Scientists discover people fall in to one of four personality types

EXPERTS have uncovered four main personality types, claiming everyone in the world fits into one of these categories.

WE may think we’re all completely different, but new research suggests that everyone falls into four clusters of personality type.

Apparently, we’re either average, reserved, self-centred or a role model, The Sun reports.

Experts from Northwestern University questioned 1.5 million people around the world to come up with their findings.

The four clusters are scored in relation to varying proportions of the “big five” personality traits.

These characterise people by their openness, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness and neuroticism.

‘Role models’ are good leaders. Picture: Northwestern University/Supplied

Those who are ‘self-centred’ score low in openness. Picture: Northwestern University/Supplied

According to the team behind the study, the results challenge all existing ideas in psychology.

“People have tried to classify personality types since Hippocrates’ time, but previous scientific literature has found that to be nonsense,” co-author William Revelle said.

“Now these data show there are higher densities of certain personality types.”

The concept of personality types remains controversial in psychology, with hard scientific proof difficult to find.

Previous attempts based on small research groups created results that often were not able to be replicated in larger studies.

But this research was different, combining a computational approach with data from four questionnaires with more than 1.5 million respondents from around the world.

‘Reserved’ people have high levels of agreeableness and conscientiousness. Picture: Northwestern University/Supplied

These are the characteristics of an ‘average’ person. Picture: Northwestern University/Supplied

The questionnaires had between 44 and 300 questions, and people took them online voluntarily as a way to learn about their own personalities.

Study lead Luís Amaral — professor of chemical and biological Engineering — says: “Personality types only existed in self-help literature and did not have a place in scientific journals.

“Now, we think this will change because of this study.

“A study with a dataset this large would not have been possible before the web.

“Previously, researchers would recruit undergrads on campus and maybe get a few hundred people.

“Now, we have all these online resources available, and data is being shared.”

So, which one do you think you are?

This article originally appeared on The Sun and is republished with permission.