The surprising truth about which personality traits do and don’t correlate with computer programming skills, por Christian Jarrett (BPS Research Digest):
What do Lisbeth Salander, Chloe O’Brien and Elliot Alderson have in common? They are all expert computer programmers or hackers, and (like most fictional portrayals of people with their skills), they’re all, well, rather odd and socially awkward. In other words, they all conform to the commonly held stereotype of the IT guy (or girl) – which must be one of the most stereotyped occupations in the world – as good with machines and programming code, but lousy with people and emotions. Is this stereotype fair? A new meta-analysis published in the Journal of Research in Personality, combining data from 19 previous studies involving nearly 1700 people, suggests the answer is (mostly) “No”.
Timo Gnambs trawled the research literature looking for relevant studies that had measured people’s programming ability objectively (e.g. based on the number of errors in their programming code), and had measured their personality traits and intelligence. (...)
[Via Tyler Cowen; o estudo é este - What makes a computer wiz? Linking personality traits and programming aptitude, mas está fechado]
Unsurprisingly, and somewhat in line with the programmer stereotype, the strongest correlate with programming ability was intelligence. Cleverer people make better programmers. Also, introversion was correlated with programming skill – which makes sense seeing as introverts generally prefer a quiet environment away from crowds, and working on a computer and writing code fits with that preference. Conscientiousness was another relevant trait. Again this makes sense, because conscientiousness is about attention to detail.
However, the personality trait most strongly correlated with programming ability was not introversion or conscientiousness, but openness: a trait that’s related to being creative and imaginative. What’s more, over time to the present day, openness has become a more important correlate of programming ability, while conscientiousness has become less important. This is speculation, but perhaps more creative people are today drawn to careers in programming because of all the opportunities for imaginative expression in a world of apps, video games, snazzy websites, and social networks. Finally, the traits of agreeableness (essentially how friendly someone is) and neuroticism (how anxious and emotionally unstable) were not correlated with programming ability, pretty much refuting the tired stereotype of the socially awkward programming geek.
Sinceramente, acho algumas dessas observações sem grande sentido; o autor (o do post, e suspeito que também o do estudo) alega que a não existência de correlação entre "agradabilidade" e "neuroticismo" e a habilidade para programar desmente o estereótipo do programador sem aptidões sociais; mas um dos fatores com uma associação mais forte é "introversão", o que na minha opinião implica quase automaticamente ser considerado como tendo poucas aptidões sociais; sim, pode-se contra-argumentar que há pessoas sociáveis e comunicativas sem aptidões sociais, mas penso que a inversa não é verdadeira: alguém que em situações sociais se limite a fazer ocasionais comentários monossilábicos e tenha uma interação fria e distante com os outros é, quase por definição, "sem aptidões sociais" (além disso, as tais pessoas sociáveis sem aptidões sociais podem ser muito comuns nas comédias da TV e do cinema, mas duvido que o sejam no mundo real) - mas se calhar é outra instância desta questão.
Quando à parte das "opportunities for imaginative expression in a world of apps, video games, snazzy websites, and social networks" não vejo em que é que programar um jogo, uma rede social ou uma app seja mais ou menos criativo do que programar outra coisa qualquer (p.ex., um suplemento para uma folha de cálculo para importar automaticamente dados de um programa de gestão de inventários) - eu suponho que o autor está a confundir duas coisas: um programa requerer criatividade de quem o faz; e um programa ser divertido de usar para os seus utilizadores.
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