Big 5
Chapter 1 - Worldview
Previous page: Personality - Big 5 - Next page: Scarf
Back to Book content or directly to Main Page or Worldview
.
Welcome to the Big 5 page
.
The Big Five personality traits, often referred to as the Five-Factor Model, represent a widely accepted framework for understanding human personality. It categorizes personality into five dimensions: Openness to Experience, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism. Each trait encompasses a spectrum, allowing individuals to exhibit varying degrees of each characteristic.
- Openness reflects creativity and a preference for novelty, while Conscientiousness relates to self-discipline and goal-oriented behavior.
- Extraversion captures sociability and energy levels, whereas Agreeableness focuses on interpersonal harmony and compassion.
- Neuroticism, in contrast, measures emotional stability and susceptibility to stress.
The model is rooted in decades of psychological research and is valued for its empirical validity across cultures and contexts. It provides insights into individual behavior, interpersonal dynamics, and even professional outcomes.
Unlike categorical personality theories, the Big Five emphasizes a dimensional approach, enabling nuanced assessments. This model is widely used in psychology, organisational studies, and self-development, offering a robust foundation for understanding human behaviour.
.
Core ideas
.
Big 5 Model
.
| Factors | Description | |
|---|---|---|
| O | Openness | Openness to experience is a general appreciation for art, emotion, adventure, unusual ideas, imagination, curiosity, and variety of experience. People who are open to experience are intellectually curious, open to emotion, sensitive to beauty, and willing to try new things. They tend to be, when compared to closed people, more creative and more aware of their feelings. They are also more likely to hold unconventional beliefs. Open people can be perceived as unpredictable or lacking focus, and more likely to engage in risky behaviour or drug-taking. Moreover, individuals with high openness are said to pursue self-actualisation specifically by seeking out intense, euphoric experiences. Conversely, those with low openness want to be fulfilled by persevering and are characterised as pragmatic and data-driven – sometimes even perceived to be dogmatic and closed-minded. Some disagreement remains about how to interpret and contextualise the openness factor as there is a lack of biological support for this particular trait. Openness has not shown a significant association with any brain regions as opposed to the other four traits which did when using brain imaging to detect changes in volume associated with each trait. |
| C | Conscientiousness | Conscientiousness is a tendency to be self-disciplined, act dutifully, and strive for achievement against measures or outside expectations. It is related to people's level of impulse control, regulation, and direction. High conscientiousness is often perceived as being stubborn and focused. Low conscientiousness is associated with flexibility and spontaneity, but can also appear as sloppiness and lack of reliability. High conscientiousness indicates a preference for planned rather than spontaneous behaviour. |
| E | Extraversion | Extraversion is characterised by breadth of activities (as opposed to depth), surgency from external activities/situations, and energy creation from external means. The trait is marked by pronounced engagement with the external world. Extraverts enjoy interacting with people, and are often perceived as energetic. They tend to be enthusiastic and action-oriented. They possess high group visibility, like to talk, and assert themselves. Extraverts may appear more dominant in social settings, as opposed to introverts in that setting.
Introverts have lower social engagement and energy levels than extraverts. They tend to seem quiet, low-key, deliberate, and less involved in the social world. Their lack of social involvement should not be interpreted as shyness or depression, but as greater independence of their social world than extraverts. Introverts need less stimulation and more time alone than extraverts. This does not mean that they are unfriendly or antisocial; rather, they are aloof and reserved in social situations. Generally, people are a combination of extraversion and introversion, with personality psychologist Hans Eysenck suggesting a model by which differences in their brains produce these traits |
| A | Agreeableness | Agreeableness is the general concern for social harmony. Agreeable individuals value getting along with others. They are generally considerate, kind, generous, trusting and trustworthy, helpful, and willing to compromise their interests with others. Agreeable people also have an optimistic view of human nature. Being agreeable helps us cope with stress.
Disagreeable individuals place self-interest above getting along with others. They are generally unconcerned with others' well-being and are less likely to extend themselves for other people. Sometimes their skepticism about others' motives causes them to be suspicious, unfriendly, and uncooperative. Disagreeable people are often competitive or challenging, which can be seen as argumentative or untrustworthy. Because agreeableness is a social trait, research has shown that one's agreeableness positively correlates with the quality of relationships with one's team members. Agreeableness also positively predicts transformational leadership skills. In a study conducted among 169 participants in leadership positions in a variety of professions, individuals were asked to take a personality test and be directly evaluated by supervised subordinates. Very agreeable leaders were more likely to be considered transformational rather than transactional. Although the relationship was not strong (r=0.32, β=0.28, p<0.01), it was the strongest of the Big Five traits. However, the same study could not predict leadership effectiveness as evaluated by the leader's direct supervisor. Conversely, agreeableness has been found to be negatively related to transactional leadership in the military. A study of Asian military units showed that agreeable people are more likely to be poor transactional leaders. Therefore, with further research, organisations may be able to determine an individual's potential for performance based on their personality traits. For instance, in their journal article "Which Personality Attributes Are Most Important in the Workplace?" Paul Sackett and Philip Walmsley claim that conscientiousness and agreeableness are "important to success across many different jobs." |
| N | Emotional Stability (Neurotisism) | Neuroticism is the tendency to have strong negative emotions, such as anger, anxiety, or depression. It is sometimes called emotional instability, or is reversed and referred to as emotional stability. According to Hans Eysenck's (1967) theory of personality, neuroticism is associated with low tolerance for stress or a strong dislike of change. Neuroticism is a classic temperament trait that has been studied in temperament research for decades, even before it was adapted by the Five Factor Model. Neurotic people are emotionally reactive and vulnerable to stress. They are more likely to interpret ordinary situations as threatening. They can perceive minor frustrations as hopelessly difficult. Their negative emotional reactions tend to stay for unusually long periods of time, which means they are often in a bad mood. For instance, neuroticism is connected to pessimism toward work, to certainty that work hinders personal relationships, and to higher levels of anxiety from the pressures at work. Furthermore, neurotic people may display more skin-conductance reactivity than calm and composed people. These problems in emotional regulation can make a neurotic person think less clearly, make worse decisions, and cope less effectively with stress. Being disappointed with one's life achievements can make one more neurotic and increase one's chances of falling into clinical depression. Moreover, neurotic individuals tend to experience more negative life events, but neuroticism also changes in response to positive and negative life experiences. Also, neurotic people tend to have worse psychological well-being.
At the other end of the scale, less neurotic individuals are less easily upset and are less emotionally reactive. They tend to be calm, emotionally stable, and free from persistent negative feelings. Freedom from negative feelings does not mean that low scorers experience a lot of positive feelings; that is related to extraversion instead. Neuroticism is similar but not identical to being neurotic in the Freudian sense (i.e., neurosis). Some psychologists prefer to call neuroticism by the term emotional instability to differentiate it from the term neurotic in a career test. |
.
Degrees of freedom
| O | C | E | A | N | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Positive appearance | Intellectual, creative | Responsible, organised | Talkative, energetic | Cooperative, trustworthy | Secure, assured |
| Negative appearance | Unimaginative, unoriginal | Undisciplined, careless | Reserved, timid | Argumentative, impolite | Moody, worried |
| Content source |
|---|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Five_personality_traits |
.
Deep dive
.
HEXACO model
.