Conscientiousness

Conscientiousness is another of the "Big Five" personality traits that I've been learning about.  While I'm skeptical about the impact of each of these individual traits on life outcomes (I tend to think it's more about the combination of them and how we enact those combinations in our social worlds), there is some decent research showing that those who are high in conscientiousness have better life outcomes in work, health, and relationships. Dexy does seem to employ context-specific conscientiousness - when faced with a task, say a new type of puzzle on a kid's menu, he is very thoughtful, inquisitive, and planful.  In this way, he is very much like his Mom and Dad!