Louboutin will hire a salesperson on the basis of personality as much as on that of retail experience.

NEWYORKER: Sole Mate

Workers are already sometimes hired on the basis of personality tests that try to tease out the very genetic predispositions that biologists are looking for.

ECONOMIST: The biology of business

Half the students were asked how good they thought the person they were looking at would be at leading a company and half were asked to rate five personality traits on the basis of the photograph.

ECONOMIST: Physiognomy and success: Face value | The

With USA Today reporting that Delta Airline, JetBlue and American Airlines are considering following suit with similar social networking functions, and The New York Times noting that tech start-ups are piling into the market for software that matches flyers on the basis of personality, career and interests, social networking (and, as an extension, matchmaking) is seeping ever deeper into the fabric of our everyday.

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After that, though, the personality differences manifested on a daily basis, eventually ending in a standoff and legal battle that devastated both sides, but somehow preserved the business, at a great personal cost.

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