What outward traits relate to personal info?

magikker — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 20:12:29 -0800

I've found that some deep seeded personal information manifests it's self through much more casual every day behavior. I'd like to learn how to spot more of these traits. Examples and clarification inside. Here's how this question got started. I am a huge fan of the radio show "Loveline." On the show Dr. Drew magically knows things about people before they say anything about it. Here are the two most notable ones that he uses.

Some female callers have very young sounding voices... Like they sound like they are 7 years old even though they are 24. Dr. Drew noticed that this young sounding voice thing often correlates with the caller having gone through some sexual abuse at about the age that her voice sounds. He'll often ask callers if they were abused at about the age he thinks their voice sounds before they even mention childhood or abuse of any sort. The guy is right like 90% of the time or more.

The other one I notice a lot is that he will hear a certain laugh, then know from that laugh (more like a giggle) that a girl is multi-orgasmic. I can't remembering him being wrong on guessing that, though he doesn't use this trick nearly as much as the "young voice = abuse trick."

I've found these two small revelations to be hugely interesting. It makes me pay more attention to everyday conversation with the people around me.
What I would like to find now is a good source for other similar types of things. Books, links, movies, anything about other traits people outwardly express that are reflections of something deeper.

So, If you have a good source for info like this, please let me know. If you have any good observations yourself I'd love to hear them too.

Finding a huge electronic list of personality traits?

electric_counterpoint — Sun, 11 Dec 2005 22:56:01 -0800

I need to find a lengthy list of English-language personality traits. Allport and Odbert's 1936 list would be awesome, and a searchable text version (meaning, not a scanned book) would be even better. I have access to most subscription-based tools but I went through JStor and ProQuest (the two with which I'm familiar) and didn't find anything.

Another, similar list would work, but I'm not aware of any.

From here:

In the process of developing a taxonomy, a process that had taken predecessors sixty years up to this point, Allport and Odbert systematized thousands of personality attributes in 1936. They recognized four categories of adjectives in developing the taxonomy including personality traits, temporary states highly evaluative judgments of personally conduct and reputation, and physical characteristics.

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What outward traits relate to personal info?

Finding a huge electronic list of personality traits?