In this series, I dig a little deeper into the meaning of psychology-related terms. This week’s term is the five-factor model of personality. These factors are often referred to as the Big Five. Personality traits are characteristics that are stable across time and across contexts. The five-factor model includes five personality trait dimensions. These are: […]
What Is… The Five-Factor Model of Personality (The Big Five) Read More »
I find it fascinating the range of comfort levels people have with being alone. It’s pretty much guaranteed that we will all need to spend at least some time in our own company, yet there are many, many ways in which people experience this. While I know that for some people alone time is quite
How Do You Feel About Your Own Company? Read More »
Mental illness can make it hard to be around people for a few different reasons. One of the common ones is social phobia, but it’s not the only reason. Social phobia, also known as social anxiety disorder, can be a crippling condition that makes it extremely difficult to be around people. It affects around 13%
Why Depression Makes it Hard to Be Around People Read More »
Introversion and extraversion are personality traits lying at opposite ends of a spectrum. Some people fit with one extreme or another, but many people fall somewhere in the middle. While societal expectations might make it seems like introversion is rare, it’s actually not. Introversion & extraversion – what’s the difference? Much of the difference between
How Common Is Introversion? Read More »
Introversion, shyness, and social anxiety can sometimes get mixed up and confused for one another, but they’re actually three distinct concepts. In this post, we’ll look at some of the similarities and differences. The relevant constructs Psychological constructs are representations of intangible thing that gives us a way to talk about those things and distinguish
Introversion, Shyness & Social Anxiety: What’s the Difference? Read More »
The Introvert Advantage: How Quiet People Can Thrive in an Extrovert World is written by psychologist Marti Olsen Laney, who is herself an introvert. She observes that we live in a culture that values extroversion, and cites Dr. David Myers, who identified extroversion as a prerequisite trait for happiness in his book The Pursuit of Happiness.
Book Review: The Introvert Advantage Read More »
A little while back I was reading a blog post that talked about Dr. Elaine Aron’s book The Highly Sensitive Person (affiliate link). I thought huh, sounds like I’m probably one of those. So I picked up the book from the library and had a read. It got me thinking about trait, illness, and all
Emotionally Sensitive, But Not-So-Highly Sensitive Person Read More »
Depression is a profoundly isolating illness, as many mental illnesses can be, and as my illness progresses in many ways I find myself evolving into a hermit of sorts.
My Hermitification: Depression & Social Isolation Read More »
