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Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences pp 1–5Cite as

Rentfrow, Peter

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Early Life and Educational Background

Rentfrow was born on June 4, 1976. He received his undergraduate degree in Psychology in 1998 and his PhD in 2004, both from the University of Texas at Austin. His dissertation focused on the psychological correlates of musical preferences and was conducted under the supervision of Samuel Gosling and William Swann.

Professional Career

Rentfrow accepted a faculty position at the University of Cambridge and a fellowship at Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge, in 2005, where he has remained ever since. During his career, he has authored over 100 publications, which have been published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Nature Human Behavior, American Psychologist, Current Directions in Psychological Science, Perspectives on Psychological Science, Psychological Science, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, and others. This work has been cited more than 12,000 times with an h-index of 40....

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Selected Bibliography

Preferences Research

  • Bonneville-Roussy, A., Rentfrow, P. J., Xu, M. K., & Potter, J. (2013). Music through the ages: Trends in musical attitudes and preferences from adolescence through middle adulthood. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 105, 703–717.

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  • Greenberg, D. M., Baron-Cohen, S., Stillwell, D. J., Stillwell, D. J., Kosinski, M., & Rentfrow, P. J. (2015a). Musical preferences are linked to cognitive styles. PLoS One, 10(7), e0131151. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0131151.

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  • Greenberg, D. M., Müllensiefen, D., Lamb, M. E., & Rentfrow, P. J. (2015b). Personality predicts musical sophistication. Journal of Research in Personality, 58, 154–158.

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  • Greenberg, D. M., Kosinski, M., Stillwell, D. J., Monteiro, B. L., Levitin, D. J., & Rentfrow, P. J. (2016). The song is you: Preferences for musical attribute dimensions reflect personality. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 7, 597–605.

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  • Nauman, L. P., Vazire, S., Rentfrow, P. J., & Gosling, S. D. (2009). Personality judgments based on physical appearance. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 35, 1661–1671.

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  • Nave, G., Minxha, J., Greenberg, D., Kosinski, M., Stillwell, D., & Rentfrow. (2018). Musical preferences predict personality: Evidence from active listening and Facebook likes. Psychological Science, 29, 1145–1158.

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  • Rentfrow, P. J., & Gosling, S. D. (2003). The do-re-mi’s of everyday life: The structure and personality correlates of music preferences. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 84, 1236–1256.

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  • Rentfrow, P. J., & Gosling, S. D. (2006). Message in a ballad: The role of music preferences in interpersonal perception. Psychological Science, 17, 236–242.

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  • Rentfrow, P. J., & Gosling, S. D. (2007). The content and validity of stereotypes about fans of 14 music genres. Psychology of Music, 35, 306–326.

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  • Rentfrow, P. J., McDonald, J. A., & Oldmeadow, J. A. (2009a). You are what you listen to: Young people’s stereotypes about music fans. Group Processes and Intergroup Relations, 12, 329–344.

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  • Rentfrow, P. J., Goldberg, L. R., & Levitin, D. J. (2011a). The structure of musical preferences: A five-factor model. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 100, 1139–1157.

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  • Rentfrow, P. J., Goldberg, L. R., & Zilca, R. (2011b). Listening, watching, and reading: The structure and correlates of entertainment preferences. Journal of Personality, 79, 223–257.

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  • Rentfrow, P. J., Goldberg, L. R., Stillwell, D. J., Kosinski, M., Gosling, S. D., & Levitin, D. L. (2012). The song remains the same: A replication and extension of the MUSIC model. Music Perception, 30, 161–185.

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  • Vazire, S., Naumann, L. P., Rentfrow, P. J., & Gosling, S. D. (2008). Portrait of a narcissist: Manifestations of narcissism in physical appearance. Journal of Research in Personality, 42, 1439–1447.

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Geographical Psychology

  • Bleidorn, W., Klimstra, T. A., Denissen, J. J. A., Rentfrow, P. J., Gosling, S. D., & Potter, J. (2013). Personality maturation around the world: A cross-cultural examination of social investment theory. Psychological Science, 24, 2530–2540.

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  • Bleidorn, W., Arslan, R. C., Denissen, J. J. A., Rentfrow, P. J., Gebauer, J. E., Potter, J., & Gosling, S. D. (2016a). Age and gender differences in self-esteem: A cross-cultural window. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 111, 396–410.

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  • Bleidorn, W., Schönbrodt, F., Gebauer, J. E., Rentfrow, P. J., Potter, J., & Gosling, S. D. (2016b). To live among like-minded others: Exploring the links between personality-city fit and self-esteem. Psychological Science, 27, 419–427.

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  • Florida, R., Mellander, C., & Rentfrow, P. J. (2013). The happiness of cities. Regional Studies, 47, 613–627.

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  • Garretsen, H., Stoker, J. I., Soudis, D., Martin, R., Rentfrow, P. J. (in press). The relevance of personality traits for economic geography: Making space for psychological factors. Journal of Economic Geography.

