People Who Think They’re The Grammar Police Share The Personality Trait Of Less Agreeableness
We all have at least one person in our lives who has decided they are the grammar police and must impart their knowledge and the ability to shame even the most innocent errors, regardless of whether their linguistic prowess is welcome.
Turns out that from a scientific perspective, these grammar aficionados usually share a personality trait, and they aren’t always fun to be around. “I can’t hear you when you don’t use good grammar,” my friend Steve’s wife, Carol, says to him regularly. Yes, she’s one of those people who absolutely can’t resist showing off her impressive grammatical skills. She’s a nice person, even if she’s constantly pointing out the difference between “their,” “there,” and “they’re,” and loses her sense of hearing when someone is saying something incorrectly. I wonder if she points out errors in emails as well?
People who think they are the grammar police usually share a similar personality trait: lower agreeableness.
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A 2016 study from the University of Michigan found that people who act as the grammar police are huge jerks (joking!). Okay, but seriously, when it comes to the Big 5 personality traits, these folks usually fall on the lower end of the agreeableness scale.
For a quick refresher, the five traits are easily remembered by the acronym OCEAN: Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism. In terms of grammar, our grammatically adept peers, those who fall in the less agreeable scale, can’t seem to stop themselves from pointing out others’ errors. Whereas, grammar ability aside, other people don’t quite feel the need to point out mistakes as if it’s their job.
For instance, extroverted people are more likely to overlook typos and grammatical errors, while introverted people tend to judge people who make these errors harshly but won’t feel compelled to correct them. The non-agreeables, as they are sometimes called, however, are the grumps of the Big 5, and they get easily annoyed. They are also the most likely to take on the grammar police role because they get upset by those tiny errors.
Researchers intentionally included typos in emails and had participants react accordingly.
For the study, 83 participants were asked to look at email responses to an ad for a roommate. Some of the emails had been changed to include either typos, such as mkae (make) or abuot (about), or grammar errors, such as to/too, it’s/its, or your/you’re. (My spell check is having a heart attack right now.)
After the participants looked at the emails, they were questioned about whether or not they noticed the errors. If they answered “yes,” they were asked to elaborate on their answer.
The researchers found that those participants who had been determined to be less agreeable were the most disturbed by the errors, and the subjects who were thought to have a more agreeable personality were more likely to overlook typos.
The more judgmental a participant was toward the person who made the grammatical error, the lower they ranked on the agreeability scale.
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Agreeableness is often described as trusting, generous, sympathetic, cooperative, and non-aggressive. According to Psychology Today, “People high in agreeableness are more trusting, affectionate, and altruistic; they generally display more prosocial behaviors than others. People high in this prosocial trait are particularly empathetic, showing great concern for the welfare of others, and they are the first to help those in need.”
People who have less agreeableness show more opposite traits. They are less empathetic and warm, which makes them much more prone to correcting others whom they are comfortable judging.
“This is the first study to show that the personality traits of listeners/readers have an effect on the interpretation of language,” said Julie Boland, University of Michigan professor of linguistics and psychology, and the lead author of the study. “In this experiment, we examined the social judgments that readers made about the writers.”
Those who rated the emails with errors down were more judgmental of the writer, too.
“Agreeability was the only personality trait to have a main effect on the Housemate Scale,” the study read. “Participants who tested as more agreeable on the BFI tended to rate the paragraphs more positively overall than participants who tested as less agreeable.”
Here’s the thing about the results to remember: if seeing lose and loose used improperly makes you mad, but you bite your tongue, you’re not less agreeable! Good news, right?! So you can still be the grammar police without coming off as kind of mean. You just have to keep your policing to yourself.
Christine Schoenwald is a writer and performer. She’s had articles in The Los Angeles Times, Salon, Bustle, Medium, and Woman’s Day.
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