Endnotes
,Introduction
1. Bargh and Chartrand (1999), and Bargh and Williams (2006) sum up evidence that we engage in most of our social interactions without conscious awareness. Gigerenzer (2007) and Gigernezer and Goldstein (1996) emphasize the advantages of being guided by unconscious gut feelings. Gladwell (2005) calls this a “blink” and “thinking without thinking.”
2. Wilson (2002) makes a lucid comparison of the conscious and unconscious mental processes we use in sizing up people. He views the unconscious processes as rapid pattern detectors that have the advantage of great speed but are more prone to errors than the slower conscious processes that rethink these immediate impressions. Whereas the unconscious processes are concerned with moment-to-moment assessments and are automatic, unintentional, and effortless, the conscious ones take more time; are controllable, intentional, and effortful; and can ultimately be very useful. Epstein, et al. (1996), have described individual differences in intuitive and analytical thinking styles, and Frith and Frith (2008) have examined differences between implicit (unconscious) and explicit (conscious) processes in social cognition.
Chapter 1
3. This dictionary-based investigation of personality traits is called the lexical approach. Its history is summed up by John, et al. (1988), and Digman (1990).
5. Craik, et al. (1993), review the early history of personality research. John and Robbins (1993) and Nicholson (2003) emphasize Allport’s contributions, including his interest in both building blocks of personality (traits) and the uniqueness of each whole person.
6. Long before Allport and Odbert published their findings, Galton had made a preliminary survey of “the most conspicuous aspects of the character [his word for what we now call personality] by counting in an appropriate dictionary.” In Measurement of Character, an article he published in 1884, he estimated that the dictionary “contained fully one thousand words expressive of character, each with a separate shade of meaning, while each shares a large part of its meaning with some of the rest.”
7. Goldberg (1990, 1992, 1993).
8. Denissen and Penke (2008) believe each of the Big Five reflects the activity of a brain system that controls a particular social or general motivation. In their view, Big Five scores “reflect stable individual differences in their motivational reactions to circumscribed classes of environmental stimuli. Specifically, extraversion was conceptualized as individual differences in the activation of the reward system in social situations, agreeableness as differences in the motivation to cooperate (vs. acting selfishly) in resource conflicts, conscientiousness as differences in the tenacity of goal pursuit under distracting circumstances, neuroticism as differences in the activation of the punishment system when faced with cues of social exclusion, and openness for experience as differences in the activation of the reward system when engaging in cognitive activity.”
9. Mischel (2004) has emphasized the fact that there are consistent individual differences in the expression of a trait in specific situations, which he calls “if ... then ... situation-behavior relationships.”
10. Funder (1995, 2006) has demonstrated the value of averaging together our behavioral observations to form judgments about a person’s relative rankings on each Big Five trait. Mischel (2004) has acknowledged that this averaging process “has proven to be of much value, especially for the description of broad individual differences on trait ratings of what individuals ‘are like on the whole.’” But he points out that a great deal can also be learned by observing the person’s distinctive pattern of “if ... then ... behavior” in specific situations. See also Mischel and Shoda (1998) and Kammrath, et al. (2005).
11. In making assessments, you will probably find a great deal of variation among the men and the women you know, with no obvious gender differences in their profiles. Although Costa, et al. (2001), and Schmitt, et al. (2008), detected gender differences in Big Five studies in dozens cultures (women, on average, tended to score a little higher on N, E, A, and C), there was a great deal of overlap. The magnitude of the gender differences varied from culture to culture. Surprisingly, “sex differences in personality traits are larger in prosperous, healthy, and egalitarian cultures in which women have more opportunities equal with men” (Schmitt, et al. [2008]).
12. McCrae and Costa (2003) reviewed the history of the NEO-PI-R, the test they designed to be administered and interpreted by professionals (Costa and McCrae, 1992) that is widely used by clinicians and in research on personality. The test has been translated into many languages and found to be useful in many cultures (D. P. Schmitt, et al. [2007]; McCrae and Costa [1997]).
13. Questionnaires made up of phrases rather than adjectives are not new. Hans Eysenck (1965), a British psychologist, used them in his pioneering studies of personality traits. So did Katherine Briggs and her daughter, Isabel Briggs Myers, who created a widely used personality test called the Myers–Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) (Myers, 1980), which is the foundation of David Keirsey’s (1998) popular book on personality. One reason academic psychologists prefer the NEO-PI R is that it assesses all of the Big Five, whereas the MBTI leaves out Neuroticism (McCrae and Costa, 1989; McDonald, et al., 1994).
