The “Big Five” Test- Traders vs. Innovators

 The “Big Five” is the standard that social psychologists use to measure personality. It is meant to assess who people are across the following five fields.

Neuroticism (sensitive/ nervous versus secure/ confident)

Extraversion  (energetic/ gregarious versus solitary/ reserved)

Openness (inventive/ curious versus consistent/ cautious)

Conscientiousness (orderly/ industrious versus easygoing/ careless)

Agreeableness (cooperative/ emphatic versus self-interested/ antagonistic)

Can you recognize yourself in one of those traits? Stop for a while and read them again- which one is you?

Sometimes, it is difficult to choose just one trait, but you should be able to still gravitate towards one of those traits.

The psychologist Jordan Peterson believes that innovators and revolutionaries do possess a mix of those traits. They tend to be belonging to the “openness”, “conscientiousness” and “agreeableness” categories. Traders, like modern financial innovators, need to be a lot like inventors than Neurotics. Successful traders need to be calm under tumultuous market conditions and be open (or flexible) to new ideas. Traders (like innovators) need to be extremely open. They should be able to see and imagine things that only the minority can see. They need to go with things that the majority will not be willing to challenge and accept. Traders, like innovators need also to be really conscientious– a successful trader needs great discipline in order to be in this profession for a long time. Otherwise, he will be taken merely as a dreamer and not a serious player.

One last thing that successful traders do have- they need to be disagreeable. Like innovators, traders should be challenging the “status quo” on a daily basis. Traders like innovators are people, who are willing to take social risks.

Traders should not try to “beat” the market in a disagreeable way. They should be disagreeable enough to know when they are wrong. Traders should be disagreeable enough to know where to cut their losses or to let their winners run. As the playwright George Bernard Shaw put it: “The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.” What do you reckon- is that saying related to trading somehow?

Colibri Trader