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Inferring Personality From Email Addresses
paleshadows writes "Three researchers from the University of Leipzig published an interesting paper titled 'How extroverted is honey.bunny77@hotmail.de? Inferring personality from e-mail addresses' (PDF). From the abstract: 'Email 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 extroversion."'
Next: scientists discover that how you look and act reflects on your personality, too.
I don't know, but I have a suspicion that he/she doesn't have much of a sense on humour.
It's true I tell you, feller at work's next door neighbour read it in the paper.
What does the address chunkylover53@aol.com tell you?
Ho! Haha! Guard! Turn! Parry! Dodge! Spin! Ha! Thrust!
So the article summary starts with:
How extraverted is honey.bunny77@hotmail.de? Inferring personality from e-mail addresses
And ends with:
Moreover, these impressions contained some degree of validity....but not for extraversion
So the only example in the summary is wrong. And you can tell by reading the summary. Bravo.
-- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
I mean, consider an address like "leatherdude@hotmale.com", "bottom4lrgck@gmail.com", or "cowboyneal@slashdot.org" It's fairly safe to assume they're into the gay scene.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
Personality tests are (reasonably) based around extroversion in normal social interactions. I think its fairly well accepted that one's introversion/extroversion on the Internet is not necessarily the same as in "meat space". Perhaps "honey bunny" is shy in real life but using the freedom and anonymity of the web to act as she would like to be able to act in real life without consequences. The reserved accountant in real life could be the brash bon vivant at their computer.
Granted, a similar variation would be likely for other attributes, but I would be surprised if extroversion was the trait most likely to have a radical change (increase).
it was shown that personality impressions based solely on e-mail addresses were consensually shared by observers.
... So someone paid one hundred observers and who knows how many research administrators to find out that if a group of people look at the same word(s), they will have a similar reaction? Strange, I thought that was the primary purpose of language. Silly me...
Moreover, these impressions contained some degree of validity.
And this says absolutely nothing. At all. "Some degree of validity" includes such conditions as "My father's, brother's, nephew's, cousin's, former roommate felt that way".
http://www.allen-poole.com/
From that I can tell you are a some what a geek who visits sites like SlashDot. It also tells me that you are concerned about your email address being harvested and eventually being used as a target for spam.
Now do me. My email address is: useless.research.nominations _at_ elmuerte.com
You clearly have far too much spare time & not enough to do.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
...one question comes to mind: Is psychology really a science?
One of my favorites, though, is the story of a guy applying for a job at Yahoo! He registered the email account "iwanttowork(@yahoo.com)," and used that to send his resume. They hired him.
I wish I could find my source for that, but I'm damn sure it happened.
SIG: HUP
Don't worry, it has a different meaning here, too.
End of lesson. You may press the button.
A friend of mine and I were looking for a 3rd room mate to share the costs with. We previously had a female friend of ours and we got along just fine (she got married and moved out) so we figured male or female was okay, so long as the personalities matched-up. So he put an ad online.
One of the responses was from a girl who said she was fun and easy to get along with and had no problem rooming with guys. My friend was about to call her, but I noticed that her email address was some sort of obfuscated leet-speak, and after staring at it for a moment I realized it was her bra size + some other personality attributes. I decifered it and did a google search only to find some prom pictures that would make a porn star blush. We decided to keep searching. (Yes, many readers will call me crazy for that. Choose your roommates carefully guys.)
Lesson learned: email addresses can say a lot about someone.
also, if he's got "creepy" in his username...
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
that if you have multiple email addresses you have multiple personalities?
God, schmod. I want my monkey man!
I chose my screenname/email address when I was in 4th grade. I'm now a Junior in college. So the only thing you can infer from my email address is about my personality ~10 years ago.
If his/her address is s.ballmer@microsoft.com, they might be short-tempered.
I think she is 31 years old.
"Scientists" have discovered that 9/10 people can deduce the personality of people by the studies they are conducting.
"People judge me as having a God complex," Dr C. Heesenfeed commented, "mostly because I have mice running through mazes all day. But my studies have proven that 87% of all mice will go for a delicous piece of Emmental rather than for Brie. Cheese produces claimed that I was biased towards the rich and full flavour of the delicious Emmental, as opposed to plain old Brie. My friends avoid me these days because I always play with mice."
But statistical analysis has indeed shown that most people judge scientists by their statistical studies. 50% of people find most studies frivolous or useless, 30% found them to be an utter waste of time, while only 20% responded they liked to read about pointless statistics in the newspaper.
