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14 papers
This 1992 review describes the five-factor model, which groups personality into five basic traits: Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Neuroticism, and Openness to Experience. The authors summarize research using natural-language adjectives and personality questionnaires that supports the model’s broad coverage of personality and its usefulness across different observers and cultures. They review…
This paper reviews research on procrastination and runs a meta-analysis of 691 correlations. It finds that some personality traits (neuroticism, rebelliousness, sensation seeking) have only weak links to procrastination. Strong and consistent predictors include task aversiveness, task delay, low self-efficacy, impulsiveness, and low conscientiousness (including poor self-control, distractibility, poor organization,…
The Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ) is a self-report test made by Hans J. Eysenck and Sybil B. G. Eysenck to measure four personality scales: Extraversion (E), Neuroticism (N), Psychoticism (P), and a Lie or social-desirability scale (L). It is based on Eysenck's theory that temperament has biological and genetic roots,…
This article updates a theory about how personality traits form. The author reviews their 2008 model and then expands it by bringing in ideas from evolutionary biology. The revised model adds two systems called “pliable” and “elastic” to help explain how traits change or stay the same. The paper is…
Researchers collected face photos and personality surveys from about 12,400 volunteers and used a type of computer program that learns patterns, called artificial neural networks, to try to predict the Big Five personality traits from those pictures. The program could guess some traits better than chance, with the strongest matches…
Researchers showed people a set of computer-made male and female bodies and asked them to rate many personality traits. Raters tended to sort bodies along two main ideas: whether a body looked to them like a person with positive versus negative traits, and whether a body looked to them like…
Researchers compared an MBTI-style test and a Big Five test in studies of U.S. adults and found the Big Five predicted 37 measured life outcomes about twice as well as the MBTI-style test. The MBTI-style test did better than astrology but worse than the Big Five. The MBTI-style test often…
This study followed 173 people for 3 weeks and collected 2,342 reports of their most intense daily anger. Each day participants wrote what triggered their anger and rated how strong it felt, how much they controlled it, and what strategies they used. Researchers grouped the triggers into five categories and…
Researchers followed people who used psychedelics in real life and signed up online. They asked them about their personality and how connected they felt to others before the experience, two weeks after, and four weeks after. On average, people reported feeling less emotional instability, becoming more friendly and cooperative, and…
This study surveyed 69 pediatric physicians (mean age 44.2, 61% female) in one U.S. children’s hospital network between August 2020 and February 2021. It found that 42% of doctors reported high emotional exhaustion or depersonalization, and that higher self-critical perfectionism was linked to higher emotional exhaustion and depersonalization scores. The…
Over the last 40 years, personality tests have become much more common at work. Companies use them for things like coaching, building teams, and hiring. But most published research looks at tests only for hiring. That means reviews often use rules that fit hiring, not the different needs of helping…
This paper traces the history of the ambivert, a nearly forgotten personality label first proposed by Edmund S. Conklin in 1923. The ambivert was meant to describe people who fall between introversion and extraversion. The idea was largely ignored by psychoanalysts, psychiatrists, and personality psychologists, so it did not become…
