Making the Connection: Strategies to Build Effective Personal Relationships (Collection) (56 page)

In making this comparison, Openness doesn’t tell us much. Although Clinton and Obama differ in their scores on certain facets, their overall rankings are both high. But their relative scores on Extraversion, Neuroticism, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness are informative. When taken together, very different profiles emerge.

Extraversion is particularly notable because Obama’s overall score is not only lower than Clinton’s, but also lower than the scores of most other successful politicians. Although Obama ranks very high on assertiveness and activity, he is not particularly warm or gregarious. Nor does he show much evidence of positive emotion, even when winning a historic election or a Nobel Prize. Klein, who now covers Obama, offers evidence of his low E from a politician who helped coach Obama for debates during the presidential campaign:
“He is a classic loner .... Usually you work hard at prep, and then everyone, including the candidate, kicks back and has a meal together. Obama would go off and eat by himself. He is very self-contained. He is not needy.”
¹⁸

This low neediness is another sign of Obama’s difference from Clinton: his very low Neuroticism. Whereas Clinton deserves credit for generally controlling resentfulness and discouragement, Obama doesn’t seem to feel them at all, even in the face of strong setbacks. In fact, his remarkable emotional stability, which many admire, has also been criticized as Spock-like. Maureen Dowd, another journalist with a gift for describing personalities, calls him “President Cool” and “No Drama Obama.”
¹⁹

This coolness might also be taken as a sign of low Agreeableness. But Obama clearly ranks high on several of its facets, especially straightforwardness and cooperation. Although he does not exude either altruism or tender-mindedness, his behavior suggests that they are at least average. So unlike Clinton, Obama is higher on Agreeableness than he might seem.

Obama’s high marks on all six facets of Conscientiousness also distinguish him from Clinton. He ranks especially high on deliberation, examining all sides of a problem. As with other personality traits, this can be seen as a mixed blessing, bringing him praise for his thoughtfulness but criticism that he is too professorial and indecisive.

Considering Obama and Clinton in this way shows how the Big Five can help us organize our intuitive observations by making them explicit. Although the profiles that it
generates are sketchy, the process focuses our attention on the full range of basic tendencies, including some that we might otherwise have overlooked. And as you will see, the findings we make in this way provide a framework for describing the personality patterns that I will consider in the following chapter.

Two. Troublesome Patterns

When we talk about people, we don’t just use adjectives, such as
dutiful
or
lazy.
We also use nouns, such as
workaholic
or
slacker.
The adjectives are a way of describing traits that someone has. The nouns are a way of describing categories that someone fits into.

Putting people into categories seems very efficient: A single word or phrase appears to offer a big picture of what a person is like. But words such as
workaholic
aren’t really labels for a complete personality. For example,
workaholic
means “one who is addicted to work or who voluntarily works excessively hard and unusually long hours,” and
slacker
means “a person who shirks work.” So instead of describing a whole person, nouns such as
workaholic
or
slacker
are just ways of emphasizing high or low rankings on a single trait—in this case, a facet of Conscientiousness.

We also have nouns for high and low scorers on the rest of the Big Five. For Extraversion, we have
life of the party
on one end and
loner
on the other; for Agreeableness, there’s
altruist
and
misanthrope;
for Neuroticism,
whiner
and
cool cat;
for Openness,
innovator
and
traditionalist.
And we use still other nouns for distinctive combinations. For example,
drama queen,
whose definition in my dictionary includes
“overreacts to a minor setback” and “thrives on being the center of attraction,” combines high N and high E.

The reason words such as
workaholic
and
drama queen
are so popular is that they’re not just shorthand ways of summing up some notable rankings. They also carry extra emotional weight because they evoke images that are more vivid than saying “high C” or “high N and high E.” It’s like the difference between the abstract description of a long tropical fruit that grows in bunches and turns yellow when ripening, and the enticing picture of a banana. Although
workaholic
and
drama queen
are not as clearly defined as
banana
, they each carry a message that immediately grabs your attention and reduces a complex set of characteristics into a simple image.

Recognizing the usefulness of such evocative words, psychiatrists have created a vocabulary for the potentially troublesome personality patterns they observe in their practices. To develop a consensus about them, they convened a committee of experts who described ten that they consider particularly important. These patterns, which I call the Top Ten, are summed up in the fourth edition of the
American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual
(DSM-IV),
¹
along with the following thumbnail sketches:

•
Antisocial
—A pattern of disregard for and violation of the rights of others

•
Avoidant
—A pattern of social inhibition, feelings of inadequacy, and hypersensitivity to negative evaluation

•
Borderline
—A pattern of instability in interpersonal relationships, self-image, and emotions, and marked impulsivity

•
Compulsive (obsessive-compulsive
²
)
—A pattern of preoccupation with orderliness, perfectionism, and control

•
Dependent
—A pattern of submissive and clinging behavior related to an excessive need to be taken care of

•
Histrionic
—A pattern of excessive emotionality and attention seeking

•
Narcissistic
—A pattern of grandiosity, need for admiration, and lack of empathy

•
Paranoid
—A pattern of distrust and suspiciousness such that other’s motives are interpreted as malevolent

•
Schizoid
—A pattern of detachment from social relationships and a restricted range of emotional expression

•
Schizotypal
—A pattern of acute discomfort in close relationships, cognitive or perceptual distortions, and eccentricities of behavior

