A personality is essentially a combination of traits. The quality of each trait is determined by a person's specific baseline emotions.
Specific combinations of baseline emotions at varying intensity levels produce specific personality traits. Two personality traits – intelligence and social skills – are illustrated below.
Intelligence:
Some of the effects of anger, fear, joy/happiness, and pride are listed below. Different combinations of these effects at different intensity levels produce different intelligence levels.
Anger:
* Impaired judgment and decision-making
* Rushed, impulsive decisions
* Narrowed attention that focuses on perceived threats
* Reduced ability to process information
* Increased cognitive rigidity bias
* Memory and recall impairment
* Ruminative thinking
Fear:
* Impaired decision-making, often leading to avoidance or paralysis
* Overestimation of danger
* Hyper-focused attention on perceived threats
* Memory impairment and difficulty encoding new information
* Black-and-white thinking
* Reduced cognitive flexibility
* Decreased focus and mental stamina
Joy/Happiness:
* Increased cognitive flexibility and creativity
* Improved problem-solving abilities
* More optimistic thinking and decision-making
* Better memory retention and learning
* Broader focus and enhanced concentration
* Less biased thinking and improved perspective-taking
* Greater openness to new experiences
Pride:
* Overconfidence
* Bias in decision making
* Impaired judgment
* Difficulty seeing and admitting mistakes or failings.
Social skills:
Some of the effects of anger, fear, joy/happiness, and pride on social skills are listed below. Similar to intelligence above, different combinations of these effects at different intensity levels produce different social skills.
Anger:
* Increased conflict and aggression
* Communication breakdowns
* Erosion of trust
* Social isolation
* Group tensions and hostility
* Decreased empathy and perspective-taking
* Increased verbal aggression and bullying
* Heightened prejudice and bias
Fear:
* Avoidance of social interactions
* Difficulty forming new relationships
* Heightened distrust of others
* Increased reliance on authority figures
* Impaired cooperation and communication
* Stricter adherence to social norms due to fear of judgment
Joy/happiness:
* Strengthened relationships and social bonds
* Increased cooperation and teamwork
* Greater sociability and inclusivity
* Enhanced problem-solving in groups
* More positive social influence
Pride:
* Overconfidence
* Difficulty seeing and admitting mistakes or failings.
Final thoughts
Baseline emotions affect every other human trait similarly. That's how baseline emotions determine the quality of virtually all important human traits.