On the other hand

Most of us need to assess and describe, evaluate and profile other people as part of our daily jobs. It means writing references and making people judgments. Over the years, people develop idiosyncratic theories based on their experience: that temper is associated with redheads; lack of integrity of those with beards; carelessness (or worse, wickedness) with left-handedness and narcissism with the wearing of bling. Some have a rich vocabulary with which to describe the personality and motivation of others; in some, this is surprisingly poor. Some appear insightful, psychologically-minded, astute; others, perhaps because of their interest in things rather than people, are unable to give a good “pen picture” of individuals, even those they know well. The question for psychologists, for at least the last hundred years, is how most parsimoniously and accurately to describe an individual’s personality.