Big 5 personality model
Big 5 Personality Traits | Psychology Today
Reviewed by Psychology Today Staff
The differences between people’s personalities can be broken down in terms of five major traits—often called the “Big Five.” Each one reflects a key part of how a person thinks, feels, and behaves. The Big Five traits are:
- Openness to experience (includes aspects such as intellectual curiosity and creative imagination)
- Conscientiousness (organization, productiveness, responsibility)
- Extroversion (sociability, assertiveness; its opposite is Introversion)
- Agreeableness (compassion, respectfulness, trust in others)
- Neuroticism (tendencies toward anxiety and depression)
Individual personalities are thought to feature each of these five broad traits to some degree. When the traits are measured, some people rate higher and others rate lower: Someone can be more conscientious and less agreeable than most people, for instance, while scoring about average on the other traits.
These traits remain fairly stable during adulthood.
People can also differ on the more specific facets that make up each of the Big Five traits. A relatively extroverted person might be highly sociable but not especially assertive.
The five-factor model is widely used by personality researchers, but it is not the only model. A more recently introduced six-factor model known as HEXACO adds the factor of honesty-humility to the original five traits.
Contents
- Measuring the Big Five
- Why the Big Five Matter
- Other Personality Tests
How the Big Five Personality Traits Are Measured
The Big Five traits are typically assessed using one of multiple questionnaires.
While these tests vary in the exact terms they use for each trait, they essentially cover the same broad dimensions, providing high-to-low scores on each: openness to experience (also called open-mindedness or just openness), conscientiousness, extroversion (the reverse of which is introversion), agreeableness, and neuroticism (sometimes negative emotionality or emotional stability).
One test, the latest version of the Big Five Inventory, asks how much a person agrees or disagrees that he or she is someone who exemplifies various specific statements, such as:
- “Is curious about many different things” (for openness, or open-mindedness)
- “Is systematic, likes to keep things in order” (for conscientiousness)
- “Is outgoing, sociable” (for extroversion)
- “Is compassionate, has a soft heart” (for agreeableness)
- “Is moody, has up and down mood swings” (for neuroticism, or negative emotionality)
Based on a person’s ratings for dozens of these statements (or fewer, for other tests), an average score can be calculated for each of the five traits.
What does your score on the Big Five tell you?
Scores on a Big Five questionnaire provide a sense of how low or high a person rates on a continuum for each trait. Comparing those scores to a large sample of test takers—as some online tests do—offers a picture of how open, conscientious, extroverted (or introverted), agreeable, and neurotic one is relative to others.
How were the Big Five traits determined?
Analyzing English words used to describe personality traits, researchers used statistical techniques to identify clusters of related characteristics. This led to a small number of overarching trait dimensions that personality psychologists have scientifically tested in large population samples.
Who developed the Big Five personality traits?
The Big Five were not determined by any one person—they have roots in the work of various researchers going back to the 1930s.
In 1961, Ernest Tupes and Raymond Christal identified five personality factors that others would reanalyze and rename. Lewis Goldberg used the term Big Five in 1981 to describe these broad factors.
Do Big Five tests measure more specific traits?
Some Big Five questionnaires break the five main traits down into smaller sub-components or “facets,” which are correlated with each other but can be independently measured. In the Big Five Inventory, for instance, “sociability” and “assertiveness” are distinct facets of extroversion, while “organization” and “responsibility” are facets of conscientiousness.
Why the Big Five Personality Traits Are Important
The five-factor model not only helps people better understand how they compare to others and to put names to their characteristics. It’s also used to explore relationships between personality and many other life indicators. These include consequential outcomes such as physical health and well-being as well as success in social, academic, and professional contexts.
Personality psychologists have observed reliable associations between how people rate on trait scales and how they fare or feel, on average, in various aspects of their lives.
What can Big Five scores tell us about other outcomes?
Quite a lot, at least in Western samples. There is reliable evidence, for example, that extroversion is associated with subjective well-being, neuroticism with lower work commitment, and agreeableness with religiousness. Certain traits have been linked to mortality risk. However, these are overall patterns and don’t mean that a trait necessarily causes any of these outcomes.
Can Big Five personality traits change?
Yes. While personality trait measures tend to be fairly consistent over short periods of time in adulthood, they do change over the course of a lifetime. There’s also reason to believe that deliberate personality change is possible.
