As a species, we all have personality traits that make up a large part of how we interact with the world, with each other, and within ourselves. These personality traits play crucial roles in everything from our mental and physiological health to how we care for ourselves, what careers we choose, our romantic compatibility with mates, and whether we create lives that bring us meaning, satisfaction, and agency, or we continue to struggle.
And as a result of having these complex personalities and evolving levels of self-awareness, we all tend to crave self-understanding, utilizing various frameworks and stories to make this understanding feel more coherent and real for us.
This is what the countless forms of self-help and self-development we’ve continued to develop and refine over the centuries have helped us with; some of these forms being more accurate and more applicable than others.
In this podcast episode, I explore personality through a grounded, research-based lens, contrasting popular frameworks with the empirically derived Big Five model. I unpack WHY systems like astrology can feel compelling and fun, while often missing the mark on what we actually need to truly understand our personality, as well as its ties to our health, behaviors, and overall outlook in life. I reflect on how healing, life experience, and conscious growth can meaningfully shape who we become over time.
The Big Five Personality Framework is backed by decades of rigorous research, with hundreds of researchers contributing to its development, and is often utilized and applied to the ideas and work of trusted and famous psychologists, such as Daniel Kahneman, Jordan Peterson, Jonathan Haidt, Martin Seligman, and more.
Since women have a long history of being underrepresented and excluded from research that will inevitably impact them in daily life, and because the Big Five research uncovers clear gender differences in personality traits, I find this topic to be not only fascinating but relevant to the work that I do in women’s health.
I dedicate a large portion of the second half of this episode to unpacking the ways that gender/sex differences in the Big Five traits overlap with women’s health statistics, evolutionary theories impacting women, and real-world examples of the ways that women can and are often harmed when we’re taught to normalize behaviors that exist in higher degrees in men.
Enjoy the show!
Today on Nourishing Our Sanity:
What distinguishes the Big Five personality model from other personality frameworks
Common critiques of astrology and why it persists culturally
Personality traits and patterns across monogamous, non-monogamous, and BDSM communities
How personality expresses itself under stress, trauma, and relational dynamics
The capacity for personality change through healing and development
Where to find Kymber:
Instagram: @kymbermaulden
Substack: @kymbermaulden
Website: kymbermaulden.com
Email: sheheals@kymber-maulden.com
Resources:
Comments
Nothing yet. Say the first thing.
Sign in to join the conversation.