The Advantages of Being Disagreeable (Low on the Agreeableness Personality Trait)

This video describes the personality trait of agreeableness and the potential advantages of having a low level of agreeableness (being disagreeable). There are advantages to being agreeable, but not every aspect of agreeableness translates into productivity. Individuals who are disagreeable are more likely to challenge poor decisions. Individuals who are disagreeable often appear as more competent in the workplace and are more likely to attain supervisory and managerial positions. The five-factor model of personality traits, which is also known as “The Big Five” model of personality. In this model, personality comprises five personality traits: openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism. The acronym OCEAN is helpful for remembering the personality traits. Openness to experience is characterized by insight, creativity, an appreciation of art, intellectual curiosity, and a high awareness of feelings. Conscientiousness is characterized by impulse control, planning tasks carefully, being highly organized and prudence. Extraversion is characterized by getting energy from social interaction, talkativeness, and having a large number of acquaintances. Agreeableness is characterized by being cooperative, increased level of caring, empathy, friendly, seeking to compromise. Neuroticism is characterized by mood dysregulation, anxiety, worry, depression, frustrating, nervousness, being easily upset, and low emotional stability. Genetics explain about 50% of personality traits, but the percentage is not the same for every personality traits. Personality traits tend to be stable over time.