Find out what personality really is and discover how much of an impact it has on our lives in a lecture taking place tomorrow evening, Friday 19 March.

The event, which is part of the Cambridge Science Festival, will reveal some of the results from a groundbreaking experiment designed by the BBC in collaboration with Cambridge academics Professor Michael Lamb and Dr Jason Rentfrow entitled ‘The Big Personality Test’.

The test invites everyone in Britain to take part by answering simple questions about things such as lifestyle, preferences, relationships and background. The test aims to help scientists understand to what extent our personalities are shaped by a whole range of influences.

Dr Jason Rentfrow will deliver the lecture entitled ‘Science of personality research’ and talk the audience through the impact personality has on our lives and will reveal the significant associations between personality and important life domains.

Dr Rentfrow is a Psychologist within The Psychometrics Centre and Lecturer in Psychology in the Department of Social and Developmental Psychology. He is a Fellow and Director of Studies in Social and Political Sciences at Fitzwilliam College.

His research examines the links between basic psychological characteristics and common social psychological processes. His work investigates how personality is expressed in a variety of domains such as music preferences, movie preferences, political ideology, and geographic regions, and how impressions of others are formed on the basis of such information.

The lecture will begin at 7:30pm at the University Centre off Granta Place and is free and open to all above the age of 14.

The Cambridge Science Festival is the UK's largest free science festival offering adults and children alike the chance to get involved in some of the University's cutting edge research between 8 and 21 March.

To find out more and to see the full programme for the Cambridge Science Festival please use the links top right of this page.

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