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  • Gebauer, J. E., Bleidorn, W., Gosling, S. D., Rentfrow, P. J., Lamb, M. E., & Potter, J. (2014). Cross-cultural variations in Big Five relationships with religiosity: A socio-cultural motives perspective. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 107, 1064–1091. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0037683.

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  • Gebauer, J., Sedikides, C., Wagner, J., Bleidorn, W., Gosling, S. D., Rentfrow, P. J., & Potter, J. (2015). Cultural norm-fulfillment, interpersonal-belonging, or getting-ahead? A large-scale cross-cultural test of three perspectives on the function of self-esteem. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 109, 526–548.

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  • Götz, F., Ebert, T., & Rentfrow, P. J. (2018). Regional cultures and the psychological geography of Switzerland: Person–environment–fit in personality predicts subjective wellbeing. Frontiers in Psychology, 9, 517.

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  • Jokela, M., Bleidorn, W., Lamb, M. E., Gosling, S. D., & Rentfrow, P. J. (2015). Geographically varying associations between personality and life satisfaction in the London metropolitan area. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 112, 725–730.

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  • Obschonka, M., Stützer, M., Audretsch, D. B., Rentfrow, P. J., Potter, J., & Gosling, S. D. (2016). Macro-psychological factors predict regional economic resilience during a major economic crisis. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 7, 95–104.

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  • Obschonka, M., Stützer, M., Rentfrow, P. J., Lee, N., Potter, J., & Gosling, S. D. (2018). Fear, populism, and the geopolitical landscape: The “sleeper effect” of neurotic personality traits on regional voting behavior in the 2016 Brexit and trump elections. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 9, 285–298.

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  • Obschonka, M., Stützer, M., Rentfrow, P. J., Shaw-Taylor, L., Satchell, M., Silbereisen, R. K., Potter, J., Gosling, S. D. (in press). In the shadow of coal: How large-scale industries contributed to regional personality and well-being differences. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

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  • Rentfrow, P. J. (2010). Statewide differences in personality: Toward a psychological geography of the United States. American Psychologist, 65, 548–558.

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  • Rentfrow, P. J., & Jokela, M. (2016). Geographical psychology: The spatial organization of psychological phenomena. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 25, 393–398.

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  • Rentfrow, P. J., Gosling, S. D., & Potter, J. (2008). A theory of the emergence, persistence, and expression of regional variation in basic traits. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 3, 339–369.

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  • Rentfrow, P. J., Mellander, C., & Florida, R. (2009b). Happy states of America: A state-level analysis of psychological, economic, and social well-being. Journal of Research in Personality, 43, 1073–1082.

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  • Rentfrow, P. J., Gosling, S. D., Jokela, M., Stillwell, D. J., Kosinski, M., & Potter, J. (2013). Divided we stand: Three psychological regions of the United States and their political, economic, social, and health correlates. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 105, 996–1012.

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  • Rentfrow, P. J., Jokela, M., & Lamb, M. E. (2015). Regional personality differences in Great Britain. PLoS One, 10(3), e0122245. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0122245.

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  • Stützer, M., Obschonka, M., Audretsch, D. B., Wyrwich, M., Rentfrow, P. J., Coombes, M., Shaw-Taylor, L., & Satchell, M. (2016). Industry structure, entrepreneurship, and culture: An instrumental variable analysis using historical coal mining in Great Britain. European Economic Review, 86, 52–72.

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  • Wei, W., Lu, J. G., Galinsky, A. D., Wu, H., Gosling, S. D., Rentfrow, P. J., et al. (2017). Regional ambient temperature is associated with human personality. Nature Human Behavior, 1, 890–895.

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Mobile-Sensing Research

  • Harari, G. M., Müller, S. R., Aung, H., & Rentfrow, P. J. (2017a). Smartphone sensing methods for studying behavior in everyday life. Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences, 18, 83–90.

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  • Harari, G. M., Müller, S. R., Mishra, V., Wang, R., Campbell, A. T., Rentfrow, P. J., & Gosling, S. D. (2017b). Students’ interest in and compliance with self-tracking methods: Recommendations for incentives based on three smartphone sensing studies. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 8, 479–492.

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  • Harari, G., Müller, S. R., Stachl, C., Wang, R., Wang, W., Bühner, Rentfrow, P. J., Campbell, A. T., Gosling, S. D. (in press). Sensing sociability: Individual differences in young adults’ conversation, calling, texting and app use behaviors in daily life. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

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  • Lathia, N., Pejovic, V., Rachuri, K. K., Mascolo, C., Musolesi, M., & Rentfrow, P. J. (2013a). Smartphones for large-scale behavior change interventions. IEEE Pervasive Computing: Mobile and Ubiquitous Systems, 12, 66–73.

