Flaws In The Big Five

I have read about the big five personality test, designed to get an idea about the personality with some multiple choice questions. I run the test and found that traits described in the results are somewhat matching with my personality. I am not 100 % agree with some of the test results. I will discuss each traits below.

One main goal of psychology has been established a model to describe and understand human personality. The five-factor model of personality is the most widely used model in describing personality types. The components of the Big Five are extraversion, openness, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and neuroticism.

When discussing the accuracy of personality tests, there is no test, which will provide perfect precision. According to Dr. O'Neil, “an individual's personality is the complex of mental characteristics that makes them unique from other people” (2006, Para 1). O’Neil believes that the potential factors involved in shaping personality include values, beliefs, and expectations that are genetic and environmental (O’Neil, 2006).

I found the test results of the Big Five personality assessment to be an interesting and very accurate description of myself. After completing this assessment, I was able to analyze my personality in depth. I found this information to be helpful knowledge and provide insight about myself, as well as being crucial in examining my personality traits. The big five is also referred to the OCEAN model of personality, and stands for the main traits used to describe personalities. This acronym stands for openness to experience/intellect, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism. After taking the test I was then given percentile scores that allowed me to compare myself with other people who have taken the test online as well, therefore making it a more meaningful comparison.

There are five major dimensions of personality: extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, and openness. Neuroticism includes anxiety, depression, hostility, impulsiveness, self-consciousness, and vulnerability. Warmth, gregariousness, assertiveness, activity, excitement seeking and positive emotions characterize extraversion. Openness includes openness to fantasy, aesthetics, feelings, actions, ideas and values. The facets of agreeableness include altruism, compliance, modesty, straightforwardness, tender-mindedness, and trust. Conscientiousness includes achievement striving, competence, deliberation, dutifulness, order and self-discipline (Article 3).

openness. They are referred to as the Big Five in many research studies and textbooks. However,

Number 2, critical or quarrelsome. I marked Richard very low for this, he agrees with others or will completely stay out of the conversation to avoid any quarrel. he is good natured, forgiving, gullible, and helpful. Before he started dating me, he would never assert himself during conversations, or have a strong opinion in fear of turning someone off. He would also pay for everything, even his friends lunch, which they expected paid every time. I marked him very low, but I believe this has been an area where he is improving as far as self respect and assertiveness. Again Richard’s insecurities or doubting himself really came out during the Self Data Report, when he took the Ten-Item Personality Inventory, TIPI (Gosling, Rentfrow, &Swann, 2003). I didn’t tell him any information about the test except how to take it. When he was done I started looking over the results, and of course i started to disagree with him, which is very much apart of my personality. Below is two pictures displaying our

The Big Five Test is a compilation of 70 questioned geared towards “measuring how accurate or inaccurate the statements pertain to you.”(Wentz) This test is considered to be an objective test measuring certain traits of the individual taking it rather than states. Traits differ from states in the sense that traits are life-long characteristics; meanwhile states are temporary characteristics of an individual. This test was designed to measure the Big Five personality traits, including: extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional stability and openness. When you are listed as being in the higher percentiles for each of these categories, then you

Openness is one of the “Big Five” personality traits, which also includes extroversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and neuroticism.

Personality can be defined through the model used in Parker’s et al. (2004) study which includes agreeableness, conscientiousness, openness, neuroticism, and extraversion. Agreeableness is getting along with other people, conscientiousness is the ability to stay on task, openness is how a person adapts to change, neuroticism is a predisposition to negative emotions, and extraversion is the need for sensation-seeking. Together those personality dimensions describe individual differences. To measure these dimensions, a common tool used was the NEO Five-Factor Inventory. This was a self-report questionnaire containing 60 items, and a score is calculated to indicate the level of each dimension.

One of the ways to determine an individual’s personality is by using The Big Five Model, which began with the research of D.W Fiske (1949) followed by a numerous amount of other researchers: Norman (1967), Smith

The Big Five personality test was created in the 1970 's by two independent research teams. One team with Paul Costa and Robert McCrae, and the other with Warren and Lewis Goldberg