Amongst the Big Five personality traits, one of the most popular traits would be extraversion, popularized by famous psychologist Carl Jung, and it has been a construct that was broadly studied and quoted in a broad range of psychological studies.
Extraversion tends to be described in 3 aspects: socially oriented (being warm and gregarious), active (adventuresome and assertive), and surgent (dominant and ambitious).
From the outside, we often observe extravert behaviors as being socially dominant and sociable. People strong in extraversion are often seen to dominate social interactions, be assertive and confident. They are also sociable, easy to get along with and are attractive in social context. This results in larger friendship networks of extroverts compared to introverts.
Yet in psychology, extraversion is much more than just being appealing in social context.
Positive emotionality keeps you going
What makes extraversion unique in the Big Five traits is the positive emotionality associated with the trait - the tendency to experience positive emotions such as joy, excitement and enthusiasm. Such emotionality leads to a virtuous cycle that reinforces positive perception of self and self-efficacy, leading to the individual feeling more confident in achieving desired career outcomes, setting higher goals and effective career plans to achieve them.
Career exploration and career planning could be an energy draining process as the individual faces setbacks and challenges. It could often entail building network and seeking information from others, often bringing in new perspective in the process. The mentioned positive emotionality leads to a tendency of extroverts feeling more energetic and proactive, allowing them to be more persistent in pursuing career exploration and planning activities. As a result, studies often found that extraversion is positively associated with more active career exploration and planning, higher levels of career aspiration, and greater levels of career decidedness.
How we measure extraversion
Extraversion is a trait being measured in various personality assessment tools. The MBTI measures the dichotomy of extraversion and introversion to study how people focus their energies. Hogan Assessments separate extraversion into two scales. Ambition measures the degree to which a person is socially confident and energetic, focusing on the positive emotionality of extraversion. Sociability focuses on how a person enjoy interacting with others in a social context.
Through such tools we learn more about how strongly we prefer extraversion as a personality trait, stemming from which we could devise strategy to maximize our effectiveness in career exploration and development. For example, if our strength is in extraversion, we may want to leverage on it and focus on building career networks, while keeping an eye on the dark side of it - being too bold and insensitive to others.
Our upcoming articles would cover the remaining facets of the Big Five traits and their implications on career self-management.
Project Timeout provides personal coaching service that focuses on the effectiveness of your career. With the help of personality assessment tools, we help you analyze what impacts your career self-management, and what behaviors help you manage your career development.
References
Brown, S.D. & Hirschi, A. (2013). Personality, career development, and occupational attainment. In S.D. Brown & R.W. Lent (Eds.), Career development and counseling: Putting theory and research to work (2nd ed., pp. 299-328). New York, NY: Wiley.
Lent, R.W. & Brown, S.D. (2013). Social Cognitive Model of Career Self-Management: Toward a Unifying View of Adaptive Career Behavior Across the Life Span. Journal of Counseling Psychology. 60(4), 557-568.
Watson, D., & Clark, L. A. (1997). Extraversion and its positive emotional core. In R. Hogan, J. A. Johnson, & S. R. Briggs (Eds.), Handbook of personality psychology (pp. 767–793). San Diego, CA: Academic Press.
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