All people are different and it is impossible to argue with that. Numerous attempts to categorize people have proven to be unreliable and illusory. Some of these attempts were completely delusional and based on self-reports that cannot be called reliable. However, according to a study published in the journal Nature Human Behavior, scientists were able to determine that there are only four personality types. The team of researchers came to this conclusion after analyzing the character traits of one and a half million people.
It should be noted that there have been other attempts in the past to group people by personality type. The most famous is the Myers-Briggs system, which identifies 16 archetypes based on the observations of Carl Jung. The system is now largely discredited and its results are inconsistent.
Big five
In the course of the study, all subjects passed a survey to identify the traits of the "Big Five" - a model of human personality that reflects the perception of people with each other. As a result, the researchers identified four main types of personality: “ordinary”, “closed”, “egocentric” and “role model”. Psychologists consider the Big Five personality types to be more reliable than the Myers-Briggs system. Although the Big Five qualities are also based on research in which subjects self-report, these five personality traits do a good job of matching peer ratings.
Four personality types
The new study was conducted at Northwestern University by Martin Gerlach, Beatrice Farb, William Revell, and Luis A. Nunes Amaral. While the scientists again relied on self-reports from the subjects, the researchers believe that the sheer number of respondents allowed their analysis to smooth out any deliberate or subconscious deception in the final results.
Promotional video:
In the photo, the authors of the study: Martin Gerlach, Beatrice Farb, William Revell and Luis A. Nunes Amaral.
The researchers sent questionnaires to the subjects who wanted to know more about themselves. There were four types of questionnaire in total, and the number of questions ranged from 44 to 300. All questions have been developed over decades by a large number of scientists, including questions to highlight the features of the "Big Five". After the data was collected, the researchers used standard modeling algorithms to uncover significant patterns. Scientists tried different algorithms until they found a model that ultimately showed consistent results: all subjects were divided into three smaller groups and one larger cluster, which they called "average." When the team tested this approach on two other datasets, the results were similarly successful.
As Big Think writes, scientists explained the new personality types in an official press release:
Communication with some people can be quite unpleasant /
Normal: This personality type includes the average person with a high level of neuroticism and extraversion, but with a low level of openness to new experiences. Scientists note that women are more likely than men to fall into this category.
Closed: The closed personality is characterized by emotional stability. Such people are not too open to new experiences and are not neurotic. They are not particularly extroverted, but they are conscientious and somewhat pleasant to talk to.
Role model: This personality type is not neurotic. They are open to new ideas and experiences and have a role model. By the way, women are more likely than men to be role models.
Egocentric: Self -centered people have a very high extraversion score, but all other qualities are below average. According to the researchers, these are the people you definitely don't want to hang out with.
Nevertheless, the authors of the work note that the study has a number of limitations and it is definitely not worth transferring the results obtained to the entire population.
Lyubov Sokovikova