The Personality Project
Overview
Personality Taxonomies
Assessment and Applications
Statistical Program
Research Methods
Psychometrics
Statistics
Personality Theory
Biological approaches
Behavior genetics
Psychoanalytic theory
Evolutionary Psychology
Other
Personality and Ability
Using R in personality research
Psychometric Theory
Academic Webpages
Scientific Journals
Research labs
Homepages of researchers
Course syllabi
Online Research Projects
Personality Pedagogy Wiki
Non-Academic Webpages
Psychological Organizations
Specialized Societies
General Societies
Related Societies
Personality Research Conferences
Graduate Training Programs in Personality
Special advice for students
Psychology Depts. with Personality Programs
Advice for undergraduates
How to apply to graduate school
Being a scientist
Ethical principles of psychologists
Graduate student association
Personality Snapshots (updated 1/29/13)
Welcome
The personality-project is a collection of web pages devoted to the academic study of personality. It is meant to guide the interested student, researcher or serious layperson to recent developments in the field of personality research. Included in the personality-project web pages are historical reviews of the field, links to current research findings from around the world, course syllabi on personality as well as on research methodology with a particular emphasis upon psychometric research, and tutorials to help everyone learn some of the more powerful statistical procedures used in personality research. Some pages are very technical, some are not. Some are very new, some have not been updated in several years. The entire project is meant to help those who want to know more about what is known about personality. We hope that you enjoy what you find here and will send us suggestions, additions, and corrections.
Personality and Individual Differences
Personality is the coherent patterning of affect, cognition, and desires (goals) as they lead to behavior. To study personality is to study how people feel, how they think, what they want, and finally, what they do. That people differ from each other in all four of these domains is obvious. How and why they differ is less clear and is an important part of the study of personality. It is the coherent patterning over time and space of feelings, thoughts, desires and actions that we identify as personality. Personality psychology addresses the questions of
shared human nature
dimensions of individual differences
and unique patterns of individuals.
Research in personality ranges from analyses of
genetic codes
and studies of
biological systems
to the study of sexual, social, ethnic, and cultural bases of thought, feelings, and behavior. Personality research includes studies of
cognitive abilities
, interpersonal styles, and emotional reactivity. Methods range from laboratory experiments to longitudinal field studies and include
data reduction techniques
such as factor analysis and principal components analysis, as well as structural modeling and multi-level modeling procedures. Measurement issues of most importance are those of
reliability and stability
of individual differences.
Research in individual differences addresses three broad questions: 1) developing an adequate
descriptive taxonomy
of how people differ; 2) applying differences in one situation to predict differences in other situations; and 3) testing
theoretical
explanations of the structure and dynamics of individual differences.
These are not new questions, for the study of personality and individual differences is
at least 3,000 years old
. Personality taxonomies have been considered ever since Theophrastus and the taxonomies of the early 21st century bear a striking resemblance to those character descriptions. The lexical approach of
Galton
has grown to include
the "Big 5' models
which are actively studied today.
What has changed over the past forty years is an exciting blend of newer quantitative techniques mixed with a better understanding of how biological and genetic determinants of individual differences combine with developmental experiences to produce the incredible diversity that we know as personality.
These pages are meant to guide those interested in personality
theory
and research to the current
personality research literature
. Although some of the readings are available on-line, all should be available from most university libraries. Abstracts of many recent articles are available by using search engines, particularly
Google Scholar
Information about
scholarly societies
and
graduate training programs in personality
is provided for those interested in pursuing further study in personality theory.
Course syllabi
from personality theory and research courses are being added gradually. Suggestions for links to
active researchers
and
personality laboratories
are welcome.
Issues of personality appeal to everyone and there are many interesting web sites that can be visited both inside and outside of academia. Selected links to
non-academic
pages devoted to personality theory are included with an emphasis upon non-commercial sites. Some of these sites have examples of personality and ability tests that are similar to more standard testing instruments.
The personality project is meant to be a cooperative endeavor for and by all of us interested in the study of personality. This means that
suggestions
for links to other pages and corrections to the current pages are always welcome. They will be added as time permits.
If you want to help us develop our understanding of personality, please take our test at
SAPA Project
. The SAPA project is a collaborative data collection tool for assessing psychological constructs across multiple dimensions of personality. These dimensions currently include temperament, cognitive abilities, and interests (TAI) because research suggests that these three dimensions cover a large percentage of the variability among people without too much redundacy. Other broad dimensions like motivation and character may be included later depending on how much incremental benefit they provide in terms of predicting outcomes.
After taking the survey you will get feedback about your personality on each of these dimensions relative to other people of your age and gender. The feedback will be customized to your responses using the scores of approximately 1,000,000 people who have participated so far.
The test is entirely free (absolutely no strings attached) and completely anonymous (no cookies, no tracking, nothing). And, you will have our gratitude -- this research is not possible without the help of people like you!
William Revelle
and the Personality Project. All rights reserved. | Design:
HTML5 Up!
| Modified by Jason A. French and
William Revelle
Last revised July 1, 2023