The Welfare Trait ― How State Benefits Affect Personality

The welfare state has a problem: each generation living under its protection has lower work motivation than the previous one. In order to fix this problem we need to understand its causes, lest the welfare state ends up undermining its economic and social foundations – and endangering those of the nation as whole. In The Welfare Trait, personality researcher Dr Adam Perkins presents data that suggest welfare-induced personality mis-development is a significant part of the problem. Dr Perkins bases his theory on the discovery that childhood disadvantage promotes the development of an employment-resistant personality profile that is characterised by aggressive, antisocial and rule breaking tendencies; tendencies that in the jargon of personality research signify relatively low scores on the major personality dimensions of conscientiousness and agreeableness. The conclusion then, is that a welfare state which increases the number of children born into disadvantaged households will erode the nation's work ethic by increasing the proportion of individuals in the population who possess an employment-resistant personality profile due to exposure to the environmental influence of disadvantage in childhood.

Adam Perkins is a Lecturer in the Neurobiology of Personality at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King's College London. He brings to this book a wealth of scientific knowledge about personality, gained during more than 15 years researching the topic. Adam Perkins also brings a personal perspective somewhat different to that of the typical 'ivory tower' academic as, before he became established as a scientist, he spent years working as an unskilled labourer and has also claimed welfare when unemployed.