Scientists have recognized the existence of four basic personality types

• The scientists recognized the existence of four basic personality types

More Hippocrates in the IV century BC, has suggested that there are personality types, and has since been made many attempts to group people by character traits.

However, despite claims of self-improvement guru and psevdopsihologov, until recently, most scientists did not agree with the view that people can be divided according to certain characteristics.

Researchers at Northwestern University of Illinois in the US analyzed data from questionnaires of more than half a million respondents, and ultimately identified four distinct personality types: normal, secretive, self-centered and role model.

And there's good news for parents of teenagers. As they get older people is changing the type of person, adults become more conscious and accommodating than they were under the age of 20 years.

Scientists claim that their discoveries are so important that challenge existing foundations in psychology.

"The concept of personality types exist only in the literature on self-improvement, it had no place in scientific journals, - said study author Luis Amaral, professor of chemistry and bioengineering, - but now we think that thanks to our research everything will change." The concept of the type of personality in psychology rather contradictory, it is difficult to find a clear scientific evidence.

Previous attempts to isolate a group of people the characters were largely based on the study of small groups which could not be taken as a reference.

However, scientists have decided to take advantage of people's interest in this new phenomenon in our lives, both online tests of cognition itself.

The new study used the responses of four online tests, including a large personality test by the Air Force.

"The nice thing about that study with such a large audience was simply impossible before the advent of the Internet, - says Dr. Amaral - before scientists could apply, for example, to the students and gain a few hundred people. Now we have all these online resources in the public domain, and we can expand the audience of the study. "

From this set of data the research team has identified five widespread personality traits: nervousness, extroversion, openness, friendliness and conscientiousness.

Following the development of new algorithms, there were four groups. Normal people, with high nervousness and extraversion, but not quite frank. Secretive people, emotionally stable, but it is closed. Self-centered people and people - role models. To make sure that the types of individuals were identified correctly, the researchers turned to the notoriously self-centered group of respondents - teenage boys.

"We know that teenage boys behave egocentric, - says Dr. Amaral - so if the data is correct, the number of teenagers in people with self-centered personality type should prevail."

As a result, it was found that in a group of egocentric boys under the age of 15 years is really much more than girls of the same age.

The study was published in the journal "Nature Human Behaviour".