14. Buchanan, et al. (2005); Goldberg, et al. (2006).
15. Johnson (2005). Internet questionnaires have also been studied by Gosling, et al. (2004).
16. Hitchens (1999) provides an extreme example.
Chapter 2
1. American Psychiatric Association (2004).
2. I have used the term Compulsive, which is what this pattern was called in the third edition of DSM (DSM-III), rather than Obsessive-Compulsive, which is what it is called in DSM-IV, to avoid confusion with the mental disorder called Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD). OCD refers to recurrent obsessions or compulsions that cause marked distress or significant impairment and that the person recognizes to be excessive or unreasonable. In contrast, people with a compulsive personality pattern are proud of their commitment to orderliness, perfection, and control. Although some people have both OCD and a prominent compulsive personality pattern, these are distinct entities without a lot of overlap (Mataix-Cols [2001]; Miguel, et al. [2005]; Samuels, et al. [2000]).
3. The American Psychiatric Association is presently working on a fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-V) that will change some of the ways it describes these personality patterns and personality disorders (Holden, 2010).
4. Most researchers now agree that there is a great deal of individual variation in the expression these patterns and that they are not sharply defined categories. For a discussion of this, see Livesley, et al. (1993); Livesley (2001, 2007); and Skodol, et al. (2005). But others, such as Weston, et al. (2006), argue that these prototypical patterns are still useful ways of thinking about people and talking about them with others. Spitzer, et al. (2008), found that clinicians find it easier to identify personality disorders by using prototypical patterns than by using dimensional traits.
5. Oldham and Morris (1995) have taken the position that “much as high blood pressure represents too much of a good thing, the personality disorders are but extremes of normal human patterns, the stuff of which all our personalities are made.” They call adaptive versions of these patterns personality styles and named them as follows: adventurous (antisocial), sensitive (avoidant), mercurial (borderline), conscientious (compulsive), devoted (dependent), dramatic (histrionic), self-confident (narcissistic), vigilant (paranoid), solitary (schizoid), and idiosyncratic (schizotypal).
6. The case for using rankings on Big Five facets to describe these patterns is summed up in a multiauthor book edited by Costa and Widiger (2002). See also Reynolds and Clark (2001), Lynam and Widiger (2001), Widiger and Samuel (2005), and Widiger and Trull (2007). A table summing up the high and low rankings on Big Five facets for each of these ten patterns appears on page 200 of Widiger and Mullins-Sweatt (2009).
7. Bobby Fischer’s rant is cited by Chun (2002).
8. Marilyn’s recollection is cited by Steinem (1986).
9. Maccoby (2003) emphasizes the great prevalence of what he calls “productive narcissism” among visionary leaders.
12. Dickinson and Pincus (2003); Cain, et al. (2008); and Miller, et al. (2008), emphasize the distinction between grandiose and vulnerable narcissism.
13. Hare (1993) distinguishes psychopaths, whom he identifies with his Psychopathy Checklist, from antisocials as described by DSM-IV. Stout (2005) uses the term sociopath. Millon, et al. (2002), provide a historical review of the terminology and the changing conceptions of this dimensional pattern.
15. Cresswell and Thomas (2009).
16. Simpson’s book became the property of the Goldman family as partial payment for damages they won in a civil suit against him, and they published it in a revised form with the subtitle “confessions of the killer” (Goldman Family, 2007).
19. Ibid.
22. Kreisman and Strauss (1989).
26. Beck, et al. (2004), and Beck, et al. (2001). Morf (2006) also emphasizes the importance of understanding a person’s view of self and others in making sense of someone’s personality.
27. For a more detailed summary of these views of self and others, see Beck, et al. (2004), especially the table on pages 48–49; and Beck, et al. (2001).
Chapter 3
2. Ince-Duncan, et al. (2006).
4. Lamason, et al. (2005). However, SLC2A45 is not the only gene that controls skin pigmentation. Sturm (2009) sums up recent information about variants of several other genes that also influence skin pigmentation through a variety of effects on melanin production and display. There is evidence for independent selection of pigmentation genes in East Asian, European, and West African populations, each presumably influenced at least partly by levels of sunlight.
5. Jablonski and Chapin (2000).
6. Galton (1865), cited in Gillham (2001), p. 156.
7. Galton (1875), cited in Gillham (2001), p. 194.
9. Letter from Charles Darwin to Frances Galton, 3 December 1869, cited in Gillham (2001), p. 169.
10. Plomin, et al. (2008), define heritability as a way of expressing “the extent to which individual differences for a trait in the population can be accounted for by genetic differences among individuals” (p. 82). They give examples of studies that compared Big Five scores of identical and fraternal twins and discuss ways to calculate and interpret heritability based on twin studies and other types of data.
