Author: Jeff Cassman

The two personality traits can interact with each other to produce chronic anxiety problems.

People who are both neurotic and introverted are more likely to experience anxiety problems, research finds.

Signs of introversion include preferring to be in a quiet, relaxing environment and having a rich mental life.

Neurotic people have a tendency towards sadness, irritability and self-consciousness.

The two personality traits can interact with each other to produce chronic anxiety problems.

It may be because people who are both introverted and neurotic tend to pay more attention to things going wrong, rather than to potential rewards.

Over the years, focusing on problems rather than rewards may condition people with these personality traits to experience more anxiety.

This is hardly surprising if all a person sees is problems everywhere.

Another contributing problem could be that introverted and neurotic people are less likely to get help from others, the study’s authors write:

“…perhaps an introverted neurotic person is prone to experiencing greater anxiety because of a lack of social support to aid in the amelioration of such anxiety (an introverted person may not seek much interaction with others).

Thus, an introverted person may not have the coping strategy of seeking social support as an option, which then maintains and potentially exacerbates anxiety…”

The conclusions come from a study of 466 young adults who were assessed twice over three years.

The results showed that those who were both neurotic and introverted were more likely to be experiencing high levels of anxiety issues three years later.

The study’s authors write:

“Low extraversion and high neuroticism relate to greater susceptibility to negative affect, less susceptibility to signals of reward, greater susceptibility to signals of punishment, and higher vulnerability to arousal and anxiety.”

On their own, being neurotic or introverted may not cause a major anxiety problem.

For example, people who are highly neurotic, but also outgoing and extraverted, may be protected from anxiety, the authors write:

“Even if an individual is highly neurotic, this same individual with high extraversion would more likely also be sensitive to signals of reward, which may offset or mask feelings of extreme anxiety.”

People who are just introverted, but with a stable personality (non-neurotic), were no more likely to be anxious, the study found:

“…even if an individual is highly introverted, this same individual with low neuroticism and low emotional reactivity would be less likely to react to signals of punishment with negative affect such as anxiety.”

The study was published in the Journal of Abnormal Psychology (Gershuny & Sher, 1998).

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The most common form of relationship abuse is psychological.

Women stay in abusive relationships due to a combination of low self-esteem, poor alternatives and how much they have already invested in the relationship, research finds.

Despite being abused, many women (and men) find it hard to leave their partner.

Only 12 percent of the women in this study who were abused — psychologically or physically — left their partner within two months.

Many women felt they were not worthy of something better.

Their low self-esteem was sometimes the result of experiencing childhood abuse — this appeared to raise their tolerance for abuse.

The conclusions come from a study of 323 women, all of whom reported at least one incident of abuse, whether physical or psychological.

Psychological abuse included things like “called me fat or ugly” or “insulted or swore at me”.

Most of the abuse reported in the study was psychological.

The results showed that 88 percent of women were still with an abusive partner over two months later.

The authors write that:

“…women experiencing high levels of psychological distress may not feel efficacious in their ability to leave their partners.”

Childhood abuse was an important contributory factor, the authors write:

“…women who were abused in childhood were more satisfied with their current relationships than women who were not abused in childhood.

It is possible that women with childhood abuse histories are more satisfied in their relationships than women without childhood abuse histories because they have more tolerance for mistreatment based on early life experiences and resulting interpersonal schemas.”

Being abused had an unusual effect on women: it encouraged them to work harder at their relationship.

“…the more psychological abuse women are exposed to, the more energy and effort they put forth to resolve the conflict, thus leading to increases in perceived investment.”

And the more women invested in their relationship, the more likely they were to stay in it.

The study was published in the Journal of Interpersonal Violence (Edwards et al., 2010).

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People with this skill had higher relationship satisfaction, along with lower stress.

Being mindful has a profound positive effect on relationships, research finds.

Partners who are able to remain mindful with each other are much less stressed and much happier than those who do not.

While some people have a natural tendency to be more mindful than others, the quality can be trained.

Mindfulness is a way of paying attention to the present moment in a non-judgemental way.

Even people who are generally mindful may find that they do not always pay full attention to their partner.

It is easy for the attention to wander to future worries and past events.

People low in relationship mindfulness tend to agree with statements such as:

• “I have conversations with my partner without being
  really attentive.”
• “When I’m with my partner, I find myself saying or doing things without paying attention.”

Dr Jonathan Kimmes, the study’s first author, said:

“Relationship mindfulness is that tendency to be present with your partner in a nonjudgmental way.

It’s one thing to be mindful when you are at the grocery store, but can you be mindful with the person you are most intimate with?”

The conclusions come from a study of 218 heterosexual couples who were given surveys of their happiness and relationship mindfulness.

The results showed an association between higher relationship mindfulness and better relationship satisfaction, along with lower stress.

Women with mindful partners were also less depressed.

Dr Kimmes said:

“To me as a therapist, these results suggest that this area could be a promising target for clinical interventions.

There are many mindfulness practices that could work with clients, so which ones should you choose?

We should look at practices specific to relationships for people seeking therapy in that area.”

The study was published in the Journal of Marriage and Family Therapy (Kimmes et al., 2019).

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This trait is a distinct part of human intelligence.

Intelligent people are more likely to trust others, research finds.

This may be because more intelligent people are better judges of character.

The study, published in the journal PLOS ONE, analysed data from the ‘General Social Survey’, which asks a nationally representative sample of Americans about their attitudes and characteristics (Carl & Billari, 2014).

The researchers focused on the idea of generalised trust: not trust of close friends and family, but of other unknown members of society.

People were asked:

“Generally speaking, would you say that most people can be trusted or that you can’t be too careful in dealing with people?”

They found that people who were more trusting were also happier and had higher levels of physical health.

It also emerged that trust was not just a proxy for intelligence: in other words intelligence could not explain the links between either trust and health or trust and happiness.

The study’s lead author, Noah Carl of Oxford University, said:

“Intelligence is shown to be linked with trusting others, even after taking into account factors like marital status, education and income.

This finding supports what other researchers have argued, namely that being a good judge of character is a distinct part of human intelligence which evolved through natural selection.”

It’s smart to trust

The research chimes with a number of established findings about the link between trust at the individual and societal level.

Previous research has found that people who are more trusting are:

• More likely to start a business.
• More likely to do voluntary work.
• Happier with their lives.
• Have better physical health.

In addition, societies which have higher levels of generalised trust overall also have:

• Public institutions which are more efficient.
• Higher levels of social capital.
• Greater economic growth.

The study’s coauthor, Professor Francesco Billari, said:

“People who trust others seem to report better health and greater happiness.

The study of social trust therefore has wider implications in public health, governmental policy and private charity, and there are good reasons to think that governments, religious groups and other civic organizations should try to cultivate more trust in society.”

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