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Conscientiousness is by far the least popular but has the highest income. That is not at all surprising. Objectivity, right and wrong as reflected by a balance

Conscientiousness is by far the least popular but has the highest income. That is not at all surprising. Objectivity, right and wrong as reflected by a balance of measures, is a rare and unpopular innate personality trait that allows for making micro-decisions many people might find abhorrent, more typically based upon evidence.

kijin 5y ago
According to the same chart, conscientious people also seem to perform significantly better in college than everyone else. In the modern world, better GPAs are usually correlated with higher income. Interestingly, those people don't seem to do particularly well in the SAT. Perhaps their abilities are "unlocked" to the fullest only after they get into college and get a chance to make independent decisions.
- Judgmentality 5y ago
  > Interestingly, those people don't seem to do particularly well in the SAT. Perhaps their abilities are "unlocked" to the fullest only after they get into college and get a chance to make independent decisions. Or maybe the SAT is just a shitty test.
  - maxqin1 5y ago
    For whom? The real problem is that not all valuable paths can come to the same bottleneck. Med student? Well, the SAT might be a good indicator of how successful you'll be at completing a medical program in the US. Same thing for law. Are you the creative type? Then the SAT probably won't be as indicative of your future success.
    - austincheney 5y ago
      I have around a 148 IQ but scored only 1060 on the SAT. Clearly those two measures are not linked. This has not prevented me from earning a 4 year degree or becoming a software developer. I find writing software to be easy while many of my peers seem to struggle. In reflection personality and practice are all that have mattered. IQ isn’t a significant consideration of comfort/confidence in writing software, a skill.
      - maxqin1 5y ago
        > I have around a 148 That's rather impressive, but I would double-check those numbers. For example, which IQ test? Was it recently updated? IQ tests are adjusted by as many as 10 points every 10 years [1]. Have you double verified with another test? How did you prepare for each? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect
        austincheney 5y ago
        I am not that concerned. The number is as important to me as my exceedingly unimpressive SAT score.
        saiya-jin 5y ago
        well then it shouldn't be used as main point of your argument
        austincheney 5y ago
        I think you are confusing a relevant but worthless data point for something of value. I guess there are people that attach emotional significance to such things, but it’s just some number that made a valid argument. If I don’t care and it’s my number why do you or anybody else care? Why should I not use this number to make a valid argument?
        deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
        akomtu 5y ago
        I think a good IQ test would be finding isomorphic graphs. A typical question would be: here's a graph with 7 nodes, tell which of the 4 graphs below it matches.
        SneakyTornado29 5y ago
- the-dude 5y ago
  > Perhaps their abilities are "unlocked" to the fullest My impression is conscientious people work within the system and don't toe the line. edit: disclosure, I am highly unconscientious, didn't finish uni etc.
  - sokoloff 5y ago
    “Toe the line” is pretty much a synonym to work within the system.
    - the-dude 5y ago
      Ah, right! Not a native speaker, got that wrong-way-round and double-up. Thanks.
      - sokoloff 5y ago
        No problem. I am a native speaker and it seems a weird expression to me as well (so much that I had to look it up to be sure). I’d expect it to mean what your original usage was. Don’t get me started on “flammable vs inflammable” vs “accurate vs inaccurate” ;)
        the-dude 5y ago
        Just for the record : I would put my toe over the line. A bit.
    - DangitBobby 5y ago
      My understanding of the phrase "toe the line" was to express that someone is technically within limits but is intentionally testing the boundaries of their limits, but apparently this is not accurate. TIL.
- HPsquared 5y ago
  Perhaps the SAT is more like an IQ test (where a "quick wit" is advantageous), and college grades are based more on sustained performance, planning, meeting deadlines etc. These are very different things.
- jollybean 5y ago
  Getting good grades is a grind. Being 'sufficiently smart' - plus - being organized, diligent, applying yourself consistently, will probably get you better grades than being a disorganized genius. If everyone had the same IQ, then University grades would be actually a really, really good measure of raw conscientiousness.
  - paulpauper 5y ago
    but some courses are easier than others though
- fallingknife 5y ago
  Grades are shockingly dependent on completing busywork on time, so I am not at all surprised that conscientiousness beats intelligence there.
jollybean 5y ago
I would say that's almost more disagreeable than conscientious. Conscientious can almost be better described as 'consistent', 'doing what you say you're gong to do', 'being responsible'. I think you might be hinting at the right thing ... .. but 'weighing evidence in a very highly deliberative, judicial fashion' - might not be the best example of that. Extolling the Judgment, might even land on the disagreeable side. For example, the Judge who finds a supposed murderer 'not guilty' even with the mobs of people chanting 'guilty' outside the courthouse. I don't think 'disagreeableness' is necessarily even the right word, it's more like 'will have their own opinion even if it makes them unpopular'. I almost think that those Big 5 could be reoriented in a way that divides people as those inclined towards populist outcomes vs. those inclined towards judicial, principled, truthful ones.
Barrin92 5y ago
Conscientiousness isn't a measure of objectivity, it's a measure of reliability, the capacity to work diligently and adhere to rules. It correlates with income well because we're living in a very institutionalized society that rewards people who adhere to rules and follow expectations. In the US it's basically what upper middle-class WASP culture is and it sustains a large share of income because it's very good at reproducing itself and managing organisations, it's all the lawyers, and bureaucrats, politicians and administrators and so on, it's all the people who're really good at making schedules.

kijin 5y ago

According to the same chart, conscientious people also seem to perform significantly better in college than everyone else. In the modern world, better GPAs are usually correlated with higher income. Interestingly, those people don't seem to do particularly well in the SAT. Perhaps their abilities are "unlocked" to the fullest only after they get into college and get a chance to make independent decisions.

