People with different personalities are good for economies — according to new reserach

I spend a lot of time thinking about how people fit together.

At our dinner table in São Paulo, my husband and I are opposites in a dozen ways.

He is fast and curious, I am methodical and calm. Our neighbors are the same, a mosaic of temperaments that either snaps into place or rubs the wrong way depending on how you arrange it.

So when I came across new research arguing that countries with a wider mix of personalities tend to be richer, I perked up. It put words and numbers to something I’ve felt in everyday life: difference can be an engine, not a drag.

The headline finding is bold. A new study analyzing more than 760,000 people across 135 countries reports that nations with greater personality diversity have higher GDP per capita, even after accounting for high-level factors like institutions and immigration.

The authors built a Global Personality Diversity Index based on the Big Five traits and found that this psychological mix explains nearly a fifth of the variation in income levels across countries. In other words, the spread of traits inside a country seems to matter for prosperity, not just education, resources, or geography.

What does “personality diversity” actually mean here?

Not a perfect balance of extroverts and introverts or a curated team of “one of each.”

The researchers quantified within-country variability across the Big Five traits: openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism.

Higher variability means a broader spread of traits among people living in the same place. Think of it like a pantry with more ingredients. You can cook more kinds of meals and adapt faster when plans change. The study’s model suggests that this variety correlates with more innovation and productive matching, which can show up in GDP.

As noted by the authors, personality diversity “provides additional explanatory power beyond institutional quality and immigration.”

That line is doing a lot of work. It says the psychological mix adds something distinct on top of the usual suspects we point to when we talk about national wealth. For policy people and business leaders, that should raise a practical question: how do we cultivate environments where varied personalities can contribute fully, instead of being squeezed into one preferred mold?

This is not the first time personality has shown up in economic outcomes.

A meta-analysis of the Big Five and earnings has found consistent associations at the individual level, with traits like conscientiousness linked to higher pay. That evidence works at the micro scale, person by person.

The new paper takes the lens wider and shifts the question to the population level, asking whether the mix of personalities across a country lines up with macro indicators like GDP per capita. Different scale, same story: psychological differences carry economic weight.

Here is where I connect it back to daily life. In our home, the dinner routine only works because we split roles based on strengths. I plan the meals and make fast decisions at the supermarket.

My husband handles timing, temperature, and plating. When we host friends, the introverts gravitate to the balcony for one-on-one chats while the extroverts pass plates and keep the stories flowing. No one is better, everyone is useful. Translate that micro-ecosystem to a city or a country and you start to see why a wider range of human tendencies can be an asset.

Of course, correlation is not causation, and the authors are careful about this point. Rich countries might attract or retain a broader mix of personalities, or they might invest in schools and workplaces that accommodate diverse ways of thinking.

Still, the analysis tries to soak up those confounds by controlling for institutional quality and immigration and by stress-testing the results with additional models. The main relationship holds. That gives the idea more than anecdotal weight.

If you follow research on diversity and growth, you might be thinking about earlier work on demographic or cultural variety.

Studies have shown that immigration and ethnic diversity can boost innovation and growth under the right conditions, especially where institutions are strong and social trust is maintained. The new personality paper belongs in that family, but it focuses on psychological differences rather than ethnicity or birthplace. It is another angle on the same big question: when does difference help, and what makes it hard?

So what helps?

Three things stand out to me, both as a mom and as someone who writes about self-development.

First, measurement matters. You cannot improve what you will not count. The fact that the authors created an index and published the code signals a shift toward treating psychological variety as a measurable national asset, not a fluffy side note.

Businesses already do this in small ways through team assessments and hiring frameworks, sometimes clumsily. Countries can do it more respectfully and at scale by investing in better, bias-checked personality data, always with consent and privacy guardrails.

Second, design the rooms where difference actually meets.

Our weekday schedule is tight, and it works because the routines are explicit. Emilia naps, we prep, Lara clocks off, we do bath and story, then we split the cleanup and reconnect.

When processes are clear, personality differences turn into complementary roles instead of friction. That maps to cities and companies too. If public services are simple to use and workplaces set expectations clearly, people with very different strengths can all find a way to contribute.

Third, treat dissent and discomfort as raw materials. Personality diversity is not always pleasant. An agreeable team member might feel steamrolled by a colleague high in dominance, while a highly conscientious person can get frustrated by a creative whirlwind. If you name that tension and give people tools to navigate it, the group harvests more ideas and makes better decisions. If you ignore it, you get conflict and burnout.

The new paper does not prescribe interventions, but the implication is obvious: inclusive norms are not just nice, they are productive.

There is also a cautionary note. Diversity without bridges can backfire. Earlier work on demographic heterogeneity shows that fragmenting into isolated subgroups can hurt cooperation and slow growth unless institutions are up to the task.

Psychological diversity likely follows the same pattern. Strong norms, fair rules, and shared goals make difference useful. Weak institutions and low trust turn it into noise. For leaders, the job is to build the bridges first, then invite more voices in.

I keep thinking about parents here. My daughter is one, full of experiments and tiny rebellions.

At this stage I try to guide, not overcorrect. If the research is right, my job is not to shape her into a single ideal personality for success. It is to help her be fully herself within a family and a community that knows how to use many styles well.

A city full of people like that would be a strong place to live.

For readers who want the technical snapshot

Here are the core pieces.

The dataset includes 760,242 survey respondents across 135 countries. The authors compute within-country variance across the Big Five traits, standardize it into a Global Personality Diversity Index, and then test how that index aligns with GDP per capita.

The association explains roughly 19.9 percent of the cross-country variance, with personality diversity adding an extra bump in explanatory power beyond institutional quality and immigration.

That result remains robust across a range of model tweaks. The team also makes the code and data available, which is good practice for a subject as sensitive as personality.

“As noted by McCarthy and coauthors, psychological diversity is a ‘critical yet underexplored’ driver of economic vitality.” I like that phrasing because it leaves room for humility. We are still early in understanding how personality scales from teams to towns to nations. But the signal is there, and it lines up with what many of us see at home and at work.

If you lead a company or a classroom, the takeaway is simple. Stop searching for one perfect type.

Build systems where many types can add value. Watch for the subtle ways you punish or reward traits, from who gets airtime in meetings to how you evaluate performance. The country-level numbers will take care of themselves if we do the basics well in families, schools, and offices.

And if you are reading this as a self-observer, ask a gentler question the next time you feel out of place: what does my style add to this mix, and what do I need around me to make that contribution visible? Differences feel less heavy when we see them as tools for building something together.

The research is still evolving, as it should. But it gives us permission to scale up a truth many of us already live. In homes, teams, and now whole economies, a healthy mix of personalities is not a problem to solve. It is a resource to cultivate.