This assignment is based on Sam Gosling’s book: Snoop – What Your Staff Says About You. We swapped pictures of our home with another design student who we don’t really know and we have to analyse this person’s personality based on the photographs. My partner is Grant who sent me pictures of his bedroom and his bathroom.
Gosling mentions a psychologist in his book who has a very interesting and very true idea about: What does it really mean to know someone? Professor Dan McAdams says it means processing through three distinct levels of intimacy. At the first level we usually talk about ourselves or others by using traits. Words like honest, friendly, fun, smart, lazy, dull, etc. These words refer to ‘The Big Five Dimensions’ also mentioned in Gosling’s book. It is basically a system used for grouping personality traits into a framework. According to this system ‘The Big Five traits are openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism. To make it easier to understand these qualities Gosling emphasised five well-known icons each of them related to one of the traits.
Openness:
Leonardo da Vinci – creative, imaginative, abstract, curious, deep thinkers, inventive, and value arts and aesthetic experiences
Conscientiousness:
Robocop – thorough, dependable, reliable, hardworking, task focused, efficient, good planners.
Extraversion:
Axel Foley (Beverly Hills Cop) – talkative, energetic, enthusiastic, assertive, outgoing, sociable.
Agreeableness:
Fred Rogers – helpful, selfless, sympathetic, kind, forgiving, trusting, considerate, cooperative.
Neuroticism:
Woody Allen – anxious, easily ruffled or upset, worried, moody
But to get to know someone we really have to move to the next level and find out about the person’s ‘personal concerns’. This includes their roles in their social life, their goals and their values (family, harmony, social recognition, etc.)
So based on all these knowledge I will analyze Grant’s personality by looking at the pictures of his home. First of all I want to say he must be an honest person because the photos he sent me weren’t modified at all. He didn’t even tided up his bad to make a better expression. After my first look at his bedroom I immediately realised the amount of books and DVDs he has. And their variety proved me his high openness. He has books in several topics like art, architecture, jewellery, travel, graffiti and many more. He’s reading different magazines but his DVD collection was even more impressive in themes like action, comedy, animation, sport, series and movies that make you think like my favourite French movie Amelie, the Fight Club and the Big Lebowski. His favourites must be the Toy Story – he has a box set – the Mr Man Show – he has a pen case with one of the characters – old cars, especially Volkswagen Transporters – he has quite a few in his bedroom – which tells me he loves travelling and sympathise with hippies so he must love big festivals as well. He has childhood memories in his bedroom like stuffed animals, a big Lego figure and characters from the Muppet Show. He likes cartoons, which tells me he’s fun loving and doesn’t take things too seriously. He doesn’t afraid of bright colours in fact he likes them but I think he’s favourite colour is blue. There’s a pile of shoes on the top of the cupboard so he likes to dress up stylish. He has about 3 pairs of converse and a couple other streets wear shoes so he likes casual clothes, he usually wear jeans and jumpers. There is a pair of (probably) running shoes and a pair of elegant ones but they’re hardly used. I don’t think he’s very sporty but tries to stay fit. I also found extreme sport magazines about winter sports so if he’s keen on any sport it must be skiing or snowboarding. Probably he goes skiing once or twice a year just for the sake or fun and adrenaline. There’s a helmet and a high visibility vest beside the door so maybe he’s cycling as well but I haven’t seen anything else that could prove this.
The decoration of the room wasn’t too extreme, mostly little objects tell about his personality. A Dundee pillow is in the centre of the view and a Dundee sticker appears on one of his toolboxes. He likes people let know he is from Dundee, he’s proud of it and I think it’s also a reminder of his family and friends. There are quite a lot of family pictures - mainly babies, probably his wee brother - framed on the top of his bookshelf and also on his wall. They also function as social snacks for him to don’t feel too isolated from his family. Because this room is his ‘office’ as well as his bedroom I would judge by the photos that his extroverted especially when I look downer on his bookshelf and realise the amount of alcohol bottles he has. There’s a bottle of good quality whiskey which could be there for relaxation purposes but the rest of them – Jack Daniel’s, Vodka, Strongbow – are more like party drinks. I don’t think he spends a lot of time at home, he likes to go out and be with friends.
He has a huge Lara Croft poster on his wall, opposite of the bed which I wouldn’t thing relates to his favourite movie he just admires her body, which is fair enough. There’s a sunrise picture on the wall, which could mean a little bit of neuroticism, but I think is there because of the beauty of the picture. Above the bed there’s a big yellow poster probably from one of the winter sport magazines, it sais: “In snow we trust”. Because I found him an honest person I think it’s not there to make him look adventurous but he must be really into skiing or snowboarding.
He has a lot of electronics: 3 headphones (one of them very colourful – probably to wear it outside), a computer with many accessories, 2 stylish cameras and an iPod. I think he’s really into music and a little bit into photography as well which also speaks about his openness. He has a computer area and a desk for his art work where I found a little Eiffel Tower object, also relates to travelling. There’s also a note for himself probably to remind him to a deadline so he tries to be more conscientious and he’s maybe a little bit anxious as well after all. The two calendars in the room could mean that he’s conscientious but I think they came for free with magazines. His room is tidy enough for a boy, he tries to organise things – toolboxes, bookshelf –but he’s not the best in it. At the first look his room seemed much messier than it really is which could be the consequence of the size of the room. It was quite dusty as well so I would say he isn’t high on conscientious he’s more self-motivated and do what he does because he likes to do it. Most of the things in his room more functional than nice: cardboard boxes from the supermarket to keep stuff in it, broken chair at the computer table, and table lamp without lampshade. He has a couple of stylish object though like a Coca Cola bin, a Coke bottle with Robert Burns’ face on it, a colourful plastic sward, the Lego figure and the monkey from the Pg tips tea advert.
