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Raymond Cattell's Big Five Factors Of Personality

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Cattell's Big Five Factors

Cattell’s Big Five Factors of Personality, Behavioral Genetics, and Evolutionary Personality Theory.

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Raymond Cattell (1905-present) designed the “Big five Factors of Personality”, in which five classifications are revealed. Big Five factors: #1 extraversion vs. introversion, #2 agreeableness vs. antagonism, #3 conscientiousness vs. undirected ness, #4 neuroticism vs. emotional stability, and #5 openness to experience vs. not open to experience. Han’s Eysenck’s and Sir Francis Galton behavior genetics research and Arnold Buss’ three concerns for evolutionary personality theory coinsided with each other.

The Big five represents a catalog of traits that some personality psychologists …show more content…

#3 Conscientiousness describes socially prescribed impulse control that facilitates task and goal-directed behavior, such as thinking before acting, delaying gratification, following norms and rules, and planning, organizing, and prioritizing tasks. #4 Neuroticism contrasts emotional stability and even-temperedness with negative emotionality, such as feeling anxious, nervous, sad, and tense. #5 Openness to experience (versus closed mindedness) describes the breadth, depth, originality, and complexity of an individual’s mental and experiential life, such as an imaginative, independent minded, and divergent thinking person (Potkay & Allen 1986).

Many versions of Cattell’s Big five factors have been reproduced and the first four are always very similar to the first four of Cattell’s, the fifth one however has run into problems with interpretation. Overall the Big Five factors have been intensely studied in seven different languages and the fifth factor (openness to experience) has the most problems with replication. The Big Five factors are broad dimensions or categories in a hierarchical sense, in that they encompass a lot with very little detail. This is why some researchers found a need for an integrative framework for measuring these factors.
From this the NEO Personality Inventory was created by

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