Slashdot Mirror
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."'
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).
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
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!
If his/her address is s.ballmer@microsoft.com, they might be short-tempered.
and ask.
you had me at #!
as my email address. That way, anyone can learn anything they want to know about me.
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.
Creationists.
I'm disabling ads until because I choose not to reward redesigns that are less usable than "view source".
Bollocks. The correlations are weak, at best, and are barely distinguishable from chance. E.g., Consider Table 2. There are 196 entries in the top section of the table. The excess of postive correlations over negative corrlations is a grand total of 8. Assuming 50/50 odds, that excess will happen about 11% of the time just by chance alone. When you factor in the conditional probablity of publishing results (i.e., the argument that if they were any weaker, the data would never have been published), this has to be an extraordinarily weak finding.
The average correlation (without regard to sign) in the same section of Table 2 is a whoppping 0.067, suggesting an average explanatory power on the order of 0.5%. I suppose such power might have some benefit to someone that sends a lot of e-mails to random addresses like spammers, but for the odinary Joe or Jo, this is not a lot to go on.
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
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.