How extraverted is honey.bunny77@hotmail.de?

A recent article in Technimentis explains what our email addresses may reveal about our personalities. (I had problems opening this webpage with Explorer so you may want to use a different browser). The story is based on findings by Back, Schmukle and Egloff (2008): "How extraverted is honey.bunny77@hotmail.de? Inferring personality from e-mail addresses", Journal of Research in Personality, 42 (4), 1116-1122.

Six hundred participants provided their e-mail address and were assessed with a short form of the Big Five Inventory, and the Narcissistic Personality Inventory. Another batch of participants ("observers") rated all of the first groups’ e-mail addresses on 11 personality ratings. The researchers discovered three main results:

1. Observers agreed on their ratings of the e-mail address owners’ personalities.
2. Observers’ ratings were accurate on all personality dimensions except extraversion.
3. E-mail addresses influenced observers, provided valid personality cues, and were utilized fully to make judgments.

The conclusion offered is that individuals could accurately judge the openness level of an individual solely on e-mail address alone; conscientiousness and narcissism are somewhat more difficult to track, and agreeableness and neuroticism slightly more challenging again.