A Commonsense Approach to Personality Measurement

Abstract

The sun, the moon, the clouds, and the stars provided ancient astrologers with clues to people’s characters and destinies. Other oracles relied on other sources of information: The hydromancer read the airs, winds, and waters; the necromancer consulted with the dead; the haruspex interpreted patterns of lightning or the entrails of a sacrificed animal; the alchemist read shapes formed by a thin stream of molten lead poured into a bowl of water. These soothsayers were regarded as unenlightened by their rivals and descendants, who offered more personalized pronouncements based on elements of the client’s own physical structure: The chiromancer read the lines on one’s palm; the physiognomist, facial features; the phrenologist, skull conformation. More recently, psychologists have sought to discern people’s character by interpreting records of their self-expression, such as samples of handwriting, projective test responses, and nonverbal behavior. Today’s methods of personality measurement arose from this venerable tradition. Many of them still contain remnants of the occult (the word comes from the Latin occultus, past participle of a verb meaning to cover up, to hide) that need to be dispelled.