11. Yamagata, et al. (2006), and McCrae and Costa (1997). A study by Riemann, et al. (1997), found even higher heritability. In this study, each twin made a self-assessment with a questionnaire and was also assessed independently by two peers. The results for each twin were then combined to give the cumulative Big Five scores that were used to calculate heritability. The authors concluded that the data derived from three observers provides a better estimate of heritability than data derived solely from one observer, self or peer. Repeated personality testing of twins at an interval of three or more years also increased the accuracy of the results and revealed substantially higher heritability than that based on single measurements (Lyken, 2007). Studies of individual Big Five facets all showed high heritability (Jang, et al., 1996, 1998).
13. Ibid.
14. Getting half of our genes from each parent doesn’t translate directly into getting half of each of our parents’ personalities. Heritability is a measure of the influence of genes on individual differences in the overall group of people in which it is studied. But it doesn’t tell us about the relative genetic and environmental influences on a particular trait, such as high excitement seeking, in a particular person, such as Jason Dallas. Nevertheless, the studies tell us a lot about the overall influence of genes on our personal tendencies, even if we can’t pin down the details in a particular case.
15. Bouchard, et al. (1990), and Bouchard (1994).
16. Harris (1998, 2006) has written two books about the lack of effect of shared family environment on many aspects of personality, and its implications.
17. Plomin and colleagues (Plomin and Daniels [1987], Dunn and Plomin [1991], Plomin, et al. [2001]) have studied the interactions between members of a family that may account for some of the differences in the personalities of siblings. Some of the unique interactions between a parent and a specific child can be attributed to each of their innate tendencies.
18. Turkheimer and Waldron (2000) have emphasized the difficulty of identifying the “nonshared” environmental factors (as opposed to those shared by people who were raised together in the same family) that influence personality. One reason they are hard to identify is that many of them are probably chance events and encounters in the person’s life. In Chapter 4, I point out that chance effects on biological processes, such as the migration of neurons in the assembly of the brain and epigenetic changes in DNA, can also influence personality. These chance effects on biological processes are also included in the category called nonshared environment.
19. New mechanisms of the regulation of gene expression are still being discovered. Some of this regulation is done by specialized proteins called transcription factors; some is done by influences of DNA regions called enhancers, which are not as close to the genes as promoters; and some is done by small specialized bits of another nucleic acid, RNA.
20. Maher (2008); Visscher, et al. (2006); and Yang, et al. (2010). Weedon, et al. (2007), have identified a human gene variant that explains a tiny bit (0.3%) of population variation in height (about two-tenths of an inch).
22. Flint and Mott (2008). Similar studies are being made of the genetic differences in tame and aggressive foxes that were selectively bred for many generations by Dimitry Belayev at the Institute of Cytology and Genetics of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Trut [1999]; Kukekova, et al. [2008]). Studies of brain gene expression in the two lines of foxes have identified many differences (Lindberg, et al. [2005]).
23. These findings should not be taken to mean that the tuning of fearfulness circuits is controlled only by gene variants. Conclusive evidence shows that past experiences also affect fear reactions. Furthermore, such learned changes in the tuning of brain circuits can be as enduing as the tuning controlled by genes. As LeDoux (1998) points out, some of these memories “appear to be indelibly burned into the brain. They are probably with us for life.”
24. Turri, et al. (2001); Willis-Owen and Flint (2007); Flint and Mott (2008).
25. Lesch, et al. (1996); Sen, et al. (2006); Canli and Lesch (2007); Caspi, et al. (2010).
26. Hariri, et al. (2002, 2006); Munafo, Brown, et al. (2008). The results are group averages, and there is significant individual variation. See also Oler, et al. (2010).
27. Munafo, Yalcin, et al. (2008) ; Schmidt, et al. (2009).
28. Holden (2008); Ebstein (2006). Many other genes have also been studied in this way.
29. Shifman, et al. (2008); Terraciano, et al. (2010); Calboli, et al. (2010).
31. Several biotechnology companies are competing to develop a machine that will decipher the complete DNA sequence of a person’s DNA for as little as $1,000 (Davies [2010]). The companies anticipate that this will be achieved around 2013 and that the technology will be used to search for gene variants that influence personality differences.