Judgmentality 5y ago
> Interestingly, those people don't seem to do particularly well in the SAT. Perhaps their abilities are "unlocked" to the fullest only after they get into college and get a chance to make independent decisions. Or maybe the SAT is just a shitty test.
- maxqin1 5y ago
  For whom? The real problem is that not all valuable paths can come to the same bottleneck. Med student? Well, the SAT might be a good indicator of how successful you'll be at completing a medical program in the US. Same thing for law. Are you the creative type? Then the SAT probably won't be as indicative of your future success.
  - austincheney 5y ago
    I have around a 148 IQ but scored only 1060 on the SAT. Clearly those two measures are not linked. This has not prevented me from earning a 4 year degree or becoming a software developer. I find writing software to be easy while many of my peers seem to struggle. In reflection personality and practice are all that have mattered. IQ isn’t a significant consideration of comfort/confidence in writing software, a skill.
    - maxqin1 5y ago
      > I have around a 148 That's rather impressive, but I would double-check those numbers. For example, which IQ test? Was it recently updated? IQ tests are adjusted by as many as 10 points every 10 years [1]. Have you double verified with another test? How did you prepare for each? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect
      - austincheney 5y ago
        I am not that concerned. The number is as important to me as my exceedingly unimpressive SAT score.
        saiya-jin 5y ago
        well then it shouldn't be used as main point of your argument
        austincheney 5y ago
        I think you are confusing a relevant but worthless data point for something of value. I guess there are people that attach emotional significance to such things, but it’s just some number that made a valid argument. If I don’t care and it’s my number why do you or anybody else care? Why should I not use this number to make a valid argument?
        deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      - akomtu 5y ago
        I think a good IQ test would be finding isomorphic graphs. A typical question would be: here's a graph with 7 nodes, tell which of the 4 graphs below it matches.
        SneakyTornado29 5y ago
the-dude 5y ago
> Perhaps their abilities are "unlocked" to the fullest My impression is conscientious people work within the system and don't toe the line. edit: disclosure, I am highly unconscientious, didn't finish uni etc.
- sokoloff 5y ago
  “Toe the line” is pretty much a synonym to work within the system.
  - the-dude 5y ago
    Ah, right! Not a native speaker, got that wrong-way-round and double-up. Thanks.
    - sokoloff 5y ago
      No problem. I am a native speaker and it seems a weird expression to me as well (so much that I had to look it up to be sure). I’d expect it to mean what your original usage was. Don’t get me started on “flammable vs inflammable” vs “accurate vs inaccurate” ;)
      - the-dude 5y ago
        Just for the record : I would put my toe over the line. A bit.
  - DangitBobby 5y ago
    My understanding of the phrase "toe the line" was to express that someone is technically within limits but is intentionally testing the boundaries of their limits, but apparently this is not accurate. TIL.
HPsquared 5y ago
Perhaps the SAT is more like an IQ test (where a "quick wit" is advantageous), and college grades are based more on sustained performance, planning, meeting deadlines etc. These are very different things.
jollybean 5y ago
Getting good grades is a grind. Being 'sufficiently smart' - plus - being organized, diligent, applying yourself consistently, will probably get you better grades than being a disorganized genius. If everyone had the same IQ, then University grades would be actually a really, really good measure of raw conscientiousness.
- paulpauper 5y ago
  but some courses are easier than others though
fallingknife 5y ago
Grades are shockingly dependent on completing busywork on time, so I am not at all surprised that conscientiousness beats intelligence there.

jollybean 5y ago

I would say that's almost more disagreeable than conscientious. Conscientious can almost be better described as 'consistent', 'doing what you say you're gong to do', 'being responsible'. I think you might be hinting at the right thing ... .. but 'weighing evidence in a very highly deliberative, judicial fashion' - might not be the best example of that. Extolling the Judgment, might even land on the disagreeable side. For example, the Judge who finds a supposed murderer 'not guilty' even with the mobs of people chanting 'guilty' outside the courthouse. I don't think 'disagreeableness' is necessarily even the right word, it's more like 'will have their own opinion even if it makes them unpopular'. I almost think that those Big 5 could be reoriented in a way that divides people as those inclined towards populist outcomes vs. those inclined towards judicial, principled, truthful ones.

Barrin92 5y ago

Conscientiousness isn't a measure of objectivity, it's a measure of reliability, the capacity to work diligently and adhere to rules. It correlates with income well because we're living in a very institutionalized society that rewards people who adhere to rules and follow expectations. In the US it's basically what upper middle-class WASP culture is and it sustains a large share of income because it's very good at reproducing itself and managing organisations, it's all the lawyers, and bureaucrats, politicians and administrators and so on, it's all the people who're really good at making schedules.