"People tell me that sometimes I'm really out there,", spoke Dr W. Ellhung, "especially when I tell them about my studies into the mating behavior in humans and finding a link between what food people eat. It's not really out there, because I've found sufficient evidence that eating very large amounts of chili on a regular interval decreases your chances of scoring... I mean, decreases the attraction coefficient."
According to an anonymous source "Statistics don't always have to be meaningless. When interpreted correctly they can be very useful, for example, I am currently trying to predict next week lottery numbers by calculating the chance that a certain number will be picked using collected data from over 25 years. When I'm a millionaire, no one will be laughing with me anymore. I'll show them, or my name isn't Pjotr Orb'stard". He was then seen running towards the exit while laughing diabolically before impacting against the automatic door. "What are the odds of that happening to me???" he yelled.
What are the odds indeed
and ask.
you had me at #!
...are necessary. I once received a CV from "slap_head_dave@..." He didn't even get an interview.
That sort of jocular email address is fine for your friends' use but you need to use a serious one for business / applying for jobs etc. or else nobody will take you seriously at all.
So, what you would want to do is make up a persona. Name, DOB, address, phone number, job, etc, etc. All of the facts need to appear legitimate at surface review. Pick something that isn't obviously wrong. Like, don't say you're the lead researcher at an outpost in the Antarctic. If you, say were to be in the New York metro area, and your addresses is a drop box in Manhattan, that's more reasonable. 18.8 million people live in the NYC metro area. Be careful though, use a metro area that you're familiar with. If you claim to live in New York, but you've never even visited there, it's going to be obvious if someone asks any questions.
That's who JWSmythe is, and it's spelled out almost as such on my site. JWSmythe is my online persona, who I use for everyone online. If you search around for Mr. Smythe, you'll find lots of information (and lots of disinformation). Identity thieves have a goldmine of information on Mr. Smythe, but it's all false, therefore worthless. If you search my real name, you'll find lots of information also, but they're all for other people. I'm very pleased with that. Even if you use a background search service, you may find bits and pieces of me, but it will be mixed in with so many other people who aren't me (but have the same name), it's worthless info.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
as my email address. That way, anyone can learn anything they want to know about me.
Mac user.
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
It's for perceptions such as this that I recently moved from an old high school GMail address to a more generic MyName@MyPersonallyBrandedDomain.tld address. The former was hindering my professional development, whereas the latter is enhancing it. It's a small thing, but your email address is often a first impression. Ask yourself, "What does ChronicCommenter@Slashdot.org saying about me?"
We all can't be ladiesman217.... :)
Blacker than my baby girl's stare. Black like the veil that the muslimina wear. Black like the planet that they fear...
...says the guy whose username starts with "Mrs" and ends with "Guido"?
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
I still feel insulted a little when I read things like these. While I agree on German humour being kind of special I think that it has some very funny ways. For example we have a sense for the humor of very elaborate and absurd situations - for absolutely no reason.
Have a look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vicco_von_Buelow or some of his work at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70Dd5dosUhk or http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rypULAp99ao or http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVCk8Inkav4
The English have a humour that quite sometimes is similar to aspects of our humour, neither nation would admit it, of course.
Proof: Watch http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=9105942950207814319
for example.
Poster's real name: John Smith
It reads "aspergers" loud and clear, dude.
sudo ergo sum
You've got a good start your name and DOB in there, but if you really want to obfuscate and anonymize you need to add your social security number.
Creationists.
I'm disabling ads until because I choose not to reward redesigns that are less usable than "view source".
It not so much insulting - it feels like having a close relative who's not very good looking but has a beautiful voice.
German humour often works requires understanding of the German culture and the many degrees of freedom the German language has, which often transport fine differences in meaning.
I find it quite difficult to grok japanese humour and I think German humour may be as difficult for non Germans.
And I still remember my - usually very distinguished - physics teacher having difficulties breathing because he laughed so hard when we watched "Pappa ante portas" in the class before christmas.
You started it!
It's true I tell you, feller at work's next door neighbour read it in the paper.
We've been using nickname tells in online poker for years now. Poker is a game of imperfect information, so any little edge is good.
Obviously, someone like ShipItThx will usually be much better than jimmy35 or CIVIC4LIFE. Good players have even started to use reverse nickname tells, always thinking one step ahead.
These days, we usually look at the nicknames only to know in what range a player will be. Some names tell us he'll be an average player at best, while others tell us he'll either be a very good player or a complete donkey, but rarely just a semi-decent guy.
Next time a chunk of money comes aroun for random researches, give your fellow poker players a call. We know a thing or two about gaining information from pretty much anything.
