You have probably heard of the Nobel Prize, awarded annually to individuals who have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind. You may not have heard of the Ig Nobel Prize, annually awarded to celebrate ten unusual or trivial achievements in scientific research. Its aim is to ‘honour achievements that first make people laugh, and then make them think’.
One such award was given to one of the giants in psychology, Professor Philip Zimbardo (who died in 2024 at the age of 91). He shared his Ig Nobel Award with Gian Vittorio Caprara and Claudio Barbaranelli for their research on the personality of politicians. They asked participants to rate the personality of: themselves, and named athletes, TV stars and politicians. The ratings were based on 25 characteristics, such as enterprising, reliable, truthful. (The adjectives were selected because they were markers of the five-factor model of personality: openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism = OCEAN).
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