The Nerd Battle Royale: Is Grit, Curiosity, or Some Combination the Key to Creativity?
Stop Thinking About Psychological Strengths in Isolation
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Psychologists often fall into the trap of oversimplifying human beings into a handful of qualities. The Big Five Personality Traits? Too many. The Big Four? Still too many. The Big Two? Or perhaps we should just settle for a single General Factor of Personality?
But let's be real, we're all a complex mix of countless personality dimensions. Even if we narrow the conversation down to psychological strengths, the diversity is staggering.
I'm a big fan of Alex Linley's taxonomy of psychological strengths (that kick-ass image above). It's a framework that appreciates the multifaceted nature of human greatness. It recognizes that to truly understand a person, we need to consider a broad spectrum of dimensions that set them apart from others. This means
Identifying qualities that matter
Understanding how often and intensely these qualities manifest
And what I want to focus on today: exploring the value of specific combinations that lead to desirable outcomes such as achievement and equanimity.
I'm excited to give Paid Subscribers/Supporters of Provoked first dibs on my latest publication on this topic. It’s a collaboration with rising star Shengjie Lin, creativity researcher
, and host of The Psychology Podcast,