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  • Lathia, N., Rachuri, K. K., Mascolo, C., Rentfrow, P. J. (2013b). Contextual dissonance: Design bias in sensor-based experience sampling methods. In Proceedings of 15th ACM International Conference on Ubiquitous Computing (UbiComp’13). Zurich.

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  • Lathia, N., Sandstrom, G., Mascolo, C., & Rentfrow, P. J. (2017). Happy people have active lives: Sensing happiness using smartphone accelerometers. PLoS One, 12, e0160589.

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  • Rachuri, K. K., Musolesi, M., Mascolo, C., Rentfrow, P. J., Longworth, C., Aucinas, A. (2010). EmotionSense: A mobile phone based adaptive platform for experimental social psychology research. In Proceedings of 12th ACM International Conference on Ubiquitous Computing (UbiComp’10). Copenhagen, Denmark. September 2010.

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  • Rachuri, K. K., Efstratiou, C., Leontiadis, I., Mascolo, C., Rentfrow, P. J. (2013). METIS: Exploring mobile phone sensing offloading for efficiently supporting social sensing applications. In Proceedings of 11th IEEE International Conference on Pervasive Computing and Communications (Percom 2013). San Diego. CA.

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  • Rachuri, K. K., Efstratiou, C., Leontiadis, I., Mascolo, C., & Rentfrow, P. J. (2014). Smartphone sensing offloading for efficiently supporting social sensing applications. Pervasive and Mobile Computing, 10, 3–21.

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  • Sandstrom, G., Lathia, N., Mascolo, C., & Rentfrow, P. J. (2016). Opportunities for smartphones in clinical care: The future of mobile mood monitoring. Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, 77, 135–137.

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  • Sandstrom, G., Lathia, N., Mascolo, C., & Rentfrow, P. J. (2017). Putting mood in context: Using smartphones to examine how people feel in different locations. Journal of Research in Personality, 69, 96–101.

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  • Servia-Rodríguez, S., Rachuri, K. K., Mascolo, C., Rentfrow, P. J., Lathia, N., Sandstrom, G. M. (2017). Mobile sensing at the service of mental well-being: a large-scale longitudinal study. In Proceedings of 26th International World Wide Web Conference (WWW 2017). Computational Health Track. Perth.

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Personality Research

  • Atherton, O. E., Robins, R. W., Rentfrow, P. J., & Lamb, M. E. (2014). Personality correlates of risky health outcomes: Findings from a large internet study. Journal of Research in Personality, 50, 56–60. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2014.03.002.

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  • Gebauer, J., Sedikides, C., Schönbrodt, F., Bleidorn, W., Rentfrow, P. J., Potter, J., & Gosling, S. D. (2017). Religiosity as social value hypothesis: A replication and extension. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 113, e18–e39.

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  • Gosling, S. D., Rentfrow, P. J., & Swann, W. B., Jr. (2003). A very brief measure of the big-five personality domains. Journal of Research in Personality, 37, 504–528.

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  • Swann, W. B., Jr., & Rentfrow, P. J. (2001). Blirtatiousness: Cognitive, behavioral, and physiological consequences of rapid responding. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 81, 1160–1175.

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  • Swann, W. B., Jr., Rentfrow, P. J., & Gosling, S. D. (2003). The precarious couple effect: Verbally inhibited men + critical, disinhibited women = bad chemistry. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 85, 1095–1106.

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  • Van Zalk, N., Lamb, M. E., & Rentfrow, P. J. (2017). Does shyness vary according to attained social roles? Trends across age groups in a large British sample. Journal of Personality, 85, 830–840.

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  • Whitelock, C. F., Lamb, M. E., & Rentfrow, P. J. (2013). Overcoming trauma: Psychological and demographic characteristics of child sexual abuse survivors in adulthood. Clinical Psychological Science, 1, 351–362.

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  • Zmigrod, L., Rentfrow, P. J., Robbins, T. W. (2018). Cognitive underpinnings of nationalistic ideology in the context of Brexit. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 201708960.

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  • Zmigrod, L., Rentfrow, P. J., Zmigrod, S., Robbins, T.W. (in press). Cognitive flexibility and religious disbelief. Psychological Research.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Psychology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK

    Peter J. Rentfrow

Authors
  1. Peter J. Rentfrow
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Correspondence to Peter J. Rentfrow .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Oakland University, Rochester, USA

    Virgil Zeigler-Hill

  2. Oakland University, Rochester, USA

    Todd K. Shackelford

Section Editor information

  1. University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, AR, USA

    Chris Ditzfeld

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Rentfrow, P.J. (2019). Rentfrow, Peter. In: Zeigler-Hill, V., Shackelford, T. (eds) Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28099-8_1971-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28099-8_1971-1

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  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-28099-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-28099-8

  • eBook Packages: Springer Reference Behavioral Science and PsychologyReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Business, Economics and Social Sciences

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