32. Wolf, et al. (2007); Bell (2007).
33. Buss (1991); MacDonald (1995); Buss and Greiling (1999); Nettle (2005, 2006); Penke, et al. (2007); Ridley (2003); Laland, et al. (2010).
34. Nettle (2005, 2006) has reviewed research on the advantages and disadvantages of high and low rankings on each of the Big Five.
36. Maynard Smith (1982) provided a theoretical analysis of the way natural selection tends to maintain a balance between high and low rankings of a trait. His most famous example, which was based on game theory, concerned the establishment of the relative numbers of aggressive members of a population, which he called Hawks (who always fight over resources), and of nonviolent members, which he called Doves (who never fight). He found that Hawks flourished when they were rare but that as they became more prevalent, they did so much damage to each other that the downside of their aggressiveness began to outweigh its advantages. This resulted in stable proportion of Hawks and Doves in the population. Once established, this balance tended to persist, and it is referred to as an evolutionarily stable strategy.
Chapter 4
2. Morris, et al. (2004); Ahmed, et al. (2008). Although fetal testosterone is essential for this process, Wu, et al. (2009), and Junnti, et al. (2010), have shown that the masculinization of neural pathways that control sex-specific behavior actually depends on the enzymatic conversion of fetal testosterone to estrogen by an enzyme in the male mouse brain.
3. Wallace, et al. (2006); Peper, et al. (2007) ; J.E. Schmitt, et al. (2007) ; Gilmore, et al. (2010). These differences in the brain structure of identical twins, which may arise partly because of random migration of neurons during brain assembly, may be responsible for some of the personality differences of the members of a twin pair.
6. Lenneberg (1967); Doupe and Kuhl (1999); Perani and Abutalebi (2005). In the case of human language the window is always kept a little open, so new languages can still be learned in adulthood, but with progressively greater difficulty. Because this window never closes completely, some prefer to call this a “sensitive period” rather than a critical period.
7. Harris (1998) emphasizes the well-known fact that the young children of immigrants whose parents speak English with a foreign accent learn to speak like their peers instead of their parents. She takes this as strong evidence that the social environment that children care about, and are mainly molded by, is the environment provided by their peers rather than their parents.
8. Thomas, et al. (1963); Chess and Thomas (1986).
12. The general conclusion that childhood behavior is somewhat predictive of behavior in later life is supported by the longitudinal studies of many investigators and reported in publications by Block (1993); Block and Block (2006); Caspi (2000); Caspi, et al. (2003); Dennissen, et al. (2008); Hampson and Goldberg (2006); Mischel, et al. (1988); Shiner (2000, 2005); Shiner, et al. (2002, 2003).
14. DiLalla and Gottesman (1989); Taylor, et al. (2000). Why do children vary greatly in their adherence to their earlier behavioral paths? Kagan (1994) believes that parenting makes a big difference. But Harris (1998) has challenged this belief in the importance of parenting. She points, instead, to the powerful influence of peers. And she goes further. Instead of simply shrugging off opinions such as Kagan’s as unverified but harmless, Harris believes that it “has put a terrible burden of guilt on parents unfortunate enough to have ... for some reason failed to produce a happy, smart, well-adjusted, self-confident person. Not only must these parents suffer the pain of having a child who is difficult to live with or who fails in some other way to live up to the community’s standards: they must also bear the community’s opprobrium.” (Harris, 1998, p. 352)
15. Kendler; Gardner, et al. (2008).
16. Moffitt (2005); Mealey (1995).
18. Miles and Carey (1997); Rhee and Waldman (2002).
19. Miles and Carey (1997); Rhee and Waldman (2002); Moffitt (2005).
23. Plomin, et al. (2001). Evidence (Kendler, Jacobson, et al. [2007, 2008]) also indicates that a child’s innate tendencies influence his or her selection of peers and that this, too, may contribute to the development of an antisocial pattern.
24. Meyer-Lindenberg, et al. (2006); Buckholtz and Meyer-Lindenberg (2008); Buckholtz, et al. (2008).
27. Ibid.
28. Foley, et al. (2004) ; Kim-Cohen, et al. (2006).
30. Meyer-Lindenberg, et al. (2006); Buckholtz and Meyer-Lindenberg (2008); Buckholtz, et al. (2008).
32. Weaver, et al. (2004); Meaney and Szyf (2005); Buchen (2010).
33. Zhang and Meaney (2010). Methylation and demethylation of DNA are not the only epigenetic changes that influence gene expression. Epigenetic changes also occur by chemical modifications of histones that are associated with DNA in chromosomes (Kouzarides, 2007), and changes in acetylation of histones in specific brain cells have been shown to control behavioral adaptations to emotional stimuli (Renthal, et al. [2007]).
