Computers Know Your Personality Better Than Anyone

By analyzing the books, films, and organizations you’ve Liked on Facebook, computers can create a more accurate picture of your identity than your friends, family, or even your spouse can.

Researchers at the University of Cambridge recently analyzed 86,220 volunteers who completed a 100-item personality questionnaire through the ‘myPersonality’ app, as well as providing access to their Likes on Facebook.

Using standard personality categories—openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism (also known as the OCEAN model)—the researchers were able to determine which Likes corresponded to certain categories. Liking Salvador Dali or Mindfulness showed a higher degree of openness, for example.

“[A] computer could more accurately predict the subject’s personality than a work colleague by analysing just ten Likes; more than a friend or a cohabitant (roommate) with 70, a family member (parent, sibling) with 150, and a spouse with 300 Likes.”

Computer-generated portraits of an individual’s personality could be highly valuable to an organization looking to hire someone who shares the company’s values. They may even help match individuals to certain employers automatically, saving time for job searchers along the way.

As hedge fund founder Marc Lasry explained in his Big Think interview, there is a real difference between street smarts and book smarts. And if you’re an employer, you want a team of people with both:

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