How extroverted is smartboy80@hotmail.com?
Researchers in Germany have shown that your email address can reveal your personality. So next time you pick an email, think twice!
Research was done at the University of Leipzig in Germany where they found that an email address may speak volumes about the character of the person who created the unique online identification.
In their study, the researchers asked a panel of 100 students to guess the personalities of 600 young adults simply by looking at their email addresses.
According to lead researcher Mitja Back, even the thinnest slice of communication via the world wide web — the mere email address — contains valid information about the personality of its owner.
The panel’s guesses agreed mostly with a personality survey the teenagers had completed when it came to qualities like openness, conscientiousness and narcissism, and diverged most on the trait of extroversion.
Addresses that gave away personality often contained full stops, numbers or a name that was obviously not genuine, the researchers found.
According to the research:
Computer mediated communication (CMC) plays a rapidly growing role in our social lives. Within this domain, e-mail addresses represent the thinnest slice of information that people receive from one another. Using 599 e-mail addresses of young adults, their self-reported personality scores and the personality judgments of 100 independent observers, it was shown that personality impressions based solely on e-mail addresses were consensually shared by observers. Moreover, these impressions contained some degree of validity. This was true for neuroticism, openness, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and narcissism but not for extraversion. Level of accuracy was explained using lens model analyses: Lay observers made broad use of perceivable e-mail address features in their personality judgments, features were slightly valid and observers were sensitive to subtle differences in validity between cues. Altogether, even the thinnest slice of CMC—the mere e-mail address—contains valid information about the personality of its owner.
Level of accuracy was explained using lens model analyses — the students made broad use of perceivable email address features in their personality judgements, features were slightly valid and the observers were sensitive to subtle differences in validity between cues.
The study has been published in the latest edition of the Journal of Research in Personality. To read it please click here.
0 responses so far
There are no comments yet...Kick things off by filling out the form below.
You must log in to post a comment.