The Big Five and Other Personality Tests
Various ways of representing major traits have been proposed, and personality researchers continue to disagree on the number of distinct characteristics that can be measured. The five-factor model dominates the rest, as far as psychologists are concerned, although multiple types of assessments exist to measure the five traits.
Outside of academic psychology, tests that aim to sort people into personality types—including the Myers-Briggs/MBTI and Enneagram—are highly popular, though many experts take issue with such tests on scientific grounds. The five-factor model has conceptual and empirical strengths that others lack.
How do Big Five tests compare to the Myers-Briggs?
For a number of reasons, many personality psychologists consider Big Five tests superior to the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. These include concerns about the reliability of the types assigned by the Myers-Briggs and the validity of the test—though there is some overlap between its dimensions (which include extroversion-introversion) and the Big Five.
Do the Big Five capture personality types?
It depends on how strictly you define a “type.” Research indicates that for any given trait, people fall at various points along a continuum rather than fitting neatly into categories. While some identify wholeheartedly as a total extrovert or introvert, for example, there are many shades in between, and most of us would score somewhere in the middle.
Do Big Five tests have known limitations?
Yes. Some have criticized the five-factor model for its origins in data rather than in theory and argued that it does not encompass all fundamental traits (see HEXACO). There is also evidence that current tests provide less reliable results outside of Western, industrialized countries.
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The Big Five Personality Traits
The Big Five (also called Five Factor) trait model of personality is the most widely accepted personality theory in the scientific community.
Although it is not as well understood among laypeople as systems like Myers-Briggs personality typing, it is generally believed to be the most scientifically sound way of conceptualizing the differences between people.
The Big Five is so named because the model proposes that human personality can be measured along five major dimensions, each of which is distinct and independent from the others. The Big Five model is also sometimes called OCEAN or CANOE, both acronyms of the five personality traits.
In the Big Five model, people are understood to have varying levels of key personality factors which drive our thoughts and behavior. Although personality traits cannot specifically predict behavior, differences in the Big Five factors help us to understand why people may react differently, behave differently, and see things differently from others in the same situation.
The Big Five is a trait model of personality, rather than a type model. Most popular ways of describing personality talk about personality types, such as Type A or Type B personalities, or Myers & Briggs' INFPs and ESTJs.
Although type models are easy to understand, they are not scientifically sound, as people don't neatly sort into categories. The Big Five describes people in terms of traits on a spectrum, and as such, is a much more valid and evidence-based means of understanding personality.
In the Big Five model, the five dimensions of personality are:
Openness
Not to be confused with one's tendency to be open and disclose their thoughts and feelings, Openness in the context of the Big Five refers more specifically to Openness to Experience, or openness to considering new ideas. This trait has also been called "Intellect" by some researchers, but this terminology has been largely abandoned because it implies that people high in Openness are more intelligent, which is not necessarily true.
Openness describes a person's tendency to think abstractly. Those who are high in Openness tend to be creative, adventurous, and intellectual. They enjoy playing with ideas and discovering novel experiences.
Those who are low in Openness tend to be practical, traditional, and focused on the concrete. They tend to avoid the unknown and follow traditional ways.
In the brain, Openness seems to be related to the degree to which certain brain regions are interconnected. Those high in Openness seem to have more connection between disparate brain regions, which may explain why they are more likely to see connections where others do not.
Conscientiousness
Conscientiousness describes a person's level of goal orientation and persistence. Those who are high in Conscientiousness are organized and determined, and are able to forego immediate gratification for the sake of long-term achievement. Those who are low in this trait are impulsive and easily sidetracked.
In the brain, Conscientiousness is associated with frontal lobe activity. The frontal lobe can be thought of as the "executive brain," moderating and regulating the more animal and instinctual impulses from other areas of the brain.
For example, while we might instinctually want to eat a piece of cake that's in front of us, the frontal lobe steps in and says "no, that's not healthy, and it doesn't fit in with our diet goals." People who are high in Conscientiousness are more likely to use this brain region to control their impulses and keep themselves on track.
Extraversion
Extraversion describes a person’s inclination to seek stimulation from the outside world, especially in the form of attention from other people. Extraverts engage actively with others to earn friendship, admiration, power, status, excitement, and romance. Introverts, on the other hand, conserve their energy, and do not work as hard to earn these social rewards.