34. Kaffman and Meaney (2007); McGowan, et al. (2009); Heim and Nemeroff (2001); Rinne, et al. (2002). Tottenham and Sheridan (2010) review some effects of early adverse social environments on behavior later in life.
35. Fraga, et al. (2005); Haque, et al. (2009); Kaminsky, et al. (2009).
36. Feinberg and Irizzary (2010) have proposed that some of these epigenetic differences arise stochastically (randomly) instead of in response to specific environmental influences, and that these random variations provide variability that may increase fitness in particular environments. This “stochastic epigenetic variation” not only may explain some of the methylation differences observed in the DNA of identical twins. It also may contribute to that ill-defined entity called a “nonshared environment” (Plomin, et al. [2008]; Turkheimer and Waldron [2000]) that has been put forth as the explanation for their personality differences.
37. Morris, et al. (2004); Sisk and Foster (2004); Romeo (2003).
38. Arnold, et al. (2003); Ahmed, et al. (2008); Sisk and Zehr (2005).
39. Blakemore (2008); Steinberg (2010).
40. Arnold, et al. (2003); Morris, et al. (2008).
41. Plomin, et al. (1997); Petrill, et al. (2004). Shaw, et al. (2006), describe the relationship between intellectual ability and changes in cortical thickness during adolescence.
43. Giedd, et al. (1999); Sowell (2003); Thompson, et al. (2005); Shaw, et al. (2008); Giedd (2008); Ernst and Mueller (2008).
44. Fair, et al. (2008); Ernst and Mueller (2008); Dosenbach, et al. (2010).
46. Kendler, et al. (2007); Kendler, Jacobson, et al. (2008).
47. Sowell, et al. (2003); Thompson, et al. (2005).
50. Roberts and DelVecchio (2000) found continuing stabilization of a person’s Big Five rankings until about the age of 50, whereas McCrae and Costa (2003) argue that there really isn’t much change in a person’s relative rankings after the age of 30. Studies of average scores of groups of people at different ages (as opposed to rank order of individuals) show an increase in Conscientiousness and Agreeableness in the overall population into old age (Srivastava, et al. [2003]; Roberts, et al. [2006]; Costa and McCrae [2006]), as well as some other changes.
51. Roberts and Caspi (2003) present persuasive arguments for what they call “the cumulative continuity model of personality development” that emphasizes the contribution of sustained person–environment transactions to the stability of adult personality. McCrae and Costa (1994) point out the great value of the stabilization of personality in young adulthood. As they put it, “Because personality is stable, life is to some extent predictable. People can make vocational and retirement choices with some confidence that their current interests and enthusiasms will not desert them. They can choose mates and friends with whom they are likely to remain compatible .... They can learn which coworkers they can depend on, and which they cannot. The personal and social utility of social stability is enormous.”
Chapter 5
1. Franklin’s autobiography is available without charge at several online sites, including www.earlyamerica.com/lives/franklin/. All the quotes attributed to him are from his autobiography, unless otherwise indicated.
2. For facts and interpretations of Franklin’s life, I have relied mainly on Isaacson (2003).
4. David Hume, the Scottish philosopher, was among the first to emphasize the link between morals and emotions. As he put it in 1739, “Morals excite passions, and produce or prevent actions. Reason itself is utterly impotent in this particular. The rules of morality, therefore, are not conclusions of our reason.”
7. de Waal (1996); Wright (1994); Pinker (2002); Ridley (1996).
9. A specialized group of neurons, called mirror neurons because they are activated when we mirror the behavior of others, may play an important part in the brain circuits that participate in empathy (Gallese [2001]; Decety and Jackson [2004]; Preston and de Waal [2002]).
10. Haidt (2003) and Tangney, et al. (2007), have reviewed research on moral emotions.
12. Trivers (1971). Also see Boyd, et al. (2010), on the importance of punishment and negative emotions in sustaining cooperation.
