Do you have these five key personality traits that make someone a fun, likable person?

We all want to be liked, don’t we? Unless you’re some sort of misanthropic monster, you probably hope you won’t be picked last for the football team and that you’re not left dancing on your own in the middle of a club like a loner.

But what if you’ve got a stinker of a personality and zilch charisma? Well, according to a leading academic, there are five key personality traits that make up a fun, likable person. And – good news for you out there with disgusting personalities – you can fake it til you make it.

Glenn Geher Ph.D., a professor and chair of psychology at the State University of New York at New Paltz, described the five personality features in Psychology Today.

He writes: “Decades of quantitative research on human personality functioning has, in fact, shown that pretty much all personality-related attributes map onto one of the Big Five personality trait dimensions.”

1. Extroversion

The tendency to be outgoing and high in social energy (versus introversion).

2. Emotional stability

The tendency to be calm and to experience positive emotional states (versus neuroticism).

3. Openmindedness

The tendency to be open to new ideas and new ways of thinking (versus closed-mindedness).

4. Conscientiousness

The tendency to be diligent, meticulous, and organised (versus having a disorganised nature).

5. Agreeableness

The tendency to be friendly and supportive of others in one’s world (versus disagreeableness).

Geher added: “Importantly, each of these dimensions is exactly that: a dimension with people scoring anywhere on a continuum, with most scores near the mean (average) on each dimension.”

And if you’re looking for ways to boost your flagging social life, we’ve come up with some ways to improve your personality*:

- How to be extroverted: Whenever you enter a pub or a supermarket make sure you high-five every single person in there. It’ll go down a treat, I swear.

- How to be emotionally stable: Devote 23 hours out of your day to meditation, tai chi and raking a tiny Japanese Zen sand garden. Mental health is so easy!

- How to be openminded: Be open to doing anything with anyone you meet. And by anything, I mean ANYTHING! *Wink wink* *Nudge nudge*

- How to be conscientiousness: You should strive for absolutely perfection, here, both in terms of your at-home décor and your physicality. Basically, try to emulate Patrick Bateman as much as you can.

- How to be agreeable: Never disagree with anyone about anything. Plus, you don’t have to worry about having boring political opinions. Convictions, who needs ‘em, eh? 

*Disclaimer: I am an aforementioned misanthropic monster so maybe take this advice with a pinch of salt. 

(Images: Getty)