People who score high in neuroticism often struggle. Neuroticism is linked to higher rates of depression, eating disorders, and stress disorders. Such people go to the doctor more often. They are quick to make unrealistic plans for themselves and quick to abandon them. Even though they are always ready to perceive danger, neurotics often enter into relationships with precisely those people who will threaten them. They also have a lot of negative emotions toward themselves, and think they deserve what they get.” (Brooks,

“How to Know a Person”, p.183)

“AGREEABLENESS. Those who score high on agreeableness are good at getting along with people. They are compassionate, considerate, helpful, and accommodating toward

others.

In the workplace, agreeableness is a mixed trait. Those high in agreeableness do not always get the big promotions or earn the most money. People sometimes think, rightly or wrongly, that high agreeables are not tough enough, that they won’t make the unpopular decisions. Often it’s the people who score lower on agreeableness who get appointed to CEO jobs and make the big bucks.

OPENNESS. If agreeableness describes a person’s relationship to other people, openness describes their relationship to information. People who score high on this trait are powerfully motivated to have new experiences and to try on new ideas. They tend to be innovative more than conventional, imaginative and associative rather than linear, curious more than closed-minded. They tend not to impose a predetermined ideology on the world and to really enjoy cognitive exploration, just wandering around in a subject.” (Brooks,

“How to Know a Person”, p.185)

“When we approach a painting or a song, we want it to be familiar but also a bit surprising. That’s known as the fluency sweet spot. People low in openness feel comfortable when the artwork feels familiar. People high in openness find anything moderately familiar to be

boring.

We specifically asked research assistants who did not have extensive training in psychology to rate the emotions in these videos. Would these untrained observers’ natural human ability to recognize how others are feeling be useful in predicting stability in relationships?

Five years later, we checked back with the couples to see how they were doing. Some were still together, some were not. When we set their relationship status beside our research assistants’ ratings of emotions in their earlier interactions, we found that the ratings predicted with close to 85 percent accuracy which couples had stayed together. This is consistent with many other studies showing that emotions between partners are a critical indicator of whether intimate relationships thrive or fail. The fact that raters with no special knowledge of psychology could accurately predict relationship strength was significant because it showed that most adults have a facility to accurately read emotions. Most of the raters had not yet experienced deep, longer-term relationships, yet when they looked closely, they could sense important, sometimes subtle emotions and behaviors in the couples. Emotions drive relationships, and noticing them matters.

I asked, “If you could pick one trait that would predict how someone would turn out, what would it be?”

“That’s easy,” he said. “How willing they are to change their mind about what they think they know.”

The most valuable people, he continued, weren’t the ones with the best initial ideas, but the ones with the ability to quickly change their minds. They were focused on outcome over ego. By contrast, he said, the people most likely to fail were those obsessed with minute details that supported their point of view.