Personality Profiles in Politics

New Technologies When searching for new technologies, a company called Cambridge Analytica was identified to be an emerging tech firm. The company is a subsidiary of a London-based firm that has established itself in the industry of psychological operations (psych ops). The company is now working in politics and has recently been employed by the Ted Cruz campaign for the U.S. Presidency and the company can create customizable marketing messages that are based on psychological profiles (Issenberg, 2015).

Psychologist use what is known as the "big 5" personality traits to create something referred to as a personality inventory. The big five traits include openness, agreeableness, extraversion, neuroticism, and conscientiousness. Analytica can shift through a mountain of data to build personality profiles for virtually everyone. It uses data collected by public information available through memberships, shopping behavior, demographic composition, and many other sources. An algorithm is then used to build a personality profile from the data and each profile has a model associated with it that represents the profile.

For example, based on the profile it is possible to predict with some reliability who a person would vote for and what political messages might resonate with the individual voter. The profiles built can be more accurate than an individual's knowledge of themselves which carries significant ethical implications. Data Security The security of the data about an individual's personality profile would be of the highest importance. If this information fell into the wrong hands then it could easily be used to manipulate someone.

However, the personality profiles could easily be used for marketing purposes as well. Imagine if a company could customize a marketing message to you based on.