On this week’s episode of Relatable, we are diving into the topic of Personality. Specifically, what Major Traits/enduring characteristics that make up people’s personalities. Colter, Cayla and Lauren discuss the behaviors we were born with versus the ones learned, and how the spectrum of the OCEAN Big 5 can cause people’s personalities to be so different.

Key Discussion Points:

• Personality: We learn that personality can differ from one person to another, but by recognizing how we are different, will this allow us to make better decisions versus reacting, or even create more confidence in yourself and the ability to go toe-to-toe when a conflict arises?
• Nature vs Nurture: Certain personality traits, such as temperament, can be inherited, while others such as openness to experience can be influenced by the environment a person was raised in. Can we recognize in ourselves what traits we have learned from our surroundings versus the ones we were born with?
• Big 5 Traits: They are openness to experience, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism. We learn that each of these traits are non-binary, so everyone has a different relatability/experience with these traits. How can learning someone’s Big 5 change the way you communicate and interact with them?

The message of this episode is to understand that there are 5 Big Traits that play a part in how people’s personalities are created and developed. The traits or feelings we gravitate towards could be the effects of our childhood experiences, or things we learned while growing up, while others may be a characteristic we passed down from birth. The more we are able to identify how our personalities align/differ from others, the quicker we are able to understand and interact better with those around us.