Is the propensity to want to speak in public a healthy personality trait? Psychologists and my wife talk about the need for drama in everyday life – and it’s not considered a good thing by those wise people. It means the tendency to up the ante, raise the voice, and hurl the crockery around when discussing something that could be simple if someone would just keep his temper.

A recent study about what causes people to inject drama in their lives (when they could have a quieter, probably happier, life without it) found that there are three characteristics that rule here in the personalities of those dramatic types. Public speakers — you know who you are – do you see yourself in any of these?

• First, interpersonal manipulation – “characterized by a person’ willingness to influence other people to behave in a manner serving of the manipulator’s goals.”

• Second, persistent perceived victimhood – “the propensity to constantly perceive oneself as a victim of everyday life circumstances that many people would dismiss as benign.”

• And third, impulsive outspokenness – “characterized by a person’s compulsion to speak out and share opinions, even when inappropriate and without regard to social consequences.”

Now, when I studied that list it occurred to me that people who love public speaking (and are good at it) probably score pretty high on all three, if we’re being honest. The first one is almost a necessity – what are you doing as a speaker, after all, if not influencing other people. Remember, the only reason to give a speech is to change the world.

As for the second one, well, when we public speakers are being grown up, we realize that it’s not really a conspiracy when the lights, or the audio, or the images on the screen go out – but in our weaker moments we might be tempted to feel that way.

And the third point. Ah, the third point. If we are truly to change the world, we do precisely have to be willing to speak out and share opinions, without regard to social consequences, don’t we?

So, is public speaking an interpersonal disease? A disorder? A psychological problem?

Well, of course not. It can also be an enormous lever for change, and good, and progress. It just depends on whose perspective is involved. Be honest, now. Aren’t you likely to see the politicians you disagree with as beset with psychological problems, and the ones you agree with as important forces for positive change? Change that’s long overdue? Change that needs to happen?

My serious point in all this psychological playing around with tests and labels is that speakers, to be effective, have to be troublemakers. That is, agitators for what they believe is important movement in the right direction. They have to be willing to try to manipulate other people – always understanding that you cannot ultimately change someone. Since change in attitude and ultimately behavior happens deep in the emotional centers of the brain, people can only change themselves. But speakers can influence that process.

And they have to outspoken, obviously. A speech is all about sharing an opinion. Typically, the speaker is invited to do so, but that’s a license to begin, not a road map for how it’s necessarily going to go.

And finally, while I would never recommend paranoia as a useful psychological trait, a touch of it does come in handy if – if – it causes you to check and double-check and triple-check the technology, the slides, the lighting, the sound, the stage, the sight lines, and everything else that could get in the way of a successful speech – that hour of manipulative outspokenness.

So here’s to drama – on the stage. At home, take the advice of my betters and be a grownup.

The study was published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences (Frankowski et al., 2016).

My thanks to the authors for their work. The opinions expressed here are entirely my own and not at all their fault.