The stereotypical rude and stand-offish image of a banker may be well-deserved, while teachers are typically conscientious , according to new research.
The study assessed thousands of people within the same profession and compared them to other job roles.
It found many long-standing prejudices to be true, such as ‘disagreeable’ beef farmers, bankers and car dealers who appear to be uncooperative.
But it also reaffirmed that scientists are socially awkward and teachers put others before themselves.
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A new study assessed thousands of people within the same profession and compare them to other job roles. It found many long-standing prejudices to be true, such as ‘disagreeable’ beef farmers, bankers and car dealers who appear to be uncooperative (stock)
Research from the University of Melbourne analysed a dataset of more than 128,000 people, working more than 3,500 different jobs.
It was accumulated from freely available Twitter accounts to assess a person’s personality and then develop a collective personality for a job, known as a digital fingerprint.
The latest 200 tweets for each Twitter user was run through IBM Watson to create a score, ranking each profession alongside others and giving it a percentile grade.
The closer to 1 the number was, the more that profession expressed that personality trait, where as the closer to 0, the less skilled in that field the profession was, as a whole.
Someone with a score of 0.25 was in the bottom 25 per cent, and someone with a score of 0.75 was in the top quartile.
It found bankers are in the bottom 20 per cent for ‘agreeableness’, which means the ‘tendency to be compassionate and cooperative towards others’.
Other distasteful characters were found to congregate in various usual suspect professions, with the cunning car dealers and prickly beef farmers receiving an ‘agreeableness’ score in the bottom 13 and 11 per cent, respectively.
Teachers scored in the top 25 per cent for conscientiousness, with fire chiefs only slightly behind, making them most likely to act in an organised or thoughtful way.
Geologists and landlords were among the very worst when it came to keeping up a dialogue, receiving a grade of six and seven per cent, respectively, for conversational skill.
Teachers scored in the top 25 per cent for conscientiousness, with fire chiefs only slightly behind, making them most likely to act in an organised or thoughtful way (stock)
Analysis of jobs grouped people by the ‘Big Five’ personality traits, a common criteria in psychological studies.
These are extroversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, openness to different activities and emotional range
Wedding planners and executive chefs are in the top five per cent for extroversion, meaning they thrive in the company of others.
Dr Peggy Kern, who led the study from the University of Melbourne, published in the journal PNAS, said: ‘It’s long been believed that different personalities align better with different jobs.
‘For example, sales roles might better suit an extroverted individual, whereas a librarian role might better suit an introverted individual.
‘But studies have been small-scale in nature. Never before has there been such large-scale evidence of the distinctive personality profiles that occur across occupations.’
Results include that the world’s top-ranking tennis players tend be more conscientious than average.
| Rank | TOP TEN ROLES SIMILAR TO CONGRESSPERSON | TOP TEN ROLES SIMILAR TO GAME DESIGNER |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | US senator | Game Engineer |
| 2 | Senator | Game Programmer |
| 3 | Congressional representative | Video Game Programmer |
| 4 | US representative | Senior Game Designer |
| 5 | Member of Congress | Game Developer |
| 6 | Policy Officer | Software Engineer |
| 7 | Governor | Programmer |
| 8 | Inspector | Video Game Designer |
| 9 | County Treasurer | Lead Designer |
| 10 | Lieutenant Governor | Compiler |
And when the study looked at top scientists’ Twitter accounts, including those belonging to television physicist Brian Cox and biologist Richard Dawkins, scientists were found to be less agreeable.
IBM Watson created a digital fingerprint for each profession and every trait was given a value.
The findings could help people changing career or starting out in the world of work.
It groups jobs together which could suit similar personalities, putting managers and politicians together, as well as scientists and software programmers.
Co-author Dr Marian-Andrei Rizoui, from the University of Technology Sydney, said the algorithm used could ‘successfully recommend an occupation aligned to people’s personality traits with over 70 per cent accuracy’.
Another co-author, Professor Paul X McCarthy, from the University of New South Wales in Sydney, said: ‘At the moment we have an overly simplified view of careers, with a very small number of visible, high-status jobs as prizes for the hardest-working, best connected and smartest competitors.
‘What if instead – as our new vocation map shows – the truth was closer to dating, where there are in fact a number of roles ideally suited for everyone?
‘By better understanding the personality dimensions of different jobs, we can find more perfect matches.’
Professor Kern added: ‘We leave behind digital fingerprints online as we use different platforms.
‘This creates the possibility for a modern approach to matching one’s personality and occupation with an excellent accuracy rate.’