Changing Faces: Identifying Complex Behavioural Profiles

There has been significant interest in the identification and profiling of insider threats, attracting high-profile policy focus and strategic research funding from governments and funding bodies. Recent examples attracting worldwide attention include the cases of Chelsea Manning, Edward Snowden and the US authorities. The challenges with profiling an individual across a range of activities is that their data footprint will legitimately vary significantly based on time and/or location. The insider threat problem is thus a specific instance of the more general problem of profiling complex behaviours. In this paper, we discuss our preliminary research models relating to profiling complex behaviours and present a set of experiments related to changing roles as viewed through large-scale social network datasets, such as Twitter. We employ psycholinguistic metrics in this work, considering changing roles from the standpoint of a trait-based personality theory. We also present further representations, including an alternative psychological theory (not trait-based), and established techniques for crime modelling, spatio-temporal and graph/network, to investigate within a wider reasoning framework

Reflections on different labels for Factor V

Ostendorf F, Angleitner A. Reflections on different labels for Factor V. European Journal of Personality. 1994;8(4):341-349.Discrepancies among different versions of Factor V may be largely explained by differences in the personality definitions and the variable selections used in various national trait taxonomies. Like any other social category the fifth factor has fuzzy boundaries and its meaning depends on the number and prototypicality of the exemplars included in the category. Resulting from taxonomies of traits (Norman, 1967; Goldberg, 1990) or dispositions (Ostendorf, 1990) the Five-Factor Model is not intended to represent or capable of representing the structure of all individual differences (e.g. attitudes, physical characteristics). Clear Intellect and Imagination versions of Factor V have only resulted from taxonomies including abilities and talents in their trait definition. The meaning of at least three of the Big Five would probably change if values - which we view as action prescriptions or behavioural intentions - were regarded as dispositions. Intellect, Imagination, and Creativity are the most prototypical attributes belonging to the core of Factor V. Comparisons among the various personality definitions and the procedures currently used in trait taxonomic research are needed to examine their effects on the replicability and the meaning of Factor V