Given the infinitesimally small size of the sample, the researchers have effectively one, single datum, except it isn't even that. The completely casual method of assessment (filling in a questionnaire about yourself - self-image, much?) gives utterly irreproducible results. The complete lack of any numerical or quantifiable data makes drawing conclusions impossible.
Here's a quick assessment of personality of a group with an average age of 16. They're all immature. Some are more mature than others, some will grow more mature with age - others won't. The link with emails addresses is random, as most won't have been able to get their first-choice addresses anyway (the grown-ups will have those).
This is one for the ig-nobel awards.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
My personal email address is 5@.. and I chose it because I'd never change it, because it *doesn't mean anything.* I'm not five years old, my birthday lacks a five in it anywhere, it's not in my driver's license number, my name isn't five letters.. It doesn't mean anything, and that's why it works.
Dude, everything means something. "5@" is loaded with information.
1. Who the heck gets an email like that? Either a very early adopter, a supporter of a very small ISP or somebody with access to a unique webhost. If you're using one of the giant internet providers, you are tech-savvy enough to know how to tinker with email identifications. Many companies and institutions which have their own email host require employees to conform to email naming standards, so either you didn't acquire that email name through work, you're a guy who buys his own web hosting or works high enough up some sort of chain to be able to do goofy stuff without comment from superiors. The common factors one or both of the following deductions: You're a guy who knows his way around a computer thank-you-very-much or you hold an important (but not too-important, or you wouldn't have such a weird email address) position of some kind. That takes care of the broad guess information. The personality reading is much tighter.
2. You're a guy who doesn't want to advertise silly nonsense in an email name. This doesn't mean you can't be an anime geek, but it does mean you're aware enough to know that such an email name is kind of silly, and you don't want to come across that way. Whatever the case, a name which gives away nothing is consciously chosen for that reason. This suggests you are a cautious person with some pretty good brains, which tells me a lot about how you can be expected to handle yourself in any number of scenarios. Any confidence you have in social situations probably comes from a studied investment of will power rather than a naturally bubbly charisma. This gives me the general locations of a ton of probable fear, anger and happy buttons I could poke around for if I wanted to manipulate you. --Don't worry. I don't do that! :)
3. It's possible that you are also one of those guys who has a no-nonsense somewhat self-important and conservative (though not necessarily in the political sense) attitude who spends a fair bit of energy devoted to sighing heavily at people who ARE silly and thoughtless.
One might be tempted to ask, "Why 5 and not some other number?", but that's too squishy an area to really tread in. Though one might note that had you picked a "1" it would suggest some outward self-importance which you either couldn't embrace or chose not to for some reason. 3 and 7 are 'magic/biblical' numbers, whereas 5 suggests balance and digital thinking. But like I said, that whole area is a bit too squishy for my liking.
In any case, that's all just from a number "5". I know what you're not, and that gives me a ton of profile to work with. I could be wrong about all of it, of course, but those patterns do jump to mind first.
-FL
Japanese humour, like German humour, and indeed, everybody else's humour, has multiple levels. There's more intellectual stuff which relies on cultural knowledge, but you also do see slapstick, absurdity, and other genres of humour. Lots of people like to moan about how high brow British humour is, for example, but that's the same nation that gave us Benny Hill and Red Dwarf. Not exactly high brow. Japanese humour isn't really any different.
Take, for example, the Japanese comedy Ping Pong Bath Station (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0169126/). Absolutely hilarious. And one of my favourite Japanese movies. It's about a hot spring resort that decides to rejuvinate its business by hosting a ping pong tournament. The thing is that alongside cultural reference humour that you may or may not get, one of the characters is transgendered, and used as comic relief. There's still some cultural humour in that character, but it is a level of humour that's much closer to what an American audience will be used to.
Ultimately, it's a question of where you go. Some German humour, you'll get. Some you won't. The same can be said for the rest of the world.
Anyway... no real point. Just felt like mentionning that you can't lump it all together. And obligatory disclaimer: my mum's family is Scottish/Irish, my dad's family is German, and I studied Japanese in University. It's American "humour" that I don't appreciate....
If you believe everything you read, you'd better not read. - Japanese proverb
I still feel insulted a little when I read things like these.
So let me get this straight. I'm guessing you are probably of German descent, and you're insulted that someone was coyly and humorously teasing Germans...for lacking a sense of humor?
I just wanted to make sure I didn't miss anything... :-p
but have you considered the following argument: shut up.
Ha ha rofl! Stop it, you're killing me! My mountain dew came right out of my nose when I saw your articulate protestations and well-cited hypertext links. Subtle, but appreciated.
But that was Austrian humour