Generations -> Personalities?

What makes up a personality? A lot of things, I'm sure. But a couple of months ago, I decided to do a tiny experiment with some friends and family. I wrote out exactly thirteen character descriptions where I only vaguely described the characters' physical attributes, bit more of their personality, and how it connected to their physical attributes. The results were mildly unexpected.

Overall, I interviewed fifteen people of different ages (11-you can ride the bus for free). I also took into account their own personality and I made sure to ask why the specifically liked the character(s) they did. So let's get into it.

The first group of people are those closest to my age group (Generation Z). I found that a lot of them really took the character descriptions to heart and tried to relate them back to people they knew or how the character really made them feel. This is boys and girls alike, by the way.

Both of the boys I interviewed (aged 15-16, at the time) both gave deep answers. The first boy I asked, Ryan, said he liked the character he did because she was mysterious and he liked the way she was described. Riley explained that he liked a different character, for much of the same reasons. Although he didn't mention how she was described, he explained that he felt as though there was more to her character (which I thought matched his specific personality well).

The girls I asked had similar answers, though their analysis became a bit more complicated. Merrily confided that she liked the characters she did because of the way her character made her feel and reminded her of someone she aspired to be. Jorja chose two of the same characters Merrily had, and for one of the same reasons, except a certain character reminded her of someone in her life. Geneva (who wrote the poem featured on my blog), said she preferred one of my shyer characters because she admired the way the character was written. This was interesting, as Geneva is an avid writer and reader, so it made sense that the first thing she would notice would be the writing style and the words used.

Tessa and Abigail both liked different characters, but for similar reasons. They both felt that there was more they wanted to learn about each character and their character depth made them intriguing.

For this age group, I noticed that a lot of my friends responded based on their feelings and their curiosity, which is a notable trait in Generation Z. The characters chosen also sometimes matched their personalities eerily well. The character Riley chose had a few similar personality traits, as did Merrily's character. Zoomers are the generation that is most in-tune with their emotions and the most curious and active about their world (whatever their political or religious agenda may be). The responses I got from the majority of people in this generation proved that theory.

The next age group that I'll focus on is Generation X. These are my parents and a few of my parent's friends. These were difficult to get a hold of and there are only three results to compare.

First, we have my mom. Only one of my characters is a person of color, but I did make her interesting and deep. My mom originally chose that character, simply because of her skin color. Her choice matched up with her strong political views and passions and it made sense that, that was what she'd focus on. She later went on to choose another, who simply reminded her of herself, but it was a decision influenced by outside sources, so it isn't counted (entirely)

My dad selected his characters because he thought they were cool. I don't have anything else, and he's just that type of person. But I did notice that the characters he chose matched his personality very well.

My dad's very, very, very, very, very good friend also agreed to be a part of my experiment. His answer was really good and it seemed like he put thought into it. He chose the character he did because he enjoyed how realistic the character was and how she managed to be happy all of the time. I thought that matched his personality very well too.

Overall, Generation X made most of their decisions (mostly unbeknownst to them) based on their own personalities and values. Generation X is the transitional generation between Boomers and Millenials. It makes sense that while they'd think their decisions about these types of things would be based on logical thought, they are actually based on feelings and curiosities. This marks the transitions between the generations.

The last age group that we'll be discussing is the Baby Boomers. As with Gen X, I only managed to get three people to agree to the interview. Both of my grandmothers and my grandpa.

Both of my grandmothers are very emotionally charged people and this shone through in their answers. My grandma on my dad's side explained that the characters she liked were because of their personalities. But one character she chose because he reminded her of one of her sons.

My grandpa selected his character based on her diversity and her skin color. Essentially the same reason as my mom. I felt that that matched his personality because he is strongly opinionated on that side of politics (and politics and general) and it makes sense that the first thing he'd notice would be her skin color.

My nana chose her characters based on how she liked their personality (like my grandmother) and one matched her personality while one did not.

I noticed while interviewing this particular generation, that their decisions were based largely on what they thought of the character than what they thought of themselves and weren't based on feelings as much as logistics.

So, to summarize part 1, there is some connection between generations and the overall personality and world view of the people that make up these generations.

There should be a part 2 out some time... I don't have a frequent update schedule so that's what you should expect.