13. Darwin (1871), Chapter 4. Laland, et al. (2010), have argued that culture has also shaped the human genome.
14. Peterson and Seligman (2004).
15. Cloninger, et al. (1993); Cloninger (2004).
17. Shweder (1994) gives many examples: “On the basis of the historical and ethnographic record we know that different people in different times and places have found it quite natural to be spontaneously appalled, outraged, indignant, proud, disgusted, guilty, and ashamed by all sorts of things: masturbation, homosexuality, sexual abstinence, polygamy, abortion, circumcision, corporal punishment, capital punishment, Islam, Christianity, Judaism, capitalism, democracy, flag burning, miniskirts, long hair, no hair, alcohol consumption, meat eating, medical inoculations, atheism, idol worship, divorce, widow remarriage, arranged marriage, romantic love marriage, parents and children sleeping in the same bed, parents and children not sleeping in the same bed, women being allowed to work, women not being allowed to work.”
19. Charles Angoff, cited by Isaacson (2003), p. 483.
21. Franklin, cited by Isaacson, p. 87.
Chapter 6
4. McCrae and Costa (2003, p. 191) call these characteristic ways of dealing with the world characteristic adaptations: “They are characteristic because they reflect the operation of enduring personality traits, and they are adaptations because they are shaped in response to the demands and opportunities offered by the environment.” For other views of the role of characteristic adaptations in identity and personality, see McAdams and Pals (2006), McAdams and Olson (2009), Roberts and Robins (2000), and Bleidorn, et al. (2010).
6. Kelly (2010) is my main source for the details of Oprah’s life.
8. Cited by Kelly (2010), p. 40.
9. Cited by Kelly (2010), p. 3.
16. Writers of memoirs also recognize the importance of inventiveness. In Inventing the Truth, Zinsser (1998, p. 6) tells us that “memoir writers must manufacture a text, imposing narrative order on a jumble of half-remembered events. With that feat of manipulation they arrive at a truth that is theirs alone.”
18. To get the full flavor, you can watch the video of Jobs’s commencement address on You Tube: www.youtube.com/watch?v=UF8uR6Z6KLc.
19. Elkind (2008). All the quotes that follow are by Elkind or are cited by him.
Chapter 7
1. Kluckhohn and Murray (1953).
2. Gordon Allport was well aware of our reliance on this natural intuitive ability as the starting point for a conscious assessment. To him, learning to analyze a personality was like learning to analyze a piece of music. As he explained it, “No one learns to hear the tonal pattern of a symphony, but we can be taught to listen to it and to look for significant features. Most instruction in life is devoted to analysis, to giving knowledge about, and to building up a store of available inferences. We cannot teach another to perceive the unity of an object (it is simply there), but we can teach so that his associational equipment is enriched. And so it is with personality: We cannot teach understanding of pattern, but we can call attention to detail, as well as to laws, principles, generalizations which can sharpen comprehension through comparison and inference.” (Allport [1961], p. 547)
3. A good example of a nuanced description of a Big Five trait comes from Lev Grossman’s (2010) Person of the Year article about Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, in which he considers Zuckerberg’s ranking on Extraversion. Using the Big Five framework helps me appreciate, integrate, and remember Grossman’s insightful assessment:
“Zuckerberg has often—possibly always—been described as remote and socially awkward, but that’s not quite right. True: holding a conversation with him can be challenging. He approaches conversation as a way of exchanging data as rapidly and efficiently as possible, rather than as a recreational activity undertaken for its own sake. He is formidably quick and talks rapidly and precisely, and if he has no data to transmit, he abruptly falls silent. (‘I usually don’t like things that are too much about me’ was how he began our first interview.) He cannot be relied on to throw the ball back or give you encouraging facial cues. His default expression is a direct and slightly wide-eyed stare that makes you wonder if you’ve got a spider on your forehead ....
“In spite of all that—and this is what generally gets left out—Zuckerberg is a warm presence, not a cold one. He has a quick smile and doesn’t shy away from eye contact. He thinks fast and talks fast, but he wants you to keep up. He exudes not anger or social anxiety, but a weird calm. When you talk to his coworkers, they’re so adamant in their avowals of affection for him and in their insistence that you not misconstrue his oddness that you get the impression it’s not just because they want to keep their jobs. People really like him ....
“The reality is that Zuckerberg isn’t alienated, and he isn’t a loner. He’s the opposite. He’s spent his whole life in tight, supportive, intensely connected social environments: first in the bosom of the Zuckerberg family, then in the dorms at Harvard, and now at Facebook, where his best friends are his staff, there are no offices, and work is awesome. Zuckerberg loves being around people. He didn’t build Facebook so he could have a social life like the rest of us. He built it because he wanted the rest of us to have his.”
7. Ibid.
10. Roberts and DelVecchio (2000), McCrae and Costa (2003).
12. Avdi and Gorgaca (2007); Adler, et al. (2008); Salvatore, et al. ( 2004); Wilson (2002).