Science

Is this article even worth my time? Is this research worth anything?

Edit: I have read it and disagree with how the experiment was conducted. If participants are supposed to guess personality based on the image of the tattoo, maybe the tattooed person isn't giving an accurate description of themselves. Participants should also rate the personality of someone and not just let the tattooed person rate themselves.

Overall, people were fairly consistent in how they judged tattoos. Raters tended to agree with one another about what certain tattoo features might suggest about personality. For instance, cheerful and colorful tattoos were linked to impressions of higher agreeableness. Large, traditional-looking tattoos were associated with higher extraversion. Tattoos that appeared low in quality or included death imagery led raters to perceive the wearer as more neurotic or less agreeable.

However, these judgments were largely inaccurate. When the researchers compared how participants were rated with how they described themselves, most of the links between tattoo features and personality fell apart. Except for one pattern: people who had tattoos described by raters as “wacky” were somewhat more likely to score higher on openness to experience in their self-assessments.