Derek Thompson

So how unusual is a change of this magnitude and this suddenness?

So the fact that personality seems stable makes it all the more remarkable, I think, that your analysis showed this level of change among young people in the last few years.

Let's talk about that change.

You told me that people today are meaningfully less conscientious

What does that mean?

And what kind of behavior does it predict?

Like if you take my test scores and you tell me, Derek, you are the kind of person who has low conscientiousness, what kind of behavior would that predict in me?

When I reached out to Lisa Damore, a childhood psychologist, she pointed me to a 2013 essay that she wrote for the New York Times that I want to quote from here because it's so relevant.

Quote, when we look at the research on childhood precursors of adult wellbeing, the traits we see in children who go on to become happy adults,

we find that the driving factor is childhood conscientiousness, not childhood happiness.

Children who are industrious, orderly, and have good self-control are more likely than their careless or undisciplined peers to grow into happy adults, end quote.

John, you just walked through some of the sub-traits of conscientiousness where people are answering questions like, do you make plans and follow through?

Do you persevere until finished?

Are you easily distracted or careless?

These are all questions that someone could lie about.

I mean, someone could just say, yeah, I love making plans.

I'm incredible at following through.

My focus is impeccable.

When underneath that, they actually make no plans and are easily distracted all the time.

How...