In the study, Youyou and her colleagues looked at data from 86,000 people who completed a 100-question personality questionnaire; participants also provided the researchers with access to their Facebook “Likes.” (The researchers recruited the participants through Facebook, and those who took part were aware they were enrolling in a study. These methods differed from those used in a previous Facebook study, which drew criticism for manipulating users’ newsfeeds without their knowledge.)
The personality questionnaires were used to rate people on what psychologists call the “Big Five” traits: openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism.
Friends and family members of the volunteers also completed a shorter, 10-question version of the personality questionnaire, giving their assessments of the volunteers. About 17,600 of the volunteers were assessed by one friend or family member, and about 14,400 were evaluated by two.
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