In the brain, Extraversion seems to be related to dopamine activity. Dopamine can be thought of as the "reward" neurotransmitter, and is the main chemical associated with our instinct to pursue a goal. The classic example is a rat in a maze, whose brain pumps out dopamine as he frantically seeks the cheese.
Extraverts tend to have more dopamine activity, indicating that they are more responsive to the potential for a reward. Introverts have less dopamine activity, and so are less likely to put themselves out to chase down rewards.
Agreeableness
Agreeableness describes the extent to which a person prioritizes the needs of others over their own needs. People who are high in Agreeableness experience a great deal of empathy and tend to get pleasure out of serving and taking care of others. People who are low in Agreeableness tend to experience less empathy and put their own concerns ahead of others.
In the brain, high Agreeableness has been associated with increased activity in the superior temporal gyrus, a region responsible for language processing and the recognition of emotions in others.
Neuroticism
Neuroticism describes a person's tendency to respond to stressors with negative emotions, including fear, sadness, anxiety, guilt, and shame.
This trait can be thought of as an alarm system.
People experience negative emotions as a sign that something is wrong in the world. Fear is a response to danger, guilt a response to having done something wrong. However, not everyone has the same reaction to a given situation. High Neuroticism scorers are more likely to react to a situation with strong negative emotions. Low Neuroticism scorers are more likely to brush off their misfortune and move on.
In the brain, Neuroticism appears to relate to the interconnection of several regions, including regions involved in processing negative stimuli (such as angry faces or aggressive dogs) and dealing with negative emotions. One study found an association between high Neuroticism and altered serotonin processing in the brain.
How the Big Five Traits Describe Personality
Individuals are typically described in terms of having high, average, or low levels of the five personality factors. Each factor is independent from the others, so someone might be high in Extraversion and low in Agreeableness.
To gain a full picture of an individual using the Big Five model, it's necessary to know how they measure up on each of the five dimensions. You can measure your own levels of the Big Five personality traits with a Big Five personality test.
History of the Big Five
The Big Five model has its roots in a theory called the lexical hypothesis—the idea that we can create a sort of taxonomy of individual differences by examining the language we use to describe each other. Early researchers took an inventory of words that describe personality traits, such as "friendly," "helpful," "aggressive," and "creative." They then attempted to organize these words into related clusters. For instance, a person who's described as friendly is also likely to be described as gregarious, talkative, and outgoing. Researchers consistently found that trait-related adjectives tended to cluster into five groups, corresponding to the five traits in the Big Five.
Today, the Big Five model is the basis of most modern personality research, and as such has been used to illuminate everything from how much of our personality is inherited to which personality factors correlate with income.
Sources
Personality: What Makes You the Way You Are
Handbook of Personality: Theory and Research
"Big Five": what qualities really define our character
April 8, 2022 Likbez Life
One of the few psychological concepts whose personality tests can be trusted.
What is the essence of the "Big Five"
"Big Five" is a model for assessing individual differences in human personality on five indicators. These include extraversion, openness, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and neuroticism. These characteristics, to varying degrees, may or may not be inherent in any personality, and they can also be measured. However, they do not affect each other and are not interconnected in any way.
The first such classifications were developed in ancient times - for example, Hippocrates' theory of temperament. Later, the Carl Jung model, socionics and typology Myers-Briggs (MBTI) appeared.
These concepts have always been very popular, as they have been used by scientists to explain why people behave differently and how it affects their lives.
They tried to answer questions about what qualities a leader should have, what makes some people psychologically more stable, or how temperament affects physical health.
However, today the five-factor model, or the “Big Five”, is still considered to be the most complete and accurate description of human character.
It was created by two groups of American psychologists in the 1970s. They interviewed thousands of people and came to the conclusion that it is possible to determine a person's temperament using the indicators listed above.
To understand how these qualities are developed in each individual, psychologists have developed special tests. They don't have right or wrong answers. The participant is asked to compare his character with the descriptions of the personality or answer how close the presented statements are to him.
Based on this, it turns out how strongly each of the qualities of the big five is developed in a person. You can take these tests too - here are the short and long questionnaires.
What is included in the "Big Five"
1. Extraversion
In fact, extraversion is not only sociability. This indicator reflects how sociable a person is, cheerful, proactive, independent. Is he able to finish what he started and is he ready for adventure. In general, this characteristic indicates how active an individual lives.
