Do you often feel hard done by — as though the people around you keep treating you like a doormat, while you swallow your anger and never dare to speak up? Maybe your friends, your colleagues, even your partner don't show you any respect, and yet you have no idea how to fix it. This piece looks at which personality types are more easily turned into doormats, and how a doormat can shed those experiences of being put upon — and stop being one.
The personality traits of a doormat
To work out whether you're prone to becoming a doormat, personality traits are a good place to start. In psychology, we often turn to the Big Five Personality Test (McCrae & Costa, 2008) to analyse personality.
First comes Agreeableness. If you score high on Agreeableness, it means you place enormous weight on other people's feelings and put their needs first in everything you do. Of course, high Agreeableness alone won't necessarily turn you into a doormat — it has to combine with other traits.
The other two traits that make a person more likely to become a doormat are Neuroticism and Conscientiousness. Neuroticism refers to how strongly you feel negative emotions: the higher your Neuroticism, the more often you feel tense, the more readily you doubt yourself, and the more likely you may even be to develop psychological conditions such as depression. Conscientiousness, on the other hand, is closely tied to a sense of responsibility: highly conscientious people are very systematic in how they do things, and when they can't keep a commitment, their guilt runs far stronger than most people's.
If you score high on Agreeableness, Neuroticism and Conscientiousness all at once, then you're more likely to become a doormat. That's because you'll tend to carry a lot of negative emotion, or even doubt yourself, while placing great importance on how others feel. On top of that, your strong sense of guilt makes you easy prey for the unscrupulous, who can manipulate you through emotional blackmail.
If you find that you have these traits, you may need to consider whether you have already become a doormat.
Advice for the doormat, No. 1: break away from the circle that keeps using you
If you find yourself at the bottom of a social circle, with the whole group taking advantage of you, then you should do everything you can to leave that circle. If these people are your friends, you need to avoid contact with them. Perhaps it isn't in your nature to cut ties cleanly in one stroke — in that case, gradually drifting away from the circle is a perfectly good option.
Leaving a circle where you hold the lowest position can help you rebuild your self-esteem. In some cases, the place where you rank lowest is your workplace, within the company — and this isn't just about job title, but more about your interpersonal standing. If everyone treats you like a doormat, real-world considerations may mean you can't resign on the spot, but you can still keep building your own sense of worth and self-esteem.
Advice for the doormat, No. 2: communicate with conviction, and set personal boundaries
If you reckon you're a doormat, then you ought to learn a thing or two about Assertive Communication.
So what is assertive communication? It isn't about bullying people into submission — it's about being able to state your personal boundaries firmly when you're under pressure (Lonczak, 2020).
Why set personal boundaries? Psychologically, people slip all too easily into a "give them an inch and they'll take a mile" pattern. Suppose that in a relationship your partner treats you badly; you might think you'll just put up with it. And if things don't improve, you might tell yourself, "I've put up with it this long, a little longer won't hurt." That's how you can easily fall into an endless cycle: in this relationship you hold the lower position, the other person is able to chip away at your self-esteem, and they go on treating you like a doormat.
So how exactly do you practise assertive communication? Here are three steps:
Step one: set your personal boundaries in advance. Define clearly what your ideal relationship looks like, and write down or draw up some ground rules.
Step two: set yourself a clear deadline — say three months, six months or a year. If there's no improvement within that time, you'll need to let the relationship go.
Step three: communicate your boundaries to the other person.
All of this may leave you feeling apprehensive and stressed, but a great deal of personal growth happens precisely in these challenges. Growth lies in your willingness to attempt the very things you least want to attempt. If you'd like to learn assertive communication and stop being a doormat, you can search "Assertive Communication" online for some tutorials, or download the MindForest App and let our AI teach you, step by step, how to set and hold your personal boundaries.
Download MindForest AI to shed the doormat role and cope with feeling put upon
MindForest is a psychology-based AI app that offers psychological insight to help you shed the doormat role and cope effectively with the emotions of being put upon. If you feel your troubles are hard to put into words, why not try having a chat with MindForest AI.
1) Build psychological resilience with techniques drawn from psychology: MindForest's interactive courses combine in-depth psychological insight, designed to help you manage stress and strengthen your psychological resilience. These courses can steady your emotions, allowing you to think more clearly, and shed the doormat role.
2) Personalised guidance through AI: MindForest AI can gain a deep understanding of the emotional turbulence stirred up by relationship problems, offering you emotional support and targeted advice to help you resolve the doormat dilemma with a mature frame of mind.
3) Inspiration journaling to encourage self-awareness: when you're facing relationship challenges, recording how you feel in the moment is hugely important. MindForest's inspiration journal captures your feelings through your conversations with the AI, sharpening your self-awareness and helping you understand your own psychological state across your various relationships.
By using MindForest, you'll master the essential skills for managing emotions and stress, and cultivate psychological resilience. Not only does this help you shed the doormat role, it also supports your mental health and your long-term personal development.
References
DeYoung, C. G., Quilty, L. C., & Peterson, J. B. (2007). Between facets and domains: 10 aspects of the Big Five. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 93(5), 880–896.
Lonczak, H. S. (2020, September 3). What Is Assertive Communication? 10 Real-Life Examples. Retrieved from https://positivepsychology.com/assertive-communication/
McCrae, R. R., & Costa, P. T., Jr. (2008). The five-factor theory of personality. In O. P. John, R. W. Robins, & L. A. Pervin (Eds.), Handbook of personality: Theory and research (3rd ed., pp. 159–181). The Guilford Press.
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