Rights statement: This is the author’s version of a work that was accepted for publication in Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published in Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences, 18, 2017 DOI: 10.1016/j.cobeha.2017.07.017
Accepted author manuscript, 377 KB, PDF document
Available under license: CC BY-NC-ND
Final published version
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Review article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Review article › peer-review
}
TY - JOUR
T1 - Language-based personality
T2 - a new approach to personality in a digital world
AU - Boyd, Ryan L.
AU - Pennebaker, James W.
N1 - This is the author’s version of a work that was accepted for publication in Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published in Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences, 18, 2017 DOI: 10.1016/j.cobeha.2017.07.017
PY - 2017/12/1
Y1 - 2017/12/1
N2 - Personality is typically defined as the consistent set of traits, attitudes, emotions, and behaviors that people have. For several decades, a majority of researchers have tacitly agreed that the gold standard for measuring personality was with self-report questionnaires. Surveys are fast, inexpensive, and display beautiful psychometric properties. A considerable problem with this method, however, is that self-reports reflect only one aspect of personality — people's explicit theories of what they think they are like. We propose a complementary model that draws on a big data solution: the analysis of the words people use. Language use is relatively reliable over time, internally consistent, and differs considerably between people. Language-based measures of personality can be useful for capturing/modeling lower-level personality processes that are more closely associated with important objective behavioral outcomes than traditional personality measures. Additionally, the increasing availability of language data and advances in both statistical methods and technological power are rapidly creating new opportunities for the study of personality at ‘big data’ scale. Such opportunities allow researchers to not only better understand the fundamental nature of personality, but at a scale never before imagined in psychological research.
AB - Personality is typically defined as the consistent set of traits, attitudes, emotions, and behaviors that people have. For several decades, a majority of researchers have tacitly agreed that the gold standard for measuring personality was with self-report questionnaires. Surveys are fast, inexpensive, and display beautiful psychometric properties. A considerable problem with this method, however, is that self-reports reflect only one aspect of personality — people's explicit theories of what they think they are like. We propose a complementary model that draws on a big data solution: the analysis of the words people use. Language use is relatively reliable over time, internally consistent, and differs considerably between people. Language-based measures of personality can be useful for capturing/modeling lower-level personality processes that are more closely associated with important objective behavioral outcomes than traditional personality measures. Additionally, the increasing availability of language data and advances in both statistical methods and technological power are rapidly creating new opportunities for the study of personality at ‘big data’ scale. Such opportunities allow researchers to not only better understand the fundamental nature of personality, but at a scale never before imagined in psychological research.
U2 - 10.1016/j.cobeha.2017.07.017
DO - 10.1016/j.cobeha.2017.07.017
M3 - Review article
AN - SCOPUS:85026744838
VL - 18
SP - 63
EP - 68
JO - Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences
JF - Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences
SN - 2352-1546
ER -