Many people have always suspected that posting something on Facebook and liking certain pages reveals something about their personality. Now it’s official. A study by the University of Cambridge and the National Academy of Sciences has established a scientific relationship between “Likes” on Facebook and a user’s personality.
The study by Michal Kosinski and David Stillwell examined the “Likes” of 58,466 U.S. Facebook users to draw conclusions about their religious, political and sexual preferences, as well as their personality traits. Participants provided information in an additional questionnaire to cross check and verify the conclusions produced by the researcher’s computer algorithm.
Some of the findings merely reflect common sense. If you like the pages of George W Bush, John McCain and “Positively Republican” then, lo and behold, you are a Republican.
The same goes for the quantity of friends you have. If you like the page “Walking With Your Friend & Randomly Pushing Them Into Someone/Something,” you probably have fewer friends, although some readers will contest that a little bit of friendly banter can only strengthen a healthy relationship.
On the flip side, it is less clear why people who like the Dollar General store page or the movie “Paid in Full” should have more friends, but unfortunately, the study merely lists statistical results and does not provide an explanation.
