If you were asked to envisage an actor, a neurotic person might spring to mind, while the thought of an salesperson may conjure up someone who is chatty and extraverted.
While some consider these lazy stereotypes, a comprehensive new study suggests that such common assumptions are actually true.
Using data from 68,540 people, researchers have identified the personality traits that typify more than 260 job roles.
They found that actors, journalists, town planners, authors and graphic designers are among those that tend to be more neurotic.
Meanwhile, PR managers, marketers, psychologists, dental assistants and film directors are generally more extraverted.
‘People often have stereotypes about the personality traits typical of different jobs, and it turns out that many of these intuitions are quite accurate,’ said study author Dr René Mõttus at the University of Edinburgh.
‘But this is the first time a scientific study with such a large sample and such detailed assessments has confirmed these patterns.’
So, what does your job say about you? Use MailOnline’s interactive tool to search your profession.
To try MailOnline’s interactive tool, which compiles the new data together, enter your occupation in the search bar and click on it when it appears.
You will be presented with the typical values for five different personality traits – neuroticism, extraversion, openness, agreeableness and conscientiousness.
For each one you will be presented an average for that trait that will be around about the 50-mark, probably a bit higher or a bit lower.
A score above 50 indicates this occupation scores higher than average on that trait, while a score below 50 indicates it scores lower.
For example, searching ‘journalist’ reveals we score above average on neuroticism extraversion and openness, but below average for agreeableness and conscientiousness.
Additionally, ‘N’, meaning number, reveals how many people in that particular profession were assessed.
To gather the data, Dr Mottus and colleagues at the University of Tartu in Estonia recruited people 68,540 from the Estonian Biobank, a large collection of personal data from volunteers in the country.
‘This sample represents about seven per cent of the Estonian adult population,’ study author Kätlin Anni at the University of Tartu told MailOnline.
Participants were assessed for their levels of the ‘big five’ traits – openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism.
The ‘big five’ personality traits are the best accepted and most commonly used model of personality in academic psychology.
Researchers found that creative jobs such as artists, writers and designers tend to attract people with openness, meaning they are open to new experiences, imaginative and curious.
Salespeople and PR professionals are generally extraverted, so they enjoy social interactions and thrive in people-oriented environments.
Managers, while also extraverts, often score high on conscientiousness, meaning they tend to be organized, responsible, careful and diligent in their work.
Also, managers tend to be less neurotic or emotional, allowing them to cope with the demands of the role.
But many managers and salespeople, alongside real estate agents, can also be disagreeable, as these jobs involve complicated and sometimes even confrontational interactions with others.
Meanwhile, software developers tend to be introverted, while chefs tend to be less than agreeable and pilots are among the least neurotic.
Overall, professions with the most neurotic people include actors, journalists and various other creative professions.
Researchers are not sure whether the nature of jobs attract certain personality types during the recruitment process, or if the roles accentuate personality traits once they’ve been hired.
For example, an extraverted actor may have wanted to become an actor in the first place partly because they are so extraverted, but the nature of the job may also have made them more extraverted over time.
Researchers say the findings, published in the Journal of Applied Psychology, paint the most detailed picture yet of which personality traits are more common in certain jobs.
However, they admit that results are based solely on people in Estonia, so further studies may aim to take a global sample.
‘The findings’ generalizability may be limited due to our reliance on a sample drawn from Estonia,’ Ms Anni told MailOnline.
‘At least broad patterns in the findings generalize to other liberal Western democracies with industrialized free market economies, such as Estonia.
‘Yet more work with diverse samples representing many world regions is required to establish the universals and specifics of how personality varies with jobs.’
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