Brian Little > Quotes

“well-documented findings in the study of attributions is that we are more likely to ascribe traits to others, whereas we explain our own actions according to the situations we are in.”
― Brian R. Little, Me, Myself, and Us: The Science of Personality and the Art of Well-Being

“Infants who are temperamentally easygoing and affable raise their parents very differently than those who are cranky and tense.”
― Brian R. Little, Who Are You, Really?: The Surprising Puzzle of Personality

“When changing or challenging the self is regarded as a personal initiative rather than an external imposition, it is likely to be more meaningful, manageable, and sustainable.”
― Brian Little, Me, Myself, and Us: The Science of Personality and the Art of Well-Being

“Such features of personality can be detected in the neonatal ward. If you make a loud noise near the newborns, what will they do? Some will orient toward the noise, and others will turn away. Those who are attracted to the noise end up being extraverts later in development; those who turn away are more likely to end up being introverts.”
― Brian R. Little, Me, Myself, and Us: The Science of Personality and the Art of Well-Being

“In short, when it comes to well-being, projects can trump traits. This should give you some hope that you are not the victim of the traits with which you entered this world. Your deeds speak louder than your dispositions.”
― Brian Little, Who Are You, Really?: The Surprising Puzzle of Personality

“One of the more interesting ways of informally assessing extraversion at the biogenic level is to do the lemon-drop test. There are several variations on the test, and I draw here on a demonstration procedure I frequently used with my undergraduates.7 Here are the ingredients you will need: an eyedropper, a cotton swab (the little stick with a wrap of cotton on either end we use for babies and are admonished not to stick in our ears), a thread, concentrated lemon juice (regular lemon juice won’t work as effectively), and the willing tongue of a volunteer (such as yourself). Attach the thread to the center of the double-tipped cotton swab so that it hangs exactly horizontal. Swallow four times, then put one end of the swab on the tongue, holding it for twenty seconds. Then place five drops of the concentrated lemon juice on the tongue. Swallow, then place the other end of the swab on the same portion of the tongue and hold it for twenty seconds. Then hold up the swab by the thread. For some people the swab will remain horizontal. For others it will dip on the lemon juice end. Can you guess which? For the extraverts, the swab stays relatively horizontal, but for introverts it dips. The reason is that introverts, because they have relatively high levels of chronic arousal, respond more vigorously to strong stimulation, like lemon juice, so they create more saliva. Extraverts, being less responsive to high levels of stimulation, stay relatively dry mouthed. In fact, there is evidence that because of this tendency toward lower salivation levels, extraverts actually have higher levels of tooth decay than do introverts.8 I have done this exercise on myself a number of times, and each time my swab dips deeply. I am, at least by this measure, a biogenic introvert.”
― Brian R. Little, Me, Myself, and Us: The Science of Personality and the Art of Well-Being

“Although agreeable people are more likely to report they are happy, disagreeable people are more likely to say they are happy when they are being disagreeable! In one study that involved “beeping” people with a pager at random times during the day, disagreeable people were more likely to express positive emotions when they were engaged in acts such as disciplining others than when they may have found themselves in inexplicably pleasant surroundings.”
― Brian R. Little, Me, Myself, and Us: The Science of Personality and the Art of Well-Being

“The essential idea behind personal construct theory is this: All individuals are essentially scientists erecting and testing hypotheses about the world and revising them in the light of their experience. Those hypotheses are called personal constructs, and they are the conceptual goggles through which we view the world.”
― Brian Little, Who Are You, Really?: The Surprising Puzzle of Personality

“Besides increasing or decreasing the stimulation level of the environment, you can also achieve an optimal level of arousal by drinking beverages that have a direct impact on neocortical arousal.38 Alcohol, at least initially, has the effect of lowering arousal. After a couple of glasses of wine the extraverts are more likely to dip below the optimal arousal level, whereas their introverted friends, nudged closer to optimal arousal, may appear unexpectedly garrulous. Coffee, being a stimulant, has the opposite effect. After ingesting about two cups of coffee, extraverts carry out tasks more efficiently, whereas introverts perform less well. This deficit is magnified if the task they are engaged in is quantitative and if it is done under time pressure. For an introvert, an innocent couple of cups of coffee before a meeting may prove challenging, particularly if the purpose of the meeting is a rapid-fire discussion of budget projections, data analysis, or similar quantitative concerns. In the same meeting an extraverted colleague is likely to benefit from a caffeine kick that creates, in the eyes of the introverts, the illusion of competency.”
― Brian R. Little, Me, Myself, and Us: The Science of Personality and the Art of Well-Being

“Taken together with the evidence that creative individuals tend to be introverted, the CPI results paint an intriguing picture of their typical stance toward other individuals. Creative individuals might be regarded as asocial: they are neither drawn to interactions with others nor strongly antagonistic to them. Rather, their passions are concentrated on the domains in which they pursue their creative projects. This might well give rise to the impression that they are standoffish and rather arrogant.”
― Brian R. Little, Me, Myself, and Us: The Science of Personality and the Art of Well-Being

“Free traits make us stretch and grow. For example, recent research suggests that asking introverts to act in an extraverted fashion actually increases their positive mood and well-being. This is an interesting example of the benefits of acting out of character.10”
― Brian Little, Me, Myself, and Us: The Science of Personality and the Art of Well-Being

“grumpy, taciturn, impatient flight attendant isn’t going to last, nor is a sweet, engaging, and forgiving bill collector. But a person who is not biogenically suited to a certain role may still desire to fill it. So to survive in their fields, they become site-specific free-trait adopters.”
― Brian Little, Who Are You, Really?: The Surprising Puzzle of Personality

“In short, person specialists are fascinated by people and the world of social relationships. They adopt a personalistic style of knowing others. Thing specialists are intrigued by objects and the world of physical relations. They adopt a physicalistic way of construing the world, including the world of other people.10”
― Brian Little, Me, Myself, and Us: The Science of Personality and the Art of Well-Being

“Barriers to the pursuit of intimate projects appeared at the everyday level of social interaction, where the subtle and not-so-subtle signs of discrimination against LGBT individuals were all too apparent. But the most intriguing finding of Frost’s research is how it reveals the impact of the political systems in which these projects are pursued. By examining the postal codes for where the study participants lived, he discovered that in some jurisdictions sexual-minority groups reported significantly more barriers to pursuing their most intimate projects. In those jurisdictions where there was greater recognition of LGBT rights, including civil union and especially marriage, the intimacy projects of LGBT individuals were perceived as both meaningful and achievable. They flourished. In contrast, in other jurisdictions, the intimate concerns of sexual minorities floundered. Consider the force of the impact there despite the distance between cause and effect; large, macro-level political forces can forestall the expression and frustrate the sustainable pursuit of even the most intimate aspirations.”
― Brian R. Little, Who Are You, Really?: The Surprising Puzzle of Personality

“Personal projects are central not only to who you think you are but also to how well you are doing in life—whether you are flourishing or floundering, or like most of us, just muddling through as best you can.”
― Brian Little, Who Are You, Really?: The Surprising Puzzle of Personality