Dr. Scott Barry Kaufman has the best concept of all time for a talk show, and in the coming Nerd-topian future he will be bigger than Oprah. To prepare, he gives you an hour-long battery of psychology tests, taking measurements of the big five, plus cognitive and emotional intelligence, narcissism, mating intelligence, social intelligence, etc, and then he explores the results in his interview questions, probing the nuanced links between the subject’s personality (in the measurable psychological sense) and their personal experiences, professional challenges, relationship history, notable achievements, etc.
The key question he kept coming back to is: what psychological traits are beneficial or even necessary for a person to succeed as a rapper? Good question! It’s the only interview I’ve ever done where I learned surprising things about myself along the way, and the full episode is now live on Scott’s Psychology Today blog.
And what did Dr. Scott reveal about me? Extroversion is a composite of two underlying traits, and I scored very differently on them. I’m high in Assertiveness (75%) but not so high in Enthusiasm (55%) which helps to explain why I’m so much more ebullient and larger-than-life on stage than off.
I had a high self-reported level of social awareness (83.3%) which turns out to be delusional in many people (just like we all think we’re better-than-average drivers) but I scored high in the objective “reading the mind in the eyes” test, which means my self-awareness of my social-awareness is actually pretty accurate. And I was off-the-charts (91.56%) in stress management and emotional intelligence (for instance, see my previous post about writing and mounting a new off-Broadway show in a matter of weeks).
I scored high in “Blirtatiousness” or the quality of speaking-your-mind, which is surely a beneficial trait for a rapper to have, and I also got high marks for socio-sexuality and “self-reported mating intelligence” which is almost certainly a hip-hop pre-requisite. But before you go beating me with the “typical promiscuous rapper” stick, I also got high marks for “Ability to Sustain Relationships” (clearly a latent ability) and apparently the most important quality I look for in a relationship partner is self-knowledge, to a fault. That last one was (ironically) news to me.
And what about narcissism? Surely narcissism is the personality trait that rappers get criticized for more than anything else: braggadocio, swagger, arrogance. Shouts out to Kanye! Can you survive as a rapper without getting high off your own supply of narcissism? Can you remain a person of substance if you succumb to its seductive pull? Thankfully, narcissism is like extroversion in that it’s divisible into underlying traits, and I kicked ass on the good ones while avoiding the bad ones. YES! The composite traits for narcissism are Exhibitionism, Exploitativeness, Entitlement, and Superiority, and apparently I’m very high in Exhibitionism (nothing but necessary for an entertainer) and Superiority (aka competitiveness) but very low in the far uglier qualities of Exploitativeness and Entitlement. Whew!
I felt like Harry Potter sweating under the Sorting Hat whispering “Please not Slytherin, Please not Slytherin!” and Dr. Scott’s was the triumphant voice that shouted “Gryffindor!”
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