But here’s the problem: when it comes to predicting the behavior of individuals—as opposed to predicting the average behavior of a group of people—traits actually do a poor job. In fact, correlations between personality traits and behaviors that should be related—such as aggression and getting into fights, or extroversion and going to parties—are rarely stronger than 0.30.12 Just how weak is that? According to the mathematics of correlation, it means that your personality traits explain 9 percent of your behavior. Nine percent!
