GOOD AT WORK, GOOD IN BED

December 11, 2018
Conscientious
npsp25

Are you a conscientious person: organized, detail-oriented, reliable, dutiful, focused on work, predictable and orderly? If so, according to The Journal of Sex Research, you and your partner are probably having good sex.

Researchers at Ruhr University Bochum, in Germany, studied 964 couples to see how personality affected their sex lives. They gave them questionnaires to fill out about their sexual performance (erectile dysfunction? orgasm issues?) and experience (excitement? inhibitions?).

The Big Five Inventory of Personality
Each person also took the Big Five Inventory. This is an assessment of five overarching personality traits:

       Openness to experience Curious, imaginative vs. cautious and close-minded
       Conscientiousness Organized, self-disciplined, dutiful vs. sloppy and spontaneous
       Extraversion Outgoing, assertive, vs. aloof and self-absorbed
       Agreeableness Friendly, compassionate vs. competitive and challenging
       Neuroticism Nervous, easily stressed vs. stable and calm

Really?? High Conscientiousness??

Amazing as it seems, only conscientiousness correlated with satisfied and non-problematic sexuality. This was true when both partners were conscientious types. It was also true for women with other personality patterns whose partners were more conscientious, reports psychologist Julia Velten and her colleagues.

Here’s Why a Conscientious Person Has Better Sex

Conscientious people are loyal and committed to their goals. “Overall, I’d link it to an inherent thoughtfulness and recognition of the needs of each other,” comments psychiatrist John M. Oldham, M.D. And conscientious people, he adds, are schedulers. “They make time for things that are important to them.”

So You Think You’re Conscientious? Take The New Personality Self-Portrait 25 test.

Take the NPSP25 to determine your score for Conscientious personality style, which matches up well with conscientiousness according to The Big Five Inventory.

If you prove relatively strong in that style, you are a hard worker in all areas of life that you deem important, your relationship and sex life included. Of course, as with all personality styles, there can be too much of a good thing. Comfortably Conscientious-style people want to do the right thing, but they need to be careful not to veer into what Oldham calls “the tyranny of the shoulds and should-nots.” Worrying about perfect performance is definitely not good for sex.