What is kindness as a personality trait?

Kindness is a personality trait that, in popular culture, is always seen as something positive and desirable.. Although this is partly the case, it must be said that being very nice can sometimes cause some inconvenience.

Be that as it may, below we will take a closer look at this personality trait, how people are who they have very high, how are those that have it very low and how it relates to professional success and forgiveness.

• Related article: "The 5 great personality traits: sociability, responsibility, openness, kindness and neuroticism"

What is kindness as a personality trait?

Inside the Big Five model, by psychologists Paul Costa and Robert McCrae, kindness, also called cordiality, is one of the traits that make up the personality.

Kindness is described as the tendency for people to be compassionate and helpful to others. People with high scores on this dimension are typically seen as warm, friendly, and diplomatic.

Being cordial is related to having an optimistic view of others, in addition to putting the interests of others before your own and maintaining good relationships with peers. It seeks to please everyone, to have social harmony. That is, having a high degree of kindness is related to

exhibiting prosocial behaviors.

As a result, kind people tend to do especially well in social situations and in activities that performed as a team, in addition to fostering a good interpersonal environment, avoiding confrontation and trying to solve problems relational.

Instead, people who score lower in this dimension tend to be not very altruistic. They are not so in favor of putting their interests before those of others, being quite common in her to opt for selfish behaviors, although this in itself does not have to be something negative. They tend to be more competitive and even manipulative.

Those with low levels of kindness have been linked to manifesting higher levels of what is known as the "dark triad." or dark triad, a series of characteristics that are related to negative aspects of personality. Among them are Machiavellianism, narcissism and psychopathy. It should be said that they are also more prone to heart disease and experience a more accelerated aging.

Each of the traits that make up the Big Five model has been shown to be behind certain positive aspects in life. Kindness, as we were saying before, is a predictor of having good and solid interpersonal relationships.

Kind individuals tend to be better accepted in peer groups and suffer fewer situations of bullying. In addition, they enjoy better contacts with the desired sex, either during dating or in more intimate contexts. They enjoy a higher degree of satisfaction in the couple, in addition to being less prone to marital breakdowns.

People with high friendliness often enjoy success in professions that require social skills or that perform a task in collaborative work environments. They also tend to get involved in situations of helping the most disadvantaged, such as volunteering, in addition to being less involved in criminal situations.

• You may be interested: "The main theories of personality"

Facets of this trait

Within the dimension of kindness, like the rest of the personality dimensions of the Big Five model, we can find several more concrete facets. In the case of kindness they are as follows.

1. Confidence

This facet would refer to the trend of assume that most of the people you meet are fair, honest, and have good intentions.

2. Frankness / Sincerity

A kind person tends not to manipulate others, being frank and candid.

3. Altruism

It consists of helping others and obtaining pleasure by performing altruistic tasks. Doing things for others fulfills them, rather than seeing it as a form of self-sacrifice.

4. Conciliatory attitude

Confrontations are avoided and it is intended to get along with others.

5. Modesty

Modesty is understood to be the way you show yourself to the world as you are, without exaggerating positive attributes. This is done without necessarily having a lack of self-esteem and having diminished confidence in one's own abilities.

6. Empathy / Sympathy

People who score high in empathy they emotionally serve others, and know how to put themselves in their place. They are compassionate about the disadvantageous situation that another person may be going through.

Kindness and professional success

Having high scores in this trait has been linked to professional success. This, although it is partly the case, should be grasped with tweezers, since personality traits should be viewed as contextually advantageous. There are situations in which being kind is beneficial, while in others it can be a problem for the physical and mental integrity of the person.

In most cases, having social skills and having a generally friendly personality is associated with a good fit. work and an adequate relationship with co-workers, in addition to being a factor that can contribute to the increase in salary and promotions.

As we already saw, friendly people are seen as warmer and more pleasant. In a work context such as an office, having employees who contribute to the development of a correct interpersonal dynamics in that place can increase the productivity of the company, in addition to reducing the risk of sick leave. This can be explained by the fact that workers will have more desire to go to work because they meet people with whom they have a good time.

However, if a person who is not sociable is in the same workplace, it is quite likely that the company has a serious problem. On the one hand, toxic situations can develop both inside and outside the office, and on the other, the unkind person will have very little desire going to work, which in itself puts her at risk of being fired and the others of having to put up with someone who doesn't give her all. effort.

Nevertheless, the profile of a kind person may not be the most appropriate according to which professions. For example, in an institute, where the students are adolescents who can be potentially conflictive, it is not appropriate for the The teacher is always friendly, especially if there is bullying in class or one of the young people is interrupting the session. The teacher must be firm and expel the student, or stop the aggression if it is occurring.

Another field where having a low friendliness profile can be an advantage rather than a disadvantage is in the military. A soldier should not be a nice person who sees the best in others, since doing so while in a war situation is quite likely that he will not see the enemy and end up paying with his life. That is, kindness does not turn out to be of great help in professions that require a certain competitive spirit.

How does it relate to forgiveness?

Scientific evidence has suggested that kindness could be the most robust predictor of prosocial behaviors such as forgiveness and its antagonistic, revenge.

Forgiveness can be understood as a process in which a person manages, through the word, to restore a relationship that had been damaged by performing an act, both physical and verbal, that had damaged another person. Asking for forgiveness predisposes not to attack later, in addition to loosening the generated situation and reducing negative emotions.

Since people who have less kindness are antagonistic, hostile, irritable and often have little respect for others, They also seem to be people who choose to carry out revenge behaviors more frequently instead of forgiving whoever could have done them hurt.

On the other hand, personable people tend to seek more meaningful relationships with others, with which, in case they are harmed by some type of harmful act, such as an attack or insult, they will opt for strategies to reduce tension, forgiveness being the most important and recurrent of they.

Bibliographic references:

• Costa, P. T., & McCrae, R. R. (1992). NEO PI-R professional manual. Odessa, FL: Psychological Assessment Resources.
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• Goldberg, L. R. (1993). The structure of phenotypic personality traits. American Psychologist, 48, 26-34.
• Ozer, D. J., & Benet-Martínez, V. (2006). Personality and the prediction of consequential outcomes. Annual Review of Psychology, 57, 401-421.
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