Comedians’ Trait Level and Stage Personalities: Evidence for Goal-Directed Personality Adaptation

Abstract

Recent findings have shown that both trait levels of personality and situational variability in its expression are of importance. So here, the Big Five personality traits of 77 professional and 125 amateur stand-up comedians were compared with two large matched samples ( N > 100,000). The comedians were also observed while performing, which enabled a comparison of their stage personalities with situational requirements on 10 selected NEO-PIR facets. Both amateurs and professionals showed higher openness-to-experience, extraversion, and lower conscientiousness than their norm samples, while professionals also evidenced greater neuroticism. Irrespective of trait standing, with regard to most NEO-PIR facets, professionals expressed the appropriate on-stage persona and were better able to regulate their personality to conform to situational requirements than amateurs. This is consistent with research showing that individuals regulate their personality to conform to situational and goal requirements, and adds the finding that successful comedians demonstrate enhanced adaptability compared with amateurs.

Individual differences in interpersonal emotion regulation: What makes some people more (or less) successful than others?

“…It is highly likely that the remaining Big Five traits (conscientiousness, openness, and neuroticism) will provide meaningful insights. Beyond this, researchers may also wish to consider new constructs that bridge the gap between personality and cognitive ability, such as ‘adaptive personality regulation’ (e.g., Irwing, Cook, et al., 2023), which may be salient in shaping interpersonal emotion regulation success.…”

The General Factor of Personality as Ego-Resiliency

“…In Block’s (1965 , 1995) conceptualization, ego-resiliency represents the ability to adapt to the context in order to obtain one’s personal or communal goals ( Irwing et al, 2020 ). As people are social by nature, such adaptation often implies displaying socially desirable ( Schwartz et al, 1997 ) and appropriate behavior (e.g., being reserved during a funeral, being outgoing at a party).…”

Gender(ed) performances: Women’s impression management in stand-up comedy

“…However, there is evidence that these environments are becoming less male centric. At least two UK comedy clubs have instituted policies ensuring that a minimum of one woman is included on every bill (Healy, 2020) and research in a UK comedy club found that a less aggressive style of comedy was associated with effective comedic performance (Irwing et al, 2020).…”