Human personality is measured on continuous spectrums, not sorted into fixed types

Evidence

So, what actually happened? In 2014, Kogan developed a Facebook application called This Is Your Digital Life, which was basically a ‘fun personality quiz’. The test was based on what psychologists call the ‘Big Five’ personality traits, or the OCEAN model (which stands for Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism). Since the 1980s this has probably been the most widely accepted model of human personality in psychology. Instead of sorting people into distinct types, like other personality tests, the OCEAN model assumes that personality operates on a spectrum. In other words, you are not binned as either ‘extraverted’ or ‘introverted’, but rather placed somewhere on a spectrum for each trait, determining your level of, say, Openness or Neuroticism. — Sander van der Linden, Foolproof, 492

Categorization

• DEFINE: The OCEAN/Big Five model treats personality as spectra rather than categories.
• XREF: Connects to the chapter’s larger argument about how psychographic traits feed misinformation sharing. — connects to: Most people do not fit neatly into the personality Types taxonomy; Each empirical tendency expresses the whole person, not merely a part — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 1326; Radically divergent personalities can coexist in one person without canceling out — Naomi Klein, Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror…, 703

Broader Connections

• Most people do not fit neatly into the personality Types taxonomy #corroborates (0.85)
• Each empirical tendency expresses the whole person, not merely a part #expands (0.75) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 1326
• Radically divergent personalities can coexist in one person without canceling out #expands (0.75) — Naomi Klein, Doppelganger, 703