People with low extraversion tend to be introverted and more inclined to obey authority. They may also have problems with abstract thinking. Those who score high are sociable, assertive and tend to become leaders more often.
At the same time, extroverts and introverts in their pure form practically do not exist. The scores of the vast majority of people on the test will fall somewhere in between these extremes—this is commonly referred to as ambivalence.
2. Openness
This characteristic shows how open a person is to new experiences, and it can also serve as a measure of creativity. People with a low level of openness are usually more committed to traditions, they clearly distinguish between “right” and “wrong” for themselves, they tolerate the routine more easily or even prefer it.
Those who are very open, on the contrary, do not accept monotony, are more curious, and they like to invent new ways to solve problems.
3. Goodwill
This sign shows how we treat other people, how much we trust them, how often we show sensitivity and warmth - a kind of measure of good nature. The most benevolent people are more likely to adhere to religious beliefs. They try to avoid conflict and help others. Those who are shy, suspicious, or self-centered tend to score low in this category.
4. Conscientiousness
This parameter helps to understand how organized a person is. A high level of conscientiousness is observed in those who are motivated, disciplined, productive, responsible. These people love order in everything. They usually plan ahead and take care not to break the promise. Therefore, they are more likely to be trusted. Low scores in this category go to irresponsible and easily distracted individuals.
Also, a study by Finnish psychologists showed that people with low scores in this category have a 14% higher mortality rate.
As scientists say, the reason for this is the inability to control oneself and the general irresponsibility. They push a person onto the path of self-destruction.
5. Neuroticism
This indicator measures a person's emotional stability. A high level of neuroticism is observed in anxious, inhibited, moody or insecure people. They react more strongly to failures and life shocks, often suffer from low self-esteem. Those who score low in this category are calm, satisfied with life, and self-confident.
What are the advantages of the "Big Five"
Reliability and accuracy
The main advantage of the "Big Five" is that it is better than all personality typologies formulated from a methodological point of view. And also confirmed experimentally.
The researchers emphasize that the characteristics of the "Big Five" are formulated most accurately and clearly, and they can be fixed by repeated tests. Such reliability of results, for example, cannot be achieved using the well-known Myers-Briggs typology (MBTI).
Universality
The "Big Five" demonstrates that attempts to create some kind of classification of human characters or personality types are most likely futile. Especially if in them any trait of temperament can take only one of two positions.
In addition, the behavior of each individual may differ within one of the characteristics. For example, he can be sociable but not very assertive, although both of these qualities are related to extraversion. Some questionnaires take this into account and break down the characteristics into smaller components.
We also need to understand that sometimes we can consciously and not really change our behavior depending on the circumstances or environment - for example, we communicate differently in different companies.
Practical benefits
The Big Five can be useful both for ordinary people and for researchers of the human psyche. First, it helps to better understand yourself and characterize your personality.
The second is interested in how our temperament can be associated with physical health, financial well-being, social and professional success.
So, psychologists say that there is a strong relationship between what results a person receives on a five-factor scale, and his sense of self.
For example, we can already say with great certainty that people with high extraversion feel more prosperous. And those who are emotionally less stable are also less productive. True, all these data only show a statistical pattern.
The other side of research within the "Big Five" considers the question of what factors influence the formation of personality. So, Canadian scientists analyzed the test data of several hundred pairs of twins and came to the conclusion that our character is equally shaped by heredity and the environment.
Also, working with the indicators of the "Big Five" helped to understand how the character of people changes over time.
So, with age, we basically become less sociable, less likely to want to change something. But at the same time we become more good-natured and more stable emotionally.
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Despite its popularity, the Big Five is not the only measure of character. For example, there is the six-factor model of personality, also known as HEXACO. In it, in addition to the five traits, the parameter of honesty - modesty is added: how much a person is ready to promote his selfish goals.
Some psychologists have criticized the Big Five for not doing enough theory and blindly following the data. There is also evidence that outside of industrialized Western countries, the Big Five questionnaires are less reliable.
Nevertheless, this concept remains dominant and has been shown to be effective in 56 different cultures. Therefore, the Big Five is a reliable and effective tool for understanding our minds.
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The Big Five - a five-factor model of personality and the online 5PFQ test
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