How do we value others’ personality traits? : A Quantitative Study on Rating of Personality Traits Related to Introversion and Extraversion and How It Associates with Our Own Personality

Sammanfattning: This study was based on The Big Five theoretical framework with focus on the extraversion factor, and its purpose was to assess how we value introverted and extraverted personality traits. A hypothesis was that ratings of extraversion-related adjectives would be higher than ratings of introversion-related adjectives. Another hypothesis was established to test if the ratings would differ between genders. The study included sixty-three participants (Age M = 23, SD = 3,6; 37 females; 26 males) who rated adjective words related to personality traits on the spectrum of introversion and extraversion on a Likert scale from one through seven. Results showed that extraversion related adjectives were rated higher than introversion adjectives and in terms of gender, males did not differ in their ratings of introversion and extraversion adjectives, however, females rated extraversion higher than introversion. In addition to considering personality adjectives as positive or negative, participants also answered the 20-Item Mini IPIP personality test, to explore whether our preference can be associated with our own personality. Results showed that the ratings of extraverted personality adjectives had a significant positive correlation with the extraversion factor in the IPIP, and the ratings for introverted adjectives showed a negative correlation, however it did not remain significant after a Bonferroni correction.