Observers spontaneously use Intelligence, Extraversion, Neuroticism and Psychoticism when evaluating personality

Scant attention has been paid to how individuals spontaneously categorise the personalities of people with whom they are familiar. 67 individuals who had extensive experience watching the participants in a reality-television programme (Big Brother) were shown all possible pairings of the participants’ names and photographs and rated the overall similarity of each pair. They then completed a rating-form of a standard personality inventory for each participant, and also rated the Intelligence of each participant. Non-metric multidimensional scaling of the averaged similarity data showed that the observers considered two features of the participants when assessing the similarity of their personalities. Correlational analyses showed that one of these features was a mixture of the participant’s Intelligence and emotional stability, and the other a combination of Extraversion and Psychoticism.