He’s bathroom was very clean though. He has deos and perfumes in the bedroom; Listerine, hand cream and good quality shampoos in the bathroom. There’re three toothbrushes beside the sink and two of them are very well used, just left in the glass for no reason so he’s definitely not a tidy person. His self hygiene must be much better than the estate of his bedroom – although the fake flower was a nice try to make it look fresher - so I think he tries to look cleaner and tidier for the outside world than he really is. I think his most important values are family, friends, home, travelling, being stylish and having lots of fun.
The two traits that easier to find out from bedrooms are openness and conscientiousness but this room functions as his office as well so extraversion could be find out as well. I think Grant is very high on openness, lower than normal on conscientiousness and higher than normal on extraversion. I don’t think he’s neurotic and his agreeableness is probably normal.
I just met with Grant in person and he was surprised how accurate I was about a lot of things about him. I didn’t get anything totally wrong so it worth the time I spent on analyzing him. I was right about his traits, his favourite colour, about his strong connection to Dundee, his family and his friends, about his values, his enthusiasm for music and turned out that the objects I was ignoring didn’t mean too much to him either. I found out some more details though about his stuff. He is very proud to be Dundonian but he didn’t even remember the sticker on his toolbox. The Dundee pillow is the same age as him such as the teddy bear beside his bed. He uses alcohol for leisure purposes and for go to parties as well. He loves going out and doesn’t spend too much time at home. I wouldn’t think he invites people to his flat but he said he does. He also agreed that when he goes out he wears some kind of a mask (like to be clean and tidy, smell good) but his bedroom is his private space so he can keep it messy and dusty. He leaves things for last minute so the message on his desk told the truth.
About the sport stuff he agreed he tries to keep himself fit but not very successfully. He does snowboarding but he hasn’t been for two years because of an injury but when he did go he went abroad and with friends so the fun part was right too. About the helmet and the high visibility vest he said he’s planning to start cycling and live healthier but he hasn’t started yet.
There were a couple of things I wasn’t sure about and they turned out to be meaningless or too personal to get them right. The Lego figure is a torch – practicality again – which was a present from his parents. The plastic sword was from a college and he just kept it. The Coca Cola bin was from his mum and he use it because it’s practical and he kept the Coke bottle because Robert Burns is on it – Scottish link again. Lara Croft came with the flat but he feels the room needs it for some reason. A relative as an inspiration gave the fake flower to him because he’s designing a booklet for her wedding. So he wasn’t trying to make the room look fresh. The picture of the sunrise is of the Tay Bridge what he really loves – the best thing in Dundee as he said – taken by his ex-girlfriend. One of the three toothbrushes is his friend’s who stays over quite often and he’s using the other two. He finds it hard to bin toothbrushes though, he’s using them a lot and take one with him when he stays at friends’ house.
Grant’s analysis about me was quite right as well. I do love nature, outdoor and plants and I do care about the environment. He realised that we have two sleeping bags and two metal cups so he assumed I have a close relationship with the person I live with. This is very true, we do everything together with my boyfriend and we find it hard to be separated. Which sometimes keeps me back doing things, like go for a student exchange for example. Even when he’s away for a week I feel so bad about it. Although a week is totally manageable but I couldn’t live without him for more than a month. I do try to live and eat healthy and I enjoy cooking as well. The presence of alcohol and tea is quite confusing though. I’m a very calm person and enjoy relaxing with a cup of tea or a little whisky but I also enjoy going out. I think I’m social but I wouldn’t say our flat is a party place, it’s more for relaxing. We do invite friends around but because we live quite far from the city centre they don’t come very often. Mentioning the decoration on the walls made me think because that’s totally true that I love fashion and more the arty part of it but why it’s all about me. There’s only one architectural picture on the wall – my boyfriend’s interest – and I don’t know because I like to control everything or he just doesn’t really care. Well, he usually agrees with my taste and I’m more interested in decoration but I think I’m pretty control freak as well. I try to work on it though. It is true for our relationship that I’m the more neurotic, more hyper person and my boyfriend calms me down. About the books we’ve got Grant thought I’m a knowledgeable person but I definitely wouldn’t say that. I’m interested in so many things, I’m open-minded but my memory doesn’t work quite well so I take books and movies as an experience and than usually forget about them. Of course they are built into my personality but I can’t remember actors, writers, bands or titles I can remember only for visuals. This is one reason why we bought that huge map because I’m really bad at geography but if I can see countries on the map I might be able to remember them. It works so far. But the other reason – that Grant was right about – was because I’m interested in travelling a lot although I haven’t had the chance yet. That’s one of my biggest dreams to visit as many places as possible maybe even live in a couple of them. I just have to reduce the amount of rubbish I collected so I can move easier anywhere I want to. Grant haven’t realised that I collect junk so I hided them successfully – under the bed for example. It is important for me to live in a tidy and clean place but I’m not obsessive about it. It’s just about the good chi of the place what I have to keep up also with candles and innocence sticks otherwise I just go mad. So maybe I’m neurotic after all.
I found this assignment very interesting and I think that’s probably the best way to find out other people’s personality to analyze their stuff. Of course they have to agree with the process. But if you ask someone to provide information about him/herself this person will give me the information what he/she thinks is important. More I get more I can find out so I can be more accurate. I don’t think many people mind providing personal information because their curiosity is stronger then their fears.
