Oliver P. John

Oliver P. John is the director of the Berkeley Personality Lab within the Department of Psychology at the University of California, Berkeley. His research focuses on the Big Five Inventory (BFI) – a brief, multidimensional personality inventory consisting of 44 items comprised of short phrases based on atheoretical domains. Furthermore, his work in emotional regulation investigates the way people perceive themselves and to what extent they manipulate present information to construct and idealistic concept of themselves. John is credited with the co-creation of the 1998 Big Five Inventory, following a critical evaluation of the taxonomy used within particular personality assessment measures. This re-structuring of the Big Five Inventory has been instrumental in its validity and reliability, enabling it to remain the most consistently used personality measure in the world. Professor John lectures at Berkeley in the psychology of personality as well as hosting advanced seminars on adult development and research design.