As you scan the list, you may recognize patterns that you know by their colloquial names. Some of those names, such as
borderline
and
paranoid
, are the same as the clinical ones, while others are more colorful. For example, we use
sociopath
or
psychopath
for
antisocial; wallflower
for
avoidant; control freak, detail queen, workaholic, perfectionist,
or
bean counter
for
compulsive; clinger
for
dependent; drama queen
for
histrionic; egotist
or
narcissist
for
narcissistic; loner
for
schizoid;
and
weirdo
for
schizotypal.
But unlike the everyday words, which are used loosely and inconsistently, the DSM-IV defines the
Top Ten more carefully on the basis of clinical observations of enduring patterns of behavior. It also includes criteria for deciding how adaptive or maladaptive a pattern may be in a particular person. Those who are judged to be sufficiently impaired or distressed by an extreme and inflexible form of one or more of these patterns are said to be suffering from a personality disorder.
³

In thinking about the Top Ten, it is important to recognize that, unlike the banana example, these are not clearly circumscribed natural categories.
⁴
Instead, they’re more like the dimensional (graded) words used for traits than like the categorical (yes/no) words used for fruits: You can be more or less compulsive, but either you’re a banana or you’re not. Furthermore, detecting signs of one or more of these patterns need not be a cause for concern. The significance of mild or moderate versions must be judged on a case-by-case basis.

Nevertheless, what makes the Top Ten useful in everyday life is that they are a convenient way to focus attention on these common patterns. Although many of us have versions of these patterns that do us more good than harm,
⁵
their frequent association with difficulties in personal relationships or self-control makes it worth being on the lookout for them. Such awareness is particularly valuable when you’re trying to figure out what’s bothering you about someone and what to do about it.

In the rest of this chapter, I flesh out pictures of each of the Top Ten. But instead of asking you to memorize lists of characteristics, I follow the lead of psychologists such as Paul Costa, Thomas Widiger, and Robert McCrae, who use high
or low rankings on facets of the Big Five to describe them.
⁶
This approach builds on what you have already learned about the structure of personality. It also gives you a way to make a combined assessment of a person’s Big Five profile and potentially troublesome patterns with a single framework. To get started, let’s consider two patterns on the very low end of Extraversion.

Very Low E: Two Eccentric Loners

All of us know people who like to be alone. But few of us have had much experience with those who are at the very bottom of the Extraversion scale because such outliers are so good at keeping to themselves. To give you an example of what a low E pattern feels like, I’ve excerpted a self-description that a student named Noitrix posted on Yahoo!:

I have been thinking recently [whether] my life is so unnatural/weird if I compare myself to others, but for me, my life isn’t weird or strange at all.

I mean, I have never really had an interest in making friends. I had only 2 friends in my entire life, but I have no one at the moment. I do not feel loneliness or sadness or anything like that. For me, loneliness as a feeling does not exist because I always wanted to be a loner.

In my free time, I don’t go anywhere. I don’t have any friends, and I don’t want anyone, really. I don’t want to be even with my family. At school, I don’t
talk to anyone. I have no desire to get close to anyone; in fact, I love to be alone. I don’t know how it is possible, but I’m not attracted to girls—but I’m not attracted to boys, either. Never had a girlfriend because I never wanted [one] because I find it pointless/useless. I don’t think I’ll ever fall in love. I feel like I’m asexual.

I don’t really care what people say about me. I don’t feel anything when someone praise[s] or criticize[s] me. Also, I avoid eye contact when I meet strangers.

If I have to spend a lot of time with others, I feel like they suck out life energy from me and I need to spend a great deal of time alone in order to regenerate. I hate rumors, I hate gossip, and I hate small talk.

My only goal in life is to achieve my dreams. Everything else is meaningless. Friendship/love doesn’t mean anything for me.

Noitrix’s description of himself fits well with the schizoid pattern described in DSM, which lists the following characteristics: “neither desires nor enjoys close relationships, including being part of a family; almost always chooses solitary activities; has little, if any, interest in having sexual experiences with another person; takes pleasure in few activities; lacks close friends and confidants other than close relatives; appears indifferent to the praise and criticism of others; shows detachment or little emotion.” But if you think about
this pattern in the context of the Big Five, you will see that it can also be described almost completely in terms of very low rankings on all six facets of Extraversion: low warmth, low gregariousness, low assertiveness, low activity, low excitement seeking, and low positive emotionality. So all of Noitrix’s unusual characteristics may simply be a reflection of his place at the bottom of the spectrum of E.

Considering Noitrix’s odd behavior in this way not only gives you a different way of understanding him, but it also helps you distinguish his schizoid pattern from an even odder low E pattern called schizotypal. Unlike schizoids, schizotypals are not just indifferent to people. They also actively dislike them, a sign of low A; feel anxious in their presence, a sign of high N; and have a highly idiosyncratic way of thinking about the world, which can be taken as a sign of high O. Because of this combination, schizotypals don’t just keep a low profile. They can be flagrantly eccentric.

A notable example is Bobby Fischer, a misanthropic recluse who was forced into the public eye because he was one of the greatest chess players of all time. But despite his great talent, Fischer’s contempt for almost everyone offended even his most ardent fans. To make things worse, his frequent expression of bizarre ideas, including a vicious hatred of Jews and Americans, alienated him further. Although he remained a legend in the chess world, Fischer dropped out of sight in his 30s and lived the rest of his life as a vagrant. When he briefly surfaced immediately after the September 11, 2001 attack on the World Trade Center, it was to announce on a Philippine radio station: “This is all wonderful news ... I applaud the act. ... F--k the U.S. I want to see the U.S. wiped out.”
⁷