The association of neuroticism and extraversion ratings by self versus others with individual characteristics as manifested in written language

Abstract

Judging other people's personalities is an important topic that applies to social situations in everyday life, psychological practice, and scientific research. Two important Big Five personality traits are neuroticism and extraversion. These two traits are linked to respectively the 'Hidden area' of one's personality, which is only known to the self, and the 'Area of free activity,' which is known to both the self and others. Neuroticism has been linked to positive affect, whereas extraversion has been linked more often to social factors and positive affect. Another finding in earlier research has been that women tend to score higher on neuroticism cross-culturally. In this study, it is proposed that by analyzing the word use of a group of students, and linking this to their scores on personality tests, conclusions can be drawn about how word use reflects a given personality trait.