The use of ChatGPT for personality research

The use of ChatGPT for personality research: Administering questionnaires using generated personas

de Winter, J.C.F. (TU Delft Human-Robot Interaction)
Driessen, T. (TU Delft Human-Robot Interaction)
Dodou, D. (TU Delft Medical Instruments & Bio-Inspired Technology)

2024

Personality research has traditionally relied on questionnaires, which bring with them inherent limitations, such as response style bias. With the emergence of large language models such as ChatGPT, the question arises as to what extent these models can be used in personality research. In this study, ChatGPT (GPT-4) generated 2000 text-based personas. Next, for each persona, ChatGPT completed a short form of the Big Five Inventory (BFI-10), the Brief Sensation Seeking Scale (BSSS), and a Short Dark Triad (SD3). The mean scores on the BFI-10 items were found to correlate strongly with means from previously published research, and principal component analysis revealed a clear five-component structure. Certain relationships between traits, such as a negative correlation between the age of the persona and the BSSS score, were clearly interpretable, while some other correlations diverged from the literature. An additional analysis using four new sets of 2000 personas each, including a set of ‘realistic’ personas and a set of cinematic personas, showed that the correlation matrix among personality constructs was affected by the persona set. It is concluded that evaluating questionnaires and research hypotheses prior to engaging with real individuals holds promise.

Big Five
Large language models
Personality research
Personas

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:f234681a-3818-4a4e-8b75-ce2180a80f5b

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2024.112729

0191-8869

Personality and Individual Differences, 228

Institutional Repository

journal article

© 2024 J.C.F. de Winter, T. Driessen, D. Dodou