Links between the personalities, views and attitudes of software engineers

Successful software development and management depends not only on the technologies, methods and processes employed but also on the judgments and decisions of the humans involved. These, in turn, are affected by the basic views and attitudes of the individual engineers. The objective of this paper i...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Information and software technology Vol. 52; no. 6; pp. 611 - 624
Main Authors: Feldt, Robert, Angelis, Lefteris, Torkar, Richard, Samuelsson, Maria
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: Amsterdam Elsevier B.V 01.06.2010
Elsevier Science Ltd
Subjects:
Attitudes
Computer programs
Empirical Study
Human Factors
Informatics
Informatics, computer and systems science
Informatik
Informatik, data- och systemvetenskap
Links
Personality
Personality tests
Personality traits
Psychological tests
SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP
SOCIAL SCIENCES
Software
Software development
Software Engineering
Statistical Analysis
Statistics, computer and systems science
Statistik, data- och systemvetenskap
Studies
Systems development
Sweden
Attitudes
Personality
Statistical analysis
Empirical study
Human factors
Software engineering
ISSN:0950-5849, 1873-6025, 1873-6025
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:Successful software development and management depends not only on the technologies, methods and processes employed but also on the judgments and decisions of the humans involved. These, in turn, are affected by the basic views and attitudes of the individual engineers. The objective of this paper is to establish if these views and attitudes can be linked to the personalities of software engineers. We summarize the literature on personality and software engineering and then describe an empirical study on 47 professional engineers in ten different Swedish software development companies. The study evaluated the personalities of these engineers via the IPIP 50-item five-factor personality test and prompted them on their attitudes towards and basic views on their professional activities. We present extensive statistical analyses of their responses to show that there are multiple, significant associations between personality factors and software engineering attitudes. The tested individuals are more homogeneous in personality than a larger sample of individuals from the general population. Taken together, the methodology and personality test we propose and the associated statistical analyses can help find and quantify relations between complex factors in software engineering projects in both research and practice.
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ISSN:0950-5849
1873-6025
1873-6025
DOI:10.1016/j.infsof.2010.01.001