Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

Cognitive variation due to language and culture has been shown in a range of domains, including visual perception,emotions, theory of mind, economic strategies, decision making, and categorization. While such patterns are robust,individuals within a given culture are affected by these cultural patterns differentially. One possible cause for theseindividual differences is personality (e.g. extroversion or agreeableness). The personality traits of individuals will affecthow they interact with and adopt cultural patterns. To explore this possibility, we perform analyses on online data fromindividuals with self-identified Myers-Briggs personality types (a popularized personality measure that is widely self-reported in social media). In particular, we examine how personality type predicts the rate at which individuals adopt novellexical items and conform to the linguistic norms of their surrounding community. The results make explicit predictionsabout which individuals will be more affect by cultural and linguistic patterns.