Forgot to talk about he Flynn effect in part 2 of intelligence above; something to look up if your into critiquing psychometric tests.
Personalities:
Do certain personalities make more income than others? And if so, are personalities shaped primarily by our genetics or by our environment?
Whether or not our personalities are predominantly inherent or shaped by our environment appears to be a largely unresolved issue amongst the scientific community, but
the findings so far do suggest that both play a factor with...
Around 40 percent of a person's personality traits stem from inherited genes, according to Dr. David Funder, psychology professor at the University of California, Riverside, and author of "The Personality Puzzle." This leaves room for considerable influence from environmental factors.
Do Children Inherit Their Parents' Personalities? | LIVESTRONG.COM
Meanwhile scientific studies continue to be carried out
that support evidence for both sides of the equation.
Genes play a greater role in determining key personality traits like social skills and learning ability than the way we are brought up by our parents, researchers claimed.The findings contradict the existing belief among psychologists that the environment we grow up in plays a larger role than genetics in shaping our personality.Researchers from Edinburgh University studied more than 800 sets of identical and non-identical twins to learn whether genetics or upbringing has a greater effect on how successful people are in life.
It's nature, not nurture: personality lies in genes, twins study shows - Telegraph
Writing in the Journal of Personality, the researchers found that identical twins were twice as likely as non-identical twins to share the same personality traits, suggesting that their DNA was having the greatest impact. Genetics were most influential on people's sense of self-control and also affected their social and learning abilities and their sense of purpose
Enviroment stronger than genes in determining your personality | Daily Mail Online
and on the contradictory side...
The debate over whether nature or nurture defines personality has taken a further twist after scientists found foster parents have a greater impact on personality than directly inherited genes from parents. Researchers at the University of Exeter and the University of Hamburg used the zebra finches to investigate how personality is transferred between generations. They found that foster parents have a greater influence on the personalities of fostered offspring than the genes inherited from birth parents.
Enviroment stronger than genes in determining your personality | Daily Mail Online
The current prevailing genetic evidence seems to suggest that we actually don't have genes for personality. And this conclusion doesn't come from a lack of trying: The US government has spent billions on genetic research.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog...ce-personality
So it appears that we are still in the fledging stages of understanding how a personality is constructed, and much like the origins of intelligence & mental health ailments,
this issue is unlikely to resolve itself until there are further advancements in genetics and neuroscience. That being said, I think it is safe to assume that some reasonable percentage of our personalities are inherent, so that begs the question, are some personalities predisposed to be more successful in life than others?
The problem with answering this question is that we simply do not know why some people portray different personality traits than others, so instead of identifying genes or mechanisms in the brain that might give us some concrete insights into the construction of a personality,
we are once again left to utilize psychometric tools to find our answers, and as consequence, the findings are subjective and open to error, in fact the most popular test to identify a person's personality today, the Meyer's Briggs test, is flimsy at best.
The Meyer's Briggs test operates by asking a person a series of questions which will inevitably place them in a category that best resembles their personality.
The scientific validity and reliability of the Meyer's Briggs test however has time and time again come under scrutiny from those in the academic community who don't see it as being supported by scientific evidence. In short, if an IQ test is piece of cardboard flying through the area than the Myer Briggs test is a piece of wet paper heading towards a high powered sprinkler.
Nevertheless, it is what we have to work with, and
it has found that different personalities do lead to inequities in income. In other words, it appears that some personalities are predisposed to earn more income than others, in which those that have strong type A personalities, ENTJ and ESTJ, earn the most, with a mixed bag of type B and type A personalities being at the bottom.
In regards to answering a personal question I have; Do bullies and mean spirited people rise to the top? I have found the evidence on this seems to be really unclear as I could not find many studies on it, however
a study done in Canada did find that bullies tend to earn more income, have a higher self esteem, and more sexual partners in their later lives than their victims. So it would appear that the human pecking order lives well beyond our adolescent years. Another article, though it did not cite any references, (but was able to pinpoint what my Meyers Briggs personality was in high school spot on), noted that ESTJ's were the bullies in high school, which scored the second highest on the Myer Briggs income ladder, thereby lending some credence to my first findings on bullies above.
Provocative new study finds bullies have highest self esteem, social status, lowest rates of depression | National Post
Here
All this being considered,
I find the validity of the Meyer's Briggs test to be too shaky for my liking. It states that the two natural born leaders are in groups ENTJ and ESTJ, and that they are often impatient, judgemental and unskilled at empathy while other articles have noted that it is essential for natural leaders to have good empathy and listening skills,
after all when the average person thinks alpha male, I'm sure they're thinking of Bill Clinton and Fred from Scooby Doo, not the Gordon Ramsey's and the Eddie Haskell's of the world, though they seemingly rise to power to.
So do differences in personalities result in inequities in income? It would appear so, according to the myer Brigg's test, but the science behind it is highly questionable, as it appears that we are still in the fledging stages of understanding what constructs our personalities, and whether or not they are predetermined largely by our environment or genetics.
I think it's safe to assume that your personality type does play a role in determining your financial success, but
any claims made by people that some of us are naturally equipped to rise to the top of the income ladder based on our genetics, is purely conjecture at this point.
Next up: Human mating and competition