What is Agreeableness?

Agreeableness is one of the Big Five Personality Traits, the personality model Sorter uses to understand your customers.

High Agreeableness

People who rate high in agreeableness are compassionate, polite, and trusting. They easily trust and cooperate with others, and expect the same in kind.

Agreeable people maintain harmonious actions. They help, forgive, and treat others with respect. Not surprisingly, agreeableness is a good predictor of social outcomes—agreeable people are accepted and well-liked by their peers, with greater satisfaction in dating and relationships. They seek out social and collaborative occupations and work environments, are more engaged with their community and are not likely to engage in criminal behavior. They are also often more religious.

Agreeable people prefer upbeat and conventional music, like country, pop, or religious music. They also tend to like energetic and rhythmic music, like rap, soul, hip-hop, and funk.

Low Agreeableness

Those who are low in agreeableness viewed as more task or self-oriented. With less of a focus on people, they can come off as skeptics. They might be more competitive and less trusting of others. They can also be cynical, which comes in handy when faced with discerning the truth; this leads to higher critical thinking.

In men, lower agreeableness has been related to greater income. Low agreeableness has also been linked to being able to have your ideas better heard and thus agreed on by a group. Think of Steve Jobs—he wasn’t known to be the nicest person, but he did get a lot done.

Curious about your level of agreeableness? Take Sorter’s personality quiz.