that room that you want to walk over to. Keep that target in your head. If you are not alone. Ask the other person to put a chair between you and the target you want to go to. If you are alone. Take one hand and move the chair between you and the target yourself.
Did you feel the difference?
When the chair is in the way of you and your target. It blocked you from succeeding. That is the neuroticism you are experiencing. We all are neurotic or emotional at different levels. Your personality test will give you your level of neuroticism.
This is also an important number. Because you can calculate your level of confidence by subtracting your neuroticism value from your extroversion value.
Emotions and Empathy
So how does empathy work together with emotions?
As you recall empathy is two parts. Cognitive empathy and affective empathy. Some also argue that the ability to control the onset of affective empathy is the third part. Some people never get angry due to genetics. Some explode in Intermitted Explosive Disorder (IED). One such example is the series Boston Legal Season 1 Episode 2. Yes, she is still mentally ill but plays her part to get out.
Some people have a longer period of hours between the trigger and refractory period.
In countries like Scandinavia, Canada, The Netherlands and Australia.
Equality is high. A good thing to pay attention to is that in countries with high equality. Most women move towards the high end of Neuroticism and Emotionality. But most men move to the lower end of neuroticism and emotionality. This means that most women in egalitarian countries are becoming more reactive.
And men are less reactive.
Let us start with a crying child as a mental model. Then we are going to combine different personalities and empathy levels.
Lesson 1: High empathy together with high Neuroticism or emotionality
If you are high in neuroticism or emotionality and high in empathy.
You will most likely start crying yourself. You will be engulfed in the emotion of sadness and agony together with the child. So now you know what to expect from yourself if you have that combination. You also know what to expect from others that you know have that combination. Using the data from the personality and egalitarian research.
The probability of this being a woman is higher than a man.
In non-egetarian countries, it is reversed and men and women are more equal in their personalities than in Scandinavia. Yes, men and women are more alike in China and Malaysia in personality. Then men and women in egalitarian countries. They are also more normal in those terms. Mainland China also has a higher mean IQ level of 104, than Hong Kong's 106.
Egalitarian countries like Sweden have a mean of 98. The United States has a mean of 97.
Lesson 2: High empathy with low neuroticism or emotionality
If you are high in empathy and low in Neuroticism and emotionality.
You will then identify the child’s sadness and agony but you will not react as easily to it. You will most likely have the ability to decide if it is appropriate to start crying together with the child or not. You will not be subdued by the overwhelming emotion. Already you can see the advantage of being low in neuroticism. Using the data from the personality and egalitarian research.
Men would have a higher probability of having this combination than women in egalitarian countries.
Lesson 3: Low empathy together with high Neuroticism or emotionality
If you are low in empathy and high in negative emotions in combination with low cognitive empathy.
You will not understand the emotion of crying in the child and thus not react to it. Most likely not crying. You will most likely be perceived as callous, cold, and not emotionally intelligent. If you are low in affective empathy. You will identify the emotion and your neuroticism trait will make you react to it. Most likely cry. If you are low in both cognitive empathy and affective empathy.
You will most likely not react and not cry and be perceived as callous.
Lesson 4: Low empathy together with low Neuroticism or emotionality
If you are low in both empathy and negative emotions.
You will most likely be stable. You will not cry and the child will most likely find you to be callous.
Why?
Because the child sees your reaction in that you fail to recognize its sad agonizing emotion.
Now let us use an adult person laughing as a mental model. Then we are going to combine different personalities and empathy levels.
Lesson 5: High in empathy together with high Extraversion
If you are high in empathy and high in extroversion.
Your ability to produce dopamine is therefore higher than introverts. If you are high in empathy. You will quickly identify the adult laughing and respond to it by smiling and or laughing. More likely to be women than men in egalitarian countries. Because women move higher in extroversion.
Men move towards introversion.
Lesson 6: High empathy together with low Extraversion
If you are high in empathy and low in extroversion.
You are introverts and produce less dopamine and you will not have the urge to laugh. You might smile.
Most likely a man in egalitarian countries.
Lesson 7: Low in empathy together with High Extraversion
If you are low in empathy and high in extroversion.
You are an extrovert with more dopamine production. If you are low in cognitive empathy. You will not pick up on the laughter. You will not be forced by your brain cells to mimic the emotion of laughter. Even if you can do so from your personality as an extrovert.
If you are low in affective empathy.
You will most likely not start laughing or smile. Your brain simply does not produce the emotion in your brain. In all possible outcomes, you will not smile or laugh. Most likely a man in egalitarian countries. They are both lower in empathy and extroversion.
The opposite for women.
Lesson 8: Low empathy together with low Extraversion
If you are low in empathy and low in extroversion.
You are an introvert with low dopamine production. You will most likely not understand the emotion of laughter. And not respond to it due to the cognitive or affective part of empathy. Or both. Since you are an introvert you will not show emotions at all. More likely to be men in egalitarian countries.
Women are the opposite.
Now let us use an adult person being disgusted which is conscientiousness as a mental model. Then we are going to combine different personalities and empathy levels.
Lesson 9: High in empathy together with high Conscientiousness
If you are high in empathy and high in Conscientiousness.
To start with. You are an industrious person and effective. You will most likely identify the emotion of disgust in the adult. Because you are also high in disgust sensitivity. You will respond with a feeling of disgust.
Regardless of whether it is moral disgust or disgust from something described.
Something sickening or discussions about viruses or bacteria. It might also be disgust towards people or groups of people. That has a different status than you do. Most likely a woman is in egalitarian countries since the mean value for women is 0.5 standard deviations higher than men. Men are also becoming less disgust sensitive in egalitarian countries and women more.
That is why the Parasite Stress Theory correlation to women’s disgust is so high.
Lesson 10: High in empathy together with low Conscientiousness
If you are high in empathy and low in Conscientiousness.
You will identify the adult person feeling disgusted. But do not show the emotion of disgust since you are not disgust-sensitive. You are also not an orderly person.
Most likely a man in egalitarian countries.
Lesson 11: Low in empathy together with High Conscientiousness
If you are low in empathy and high in Conscientiousness.
If you are low in cognitive empathy you will not identify the feeling of disgust and not respond to it. If you are low in affective empathy. You will most likely not respond to it since your brain does not mimic the emotion. Most likely a man in egalitarian countries.
Women are mostly high in both.
Lesson 12: Low in empathy together with low Conscientiousness
If you are low in empathy and low in Conscientiousness.
This is most likely a man in egalitarian countries. Lack of the ability to identify or respond with a disgusted emotion. Also due to you not being a disgust sensitive person.
Most likely a Dark Tetrad Personality!
Lesson 13: If a person i low in affective empathy
You should know that people who have low affective empathy have a high probability of being Psychopathy, Machiavellian, narcissistic, or Sadism.
I try to not have any relationships with these types of personalities since I know what is to come of them. The reason is that any normal human being will be influenced by their behaviors and mimic them to survive. A normal person living with a narcissist will incorporate narcissistic behaviors to survive.
This is a first step for you to get a handle on how to interpret different levels of empathy together with personality traits.
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