Who Are You, Really? Quotes

“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

“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

“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

“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

“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

“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