The last few years there has been a very significant development due to social media, which has gone largely unnoticed. For thousands of years, people have considered and studies personality types. Since the dawn of time there has been acknowledgement that there are certain traits that we humans have in common. There have been many theories to where these come from and how. Are we born with them? Do we learn them by environment? Are they in our DNA? Are they like eye and hair color? For many years we have been able to take tests to determine our personality type, and even take little surveys to find out what Harry Potter House we belong to. Slytherin btw. Yeah, I not only speak to snakes, but I enjoy it too.
This last few years there has been a significant development in psychology around the validation of personality types. Unlike before, the sample size was always too small to accurate determine the most common pattern of personality traits that humans have in common. That is until Facebook. Now that we have a tool that millions of people would actually respond to a survey of this nature, we can get a really large sample size. As a result, scientists are starting to get a better idea of which basic personality types are the most common among humans. Well I have some unfortunate news.
You are most likely, neurotic. Most people, a large majority even, seem to fall into this average personality type that exhibits high levels of neuroticism and extraverted behavior. They also tend to be more superficial than open about self deprecating issues about themselves. Why do you think tools like Facebook were so incredibly successful!? So there point is that most of us share a common issue, we suffer from neurosis. This means we tend to worry about things a lot, get disturbed easily, have up and down mood swings, get irritated by others and feel rather depressed sometimes. The more neurotic that you are the more you will suffer from more acute symptoms like anxiety, depression, and emotional ups and down.
Sound horrible? Or maybe sounds like you? Well do not feel ashamed, you share this common trait with just about everyone else. Different varying degrees and some people cope better than others, but at the end of the day we are all a bunch of neurotics. I daresay that neurosis and humanity are just about the same thing. There is hope btw. You can learn to deal with this better over time, and with age you tend to experience less tumultuous symptoms. You actually can work on this and you actually can improve. It really helps to gain tools and methods of grappling with this mentality and to get better at reacting appropriately to these emotions.
The larger point is that science is actually proving that there is nothing wrong with you or I. Facebook has helped prove that we all have this in common, and we should not go around thinking that you are the only one with the thoughts that you have fumbling around in your brain. Chances are that you share some of the same struggles with many people around you. The problem is none of us are very open either, so none of us ever talk about it.
Just an interesting consideration in the daily struggle to improve my reaction to common neurosis!
Guy Reams
