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24 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…
Researchers compared how well computers and humans can judge personality. They used data from 86,220 volunteers who took a 100-item personality questionnaire and looked at people’s Facebook Likes as the computer’s input. Computer predictions based on Likes matched the questionnaire scores better (r = 0.56) than friends’ judgments did (r…
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,…
Borderline personality disorder (BPD) and narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) are different but can look similar. BPD is marked by unstable moods, a shifting sense of self, fear of abandonment, and often impulsive or self-harming behavior. NPD is marked by grandiosity, a strong need for admiration, low empathy, and using others…
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…
This review examines empathy in people with narcissistic personality disorder (NPD). It says empathy is not simply missing in NPD, but is complex and varies by situation and motivation. The paper notes empathy has two parts—feeling with others (emotional empathy) and understanding others' thoughts and feelings (cognitive empathy)—and finds emotional…
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 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 2020 article reviews studies on parenting, attachment, and empathy in people with pathological narcissism and proposes using mentalization-based treatment (MBT) as a main therapy. The authors say problems with mentalization — understanding one’s own and others’ thoughts and feelings — are central to their model. They describe core MBT…
This paper reviewed 34 neuroscience studies about different kinds of narcissism, including grandiose, vulnerable, pathological forms, and Narcissistic Personality Disorder. The authors found that neuroscience studies often show people with grandiose narcissism are more alert to threats to their ego and show stronger stress responses after such threats, and they…
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…
This review sums up what researchers have learned about narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) in the last decade. It explains that diagnosis now includes both the old yes/no view and a newer scale-based view, describes two main types called grandiose and vulnerable narcissism, reports many possible causes and mechanisms across areas…
