It turned out that there's not exactly a "magic bullet" for linking your personality to your stuff, but that different types of stuff are good for gauging different personality traits.įor example, Facebook pages reveal a lot about how extroverted a person is, but are no good for gauging how neurotic that person is in face-to-face interactions. When all the inspections and the interviews were done, the researchers looked for correlations between the in-person personality ratings and the snoopological information. And still others are what Gosling calls "behavioral residue": the books on your bookshelves, the papers lying around your study, the clothes you hang neatly in your closet or leave lying on the floor. Other tip-offs have to do with making you feel a certain way: family photos propped up on your desk, a personal memento on your bookshelf, even the songs you keep on your music player (Shakira or Miles Davis?).
"Doors are a great place to look for identity claims," Gosling said. The telltale stuff includes objects that make identity claims - posters of rock stars on your bedroom wall, for instance, or the signs posted on your door. Another team rated their impressions of the "stuff" left behind by each subject. One team of researchers set up interviews with each experimental subjects, as well as two people who knew the subject well. Woody Allen's screen persona provides the perfect example, and the Dude from "The Big Lebowski" provides the perfect antidote.Īrmed with these scales, Gosling and his collaborators struck out to assess the personalities of a wide variety of college students, professionals and others - as well as their living spaces, music playlists and online hangouts. Neuroticism: Anxiety, depression, moodiness, vulnerability to stress.Think of Mister Rogers rather than, say, Simon Cowell from "American Idol." Agreeableness: Trust, nurturance, kindness and cooperation.Gosling associates this with Eddie Murphy in "Beverly Hills Cop." Extraversion: Sociability, assertiveness, a sense of activity.
"These are the people you want in the air traffic control tower," Gosling said. Conscientiousness: A sense of order, duty, deliberation and self-discipline, represented by RoboCop ("half-man, half-machine, all cop").Openness to experience: A sense of imagination, experimentation and creativity, exemplified by Leonardo da Vinci.Gosling and his colleagues started out with five dimensions used to measure personality, each represented by a well-known character: That key question can spawn others: How do you define personality, anyway? Can you really separate personality from the person? "What are the processes by which personality gets translated into physical elements in your space?" Gosling asked.
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