As much as Facebook seems to annoy my peers, you\u2019ve got to hand it to them\u2013Facebook has collected a lot of data about a lot of us. And I\u2019m pretty sure advertisers would like to believe that Facebook can use this information to understand us. But how well is that working out? How well does Facebook understand us and our personalities, compared to, say\u2026 our Facebook \u201cfriends\u201d? Well, it turns out that all those \u201cLikes\u201d really do add up. Apparently, computer predictions based on participants\u2019 clicks were more accurate at judging personalities than the participants\u2019 actual Facebook friends. Not only that, but these computational predictions were also better at predicting things like substance use, political attitudes, and physical health. So go ahead and share this on Facebook\u2026 if you dare.<\/p>\n
Computer-based personality judgments are more accurate than those made by humans<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n \u201cJudging others\u2019 personalities is an essential skill in successful social living, as personality is a key driver behind people\u2019s interactions, behaviors, and emotions. Although accurate personality judgments stem from social-cognitive skills, developments in machine learning show that computer models can also make valid judgments. This study compares the accuracy of human and computer-based personality judgments, using a sample of 86,220 volunteers who completed a 100-item personality questionnaire.We show that (i) computer predictions based on a generic digital footprint (Facebook Likes) are more accurate (r = 0.56) than those made by the participants\u2019 Facebook friends using a personality questionnaire (r = 0.49); (ii) computer models show higher interjudge agreement; and (iii) computer personality judgments have higher external validity when predicting life outcomes such as substance use, political attitudes, and physical health; for some outcomes, they even outperform the self-rated personality scores. Computers outpacing humans in personality judgment presents significant opportunities and challenges in the areas of psychological assessment, marketing, and privacy.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As much as Facebook seems to annoy my peers, you\u2019ve got to hand it to them\u2013Facebook has collected a lot of data about a lot of us. And I\u2019m pretty sure advertisers would like to believe that Facebook can use this information to understand us. But how well is that working out? How well does […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":37,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.abouttechnology.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.abouttechnology.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.abouttechnology.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.abouttechnology.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.abouttechnology.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.abouttechnology.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13,"href":"http:\/\/www.abouttechnology.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1\/revisions\/13"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.abouttechnology.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/37"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.abouttechnology.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.abouttechnology.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.abouttechnology.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}