Like on the Facebook tell your personality

Computer can assess your personality more precisely than a human, do you believe it?

Stanford University published a result of research in which the participants were investigated by human and computers. Human investigators guessed the personalities of the participants using ten items questionnaire. On the other hand, the queues given for computer were the data of "Like" the participants took on the Facebook. Human and computers were compared how exactly identify the personality of the participants evaluated with 100 items questionnaire.

Stanford News Service: New Stanford research finds computers are better judges of personality than friends and family

The results, of course, depended on the amount of "Like" provided by the participants. Amazingly, only 10 "Like" offered more precise prediction about the personality of the participants than performed by their colleagues. If 300 "Like" were gathered, the accuracy became superior to their spouses.

This study suggests some important things. Firstly, "Like" is communicative. What we express upon as like is a valuable information to describe our personality. It is the reason the information of "Like" is decisive for marketing.

Secondly, the big data can be a basis of artificial intelligence. A total of 300 "Like" is hardly dealt with by human, but the computer can. The importance of the big data will become worthy much more, in accordance with the improvement of the ability of the computers.

On the other hand, this study has some disadvantages. In this study, human investigators could ask only ten questions to the participants to evaluate their personality. It would be a handicap. In a real situation, we assess the personality of a certain person with various methods: what he wear, how he speaks, facial expression, and his atmosphere. It is not fair for human not to utilize this information.

It is questionable that the golden standard for the evaluation of the personality was a 100 items questionnaire. Today, standardized personality questionnaires equip more questions. For example, Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) is composed of 550 questions. Nevertheless, it is not adequate to evaluate the total personality of a human.

Anyway, computed analyses have become more common in the modern era. We should utilize such new methods for a better life.