I am a Big Five deviant

Richard Chapelle is doing some research on bloggers, personality (as measured by the IPIP-NEO inventory), and political orientation (as measured by the Political Compass quiz).

Richard plans to compile these data and make them available to social scientists and statisticians under an open-source license. This is a really neat project and I encourage all my fellow bloggers to participate.

The five factor model is a fascinating subject in its own right. The Big Five paradigm is most scientifically rigorous approaches to the study of personality that psychology has to offer. Sanjay Srivasta has an excellent introduction to the subject here:

The Big Five were derived from analyses of which traits tend to co-occur in the population, but the underlying correlations are probabilistic and thus exceptions are possible. For example, talkativeness and assertiveness are both traits associated with Extraversion, but you could imagine somebody that is assertive but not talkative -- the "strong, silent type." However, numerous studies indicate that most people who are assertive are also talkative (and vice versa), which is why they go together under the broader Extraversion factor.

Here are my results. No real surprises, except for the fact that I'm only in the 17th percentile for "morality" and at the 0 percentile for "modesty." When you interpret your own scores, keep in mind that the names of the sub-scales don't necessarily capture the concepts they evoke. For example the "morality" subscale seems to measure something more akin to straightforwardness or guilelessness than morality, per se.

Richard's instructions for taking the test and spreading the meme appear below the fold.

Survey
Age: 26
Gender: Female
Location: New York, New York
Religion: None
Occupation: Writer
Began blogging (dd/mm/yy): 08/03/04

Political Compass Results
Economic Left/Right: -9.13
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -7.44

[NB: These numbers are percentile rankings comparing my scores to those of other adult women. When you take the test, your scores will be calculated relative to the responses of other people of the same age and gender--Majikthise.]

EXTRAVERSION: 60 (Average)
Friendliness: 28
Gregariousness: 27
Assertiveness: 87
Activity Level: 97
Excitement-Seeking: 56
Cheerfulness: 45

AGREEABLENESS: 21 (Low)
Trust: 47
Morality: 17
Altruism: 53
Co-operation: 48
Modesty: 0
Sympathy: 92

CONSCIENTIOUSNESS: 80 (High)
Self-Efficacy: 93
Orderliness: 25
Dutifulness: 57
Achievement-Striving: 97
Self-Discipline: 64
Cautiousness: 90

NEUROTICISM: 17 (Low)
Anxiety: 42
Anger: 23
Depression: 33
Self-Consciousness: 35
Immoderation: 26
Vulnerability: 0

OPENNESS TO EXPERIENCE: 93 (High)
Imagination: 86
Artistic Interests: 41
Emotionality: 25
Adventurousness: 99
Intellect: 93
Liberalism: 99

Track List:
1. Philosophy, et cetera - pixnaps.blogspot.com - pixnaps97a2
2. Majikthise - 6ea37d10-e9b9-11d9-8cd6-0800200c9a66
3.

=============================================================
Overview: This post is a community experiment with two broad purposes. The first is to create publicly accessible data about bloggers' personalities, which may have sociological value in addition to being just plain fun. The second is to track the propagation of this meme through blogspace. Full details and explanation can be found on the original posting: http://pixnaps.blogspot.com/2005/06/meme-worth-spreading.html

Instructions (to join in the experiment):

1) Take the IPIP-NEO personality test and the Political Compass quiz, if you have not done so already.

2) Copy to the clipboard that section of this post that is between the double lines, and paste it into your blog editor. (Blogger users may wish to use 'compose' mode to preserve formatting and hyperlinks. Otherwise, be sure to add hyperlinks as necessary.)

3) Replace the answers in the "survey" section below with your own.

4) Add your blog information to the "track list", in the form: "Linked title - URL - optional GUID".

5) Any additional comments should go outside of the double lines, including the (optional) nomination of bloggers you wish to pass this experimental meme on to.

6) Post it to your blog!

Comments

[Amanda]

The big surprise is this one rated me an Extravert, whereas usually I rate just a teeny bit introverted. I think it's because they include factors like good cheer, excitement-seeking, and busyness in this category, because it sure as hell isn't because I need people around me all the time. Other than that I'm:

Average Agreeable
Average Conscientious
High Neurotic (anyone who's seem me lose my shit over something small believes this)
High Openness to Experience, really high in fact

[Barry]

Wasn't the Political Compass developed by libertarians, as a sequel to the 'Are you a libertarian' test? If so, perhaps it should be supplemented by another political orientation test.

[Alon Levy]

No; there's some evidence in their answers to the FAQ as well as in the test questions and the book list that they are left-libertarian, to use their terminology. The original two-dimensional map was developed by libertarians, but the Political Compass test itself was not.

[Phoenician in a time of Romans]

High Openness to Experience, really high in fact

Amanda, you utter slut!

[John Quiggin]

I got fairly similar scores on a lot of things. Your numbers illustrate something that I found, which is that the 5-factor model doesn't work all that well for me, and I suspect for a lot of academic types.

Within the same factor, some scores are very high and others very low, for example
Orderliness/Achievement
Gregariousness/Activity
Modesty/Sympathy

Pretty clearly, the kind of thing that keeps you at the computer typing about social problems when you could be out at a party doesn't fit in well here.

[nixon did it]

Well, I just took the test after seeing you were going to be one of Kevin's guest bloggers.

My results are: 93, 66, 72, 08, 60.

Looking forward to your input.

[Steve Snyder]

I think the Big Five model misses something or two which could be taken over from Jungian theory, as of course developed and expanded into things such as the MMPI.

For instance, the J vs. P Jungian axis could be incorporated as a "rule-driven" vs. "experience-driven" sixth element. Not only could it, but it should.

Whether separately as a seventh element, or as part of a larger sixth element, a Synthetic vs. Analytic axis should be in the mix. And, where is Holism vs. Reductionism?

My larger comment is about psychological personality theories in general. They either are, and have to be, written so broadly that they become fuzzy at the edges and thereby have limited predictive power, or they risk shoehorning people into tight categories and therefore, er, have limited predictive power.

[Steve Snyder]

A couple of problems with tests such as the Five-Factor (IPIP-NEO).

First, it like any psychological test is ultimately a self-assessment, even if physically administered by outsiders rather than by an Internet uplink.

Second, as (pardon a partial self-referentiality) many psychological studies have shown that people who tend to be depressive actually have a much more realistic view of the world at large, and even to some degree of themselves if they are not too depressive, then results on this test are going to skew a lot

[cas]

hi all,

for what its worth...

EXTRAVERSION: 54 (Average)
Friendliness: 58
Gregariousness: 23
Assertiveness: 61
Activity Level: 58
Excitement-Seeking: 37
Cheerfulness: 85

AGREEABLENESS: 83 (High)
Trust: 99
Morality: 75
Altruism: 68
Co-operation: 71
Modesty: 14
Sympathy: 86

CONSCIENTIOUSNESS: 72 (High)
Self-Efficacy: 80
Orderliness: 40
Dutifulness: 85
Achievement-Striving: 69
Self-Discipline: 52
Cautiousness: 76

NEUROTICISM: 23 (Low)
Anxiety: 26
Anger: 49
Depression: 9
Self-Consciousness: 37
Immoderation: 21
Vulnerability: 37

OPENNESS TO EXPERIENCE: 99 (High)
Imagination: 91
Artistic Interests: 41
Emotionality: 78
Adventurousness: 76
Intellect: 91
Liberalism: 96

[Juno888]

Nice post out there keep it up..Why don't you give your self time to relax and have fun?...Try to have a break from your work guys..

[Alon Levy]

You know, Lindsay, if you didn't have spammers resurrecting old threads, you'd have to post comments to random archived posts yourself.