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Personality: fun facts and quiz
The essentials in 7 ideas, with fun facts, an illustrated story and a quiz to see how much you know.
The essentials
The Big Five
Psychologists often describe personality with five traits: openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism. Each is a scale, not a box.
Key fact
Remember them with the word OCEAN.
Introverts & Extraverts
Extraverts tend to get energy from being with people; introverts often recharge alone. Most people sit somewhere in between.
Key fact
People in the middle are sometimes called ambiverts.
Does Personality Change?
Personality is fairly stable, but it keeps shifting slowly. On average, people become more conscientious and agreeable as they get older.
Key fact
Big life events can shift personality a little.
Nature & Nurture
Twin studies suggest genes explain roughly 40 to 50% of the differences in personality between people; the rest comes from experience and environment.
Key fact
Identical twins raised apart can still share surprising traits.
Personality Tests
Popular type tests, like Myers-Briggs, sort people into boxes. Psychologists prefer trait measures like the Big Five, which predict behaviour better.
Key fact
Many online “which character are you?” quizzes are just for fun.
The Barnum Effect
Vague descriptions like “you sometimes doubt yourself” feel personal but fit almost anyone. It’s called the Barnum effect, and it’s why horoscopes can feel accurate.
Key fact
Studies find no link between star signs and personality.
Personality & Life
Traits can shape life paths: conscientiousness is linked to doing well at school and work, and agreeableness to getting on with others.
Key fact
No trait is simply good or bad; each has its strengths.
Fun facts
The Big Five traits have turned up in studies across more than 50 countries.
The words “introvert” and “extravert” were popularised by psychiatrist Carl Jung in 1921.
A study that followed people for 63 years found their personality at 14 had little in common with their personality at 77.
Adoptive siblings raised in the same home turn out barely more alike in personality than strangers.
The Myers-Briggs test was created by a mother and daughter with no formal training in psychology.
In a 1948 experiment, students rated the same general personality profile as a highly accurate description of themselves.
A study following people for decades found that conscientious children tended to live longer.
Story: The Jim Twins
The Jim Twins
1979, Ohio. Identical twins, adopted by different families as babies, meet again at 39. Both had been named Jim by their new parents.
Both married a Linda, divorced, then married a Betty. One son is James Alan, the other James Allan. Both had a dog called Toy.
Some of it was pure chance, but their habits and tastes matched too. The Jims helped launch a famous study of twins raised apart.
True or false?
Tap your answer to see if you got it, and why.
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Question 1 of 10
The Big Five describe personality with five traits.
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True. Openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, neuroticism.
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Question 2 of 10
Most people are somewhere between introvert and extravert.
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True. It’s a scale, not two boxes.
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Question 3 of 10
People tend to become more agreeable with age.
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True. On average, across many studies.
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Question 4 of 10
Genes play a part in personality.
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True. Roughly half of the differences between people.
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Question 5 of 10
Psychologists generally prefer the Big Five to type tests.
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True. It has stronger scientific support.
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Question 6 of 10
Vague statements can feel personal to almost anyone.
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True. That’s the Barnum effect.
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Question 7 of 10
Conscientiousness is linked to success at school and work.
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True. Being organised and persistent pays off.
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Question 8 of 10
In the Big Five, you’re fully one type or another.
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False. Each trait is a scale; most people sit in the middle.
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Question 9 of 10
Introverts always dislike people.
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False. They just recharge differently.
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Question 10 of 10
Personality is completely fixed by the age of five.
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False. It keeps changing through adulthood.
Keep going in the app
KnowSoda learns what you know and brings back what you’re about to forget. Personality has 6 more ideas at the Advanced and Expert levels.
Sources
- American Psychological Association — Personality
- Roberts, Walton & Viechtbauer (2006), personality change across the life course, Psychological Bulletin
- Vukasović & Bratko (2015), heritability of personality: a meta-analysis, Psychological Bulletin
- Forer (1949), the fallacy of personal validation, Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology
- Rohrer, Egloff & Schmukle (2015), birth order and personality, PNAS 112
- Youyou, Kosinski & Stillwell (2015), computer-based personality judgments, PNAS 112
