Kosinski was able to build a massive trove. When he ran regressions on the data, he arrived at surprisingly specific correlations that allowed him to extrapolate major insights about a person based on minor indicators. He knew, for instance, that people who “liked” Lady Gaga on Facebook were by and large extroverts; that those who liked “thunderstorms” or “curly fries” were demonstrably intelligent, while “Harley Davidson” likers were reliably less so. Liking Prada or Sun Tzu meant a person was probably competitive; “scrapbooking” fans tended to be in relationships, while fans of track star
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