Personality and programming: Time-sharing vs. batch preference

Only within the past ten years has some attention been given to psychological concerns of human-machine interface. A review of the literature in this area reveals that personality has received the least attention, but interest is growing. If critical personality factors can be isolated and associated with particular programming tasks, such information could be a useful tool for education as well as management. The hypothesis of this exploratory study was that two personality dimensions, assertiveness and locus of control, influence a programmer's choice of batch or interactive processing for program development. Locus of control relates to the perception an individual has of his/her influence over events. Assertiveness allows an individual expression in a manner that fully communicates personal desires without infringing upon the rights of others. These two dimensions and the programmer's preference for batch or interactive mode were studied through a questionnaire survey of experienced programmers.