Sublime

Rarely is someone able to describe his or her identity on demand. It needs to be drawn out.

Most of us don’t have access to McAdams’s formal method of eliciting information about identity. But, happily, snooping is a good shortcut to this key component of personality because much of our everyday stuff holds clues to identity. As I noted in chapter 1, a good place to find these clues is in the photos of themselves that people choose to dis

across domains openness is easier to spot than agreeableness.

Dali Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida).

The inventor of Self-Verification Theory, Bill Swann

openness can be judged accurately in many domains;

So when the Berkeley professor asked me what Goffman would say about my research, he was essentially questioning whether the props found in bedrooms and offices, in music collections and on Web pages aren’t just Goffman-esque aids to the roles we play rather than authentic expressions of ourselves.

living spaces are great for learning about openness, conscientiousness, and, sometimes, neuroticism; but if it’s people’s extraversion or agreeableness you’re after, a peek at the “most played” list on their iPods is more telling

But McAdams’s contribution goes far beyond clever portraiture. The crucial lesson from his work is that getting to know someone is not just a matter of knowing more about the person; that “more” must be a different kind of information. You have to go beyond traits, such as how kind the person is or how talkative; you have to begin understanding the