What is the Downside of Socially Desirable Personality Characteristics?

This video answers the question: What is the downside of having socially desirable personality characteristics?
I will be looking at this from the perspective of the five-factor model (FFM) and the personality-related difficulties at the extremes of personality traits. We know the five-factor model can predict certain types of difficulties. Taking a look at the five-factor model, we see the acronym OCEAN: openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism. It's important to understand what profile is considered socially desirable versus undesirable. Typically, the socially desirable profile would be high scores and openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, and agreeableness, and a low score in neuroticism. Of course, that means the socially undesirable profile would be a low score in openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and a high score in neuroticism. A lot of the research literature really pays attention to that socially undesirable personality profile and there's not a lot of attention given to the extreme scores moving in the socially desirable direction. This is interesting because both the high and low poles of each of the traits are associated with difficulties. The concern here is that mental health clinicians may be missing a lot of potential difficulties by ignoring certain scores on personality traits. To answer this question about the downside of socially desirable traits, I'll really be looking at the downside of both socially desirable and socially undesirable traits.
Low openness to experience: difficulty adjusting to change an indifference toward the feelings and thoughts of other people, having difficulty thinking creatively, and having a lack of curiosity and imagination
High openness to experience: being excessively detached from the conventions of society, being excessively imaginative, being lost in one's own internal world, and being in trouble with the law
Low in conscientiousness: difficulties with impulse control, difficulty achieving goals, and being easily distracted
High conscientiousness: working too hard, difficulty giving up control, being stringent, a preoccupation with rules, order, schedules, and organization, difficulty making decisions quickly, and perfectionism
Low extraversion: anhedonia and social withdrawal
High extraversion: being overly controlling, having intense attachments, excessive risk-taking, being flaunting, being loquacious
Low agreeableness: arrogance, manipulativeness, and being argumentative
High agreeableness: self-denigration, being dependent, gullible, deferential, feeling ineffective, and feeling useless
High neuroticism: social inhibition, low self-esteem, and difficulty controlling emotions
Low neuroticism: risk-taking, being emotionless, and acting out against others in society

Boudreaux, M. J. (2016). Personality-related problems and the five-factor model of personality. Personality Disorders: Theory, Research, and Treatment, 7(4), 372–383.

[akehapkap]

This the best description I've gotten in about 6 minutes than in about 30 years :)
Sometimes complicating things is not the answer ❤️ That was really simple :)

[lemontarts]

this is very informative, thank you! i think it would also be really interesting to hear about the positives of the socially undesirable traits.

[yelloworangered]

At first, I could not understand anything you said -- but I must be getting acclimated to the vocabulary and style of presentation. This is good news! :)

[oracleofdewphi]

Thank you for another excellent and informative video! I’ve read studies about the tendencies of people with high openness but low conscientiousness and vice versa, and I was curious if you knew of any studies about people with both high openness and high conscientiousness. Those are my two highest traits, but openness is stronger for me. I also unfortunately have mildly high neuroticism, but this video helps me to feel better about that. I have somewhat low extroversion and fairly high agreeableness.

I have noticed that some extended family members with high openness (some likely have high conscientiousness too, but I don’t know if that’s relevant) are prone to believing unlikely conspiracy theories that aren’t supported or are contradicted by scientific studies. They don’t seem to have schizotypal personality disorder, but I think their high openness can make them vulnerable to subscribing to unconventional beliefs that don’t make sense.

I used to work in a research center that studied people’s often puzzling behavior when it came to uncertain catastrophic risk. This was in Florida, and we looked at responses to government messaging, as well as insurance purchasing decisions and evacuation decisions during hurricanes.

One construct we became interested in was called Need for Cognitive Closure (NCC). People with high trait NCC feel a powerful need to settle on an answer quickly. These answers often tend to be black and white, and they may not budge from their conclusion even when given repeated contradicting information. High NCC is also linked to delusions.

Everyone’s Need for Cognitive Closure increases during stress, or when cognitive resources are depleted due to fatigue, the presence of unpleasant background noise, or even after drinking alcohol. People who already have limited cognitive resources due to executive dysfunction may be prone to making hasty decisions and sticking to them.

In other places I’ve also studied sensorimotor gating, which is thought to be impaired in disorders/conditions such as schizophrenia, PTSD, OCD, Tourette’s, ADHD, and autism. People in these populations tend to have trouble filtering out redundant or irrelevant sensory stimuli, and become overwhelmed by it. This can deplete cognitive resources and interfere with executive dysfunction.

If people with schizophrenia or traits of the disorder are already flooded with sensory information and have depleted cognitive resources, this could lead to a high need for cognitive closure, especially if they are feeling very anxious. If someone has high openness as well, then they may be open to unconventional ideas at first but then settle on the first semi-plausible explanation they come across.

Sorry this was such a long response. I find all of this so interesting! I look forward to watching more of your videos.

[scarlettchappendenden]

Wow! Must have missed this. Thanks Doc! Need to watch this again! This is astoundingly well thought through.

[angelinastanton]

This was a great video highlighting the maladaptive traits and personality disorders associated with high and low levels of the five factor traits.

[johnharrisjr]

Good explanation of the downside of socially desirable personality characteristics. The downside would be working to hard, being over controlling, taking risks, and exaggerating.

[veronicabetz]

I liked that you addressed the downside of both the socially desirable and undesirable. Very informative!

[corhydron]

I wish you'd clarify that when you say 'socially desirable' you mean 'desirable in the American culture'. In my culture for instance, high extraversion is seen as a vice, as a type of obnoxiousness. I'm guessing similar differences occur between other cultures.

[maidenmarian]

Thanks Dr. GRANDE I really enjoyed rhis video. This is very helpful!

[sukhonesty]

That’s interesting that low neuroticism is associated with not having a sense of humor. I wonder why

[angramainyu]

I have very little extraversion, very little neuroticism. As you can imagine, I'm life of the party...

[maloneaqua]

High conscientiousness is also associated with love of conformity and pro-authoritarian sentiments.

[dingo]

What makes a trait "socially desirable"? As judged by whom? Surely not everyone has the same idea about what's desirable.

[ayounglivelysoulinanoldtir]

most people, who try to be"good citizens" are way too passive, submissive & obedient, wimpy little "yes" people, they, inevitably, end up being used, abused, walked all over & taken for granted by their friends, fammilies & employers. you have to be a bit rebelious, tough, & not afraid to express your opinions & speak your mind, if you want to be respected!

[GS-stns]

I was fascinated by the "difficulty recognizing facial expressions". I would like to learn more about that if you can point me in that direction.

I also like that you asked us to watch the video first and if we enjoy it, we would subscribe and like. You didn't want us to do those things first.

[MatthewAshworth]

Some of these "symptoms" are pretty intriguing. I think some more elaboration (maybe on another video) on low Neuroticism would be interesting, particularly the lack of sense of humour (which I always attributed to low Positive Emotions facet of Extraversion) and also difficulty recognizing facial expressions (always thought this was linked with sympathy from Agreeableness). Also very curious why does having very high Openness make us self-critical? Isn't this a part of high Neuroticism?

[rchhcsupernova]

I would love to have a test on this. I am always so curios about how would I fit in those systems. I would guess that sure I have high conscientiousness, but fairly mix in the others.

[Kataro]

This is what Big Five should have more focus at- It's okay that we should increase/exercise consciousness and that but I think everyone deserves to know that being at the unlucky side actually gives some advantages too!

[birkit]

Yes, I found it very interesting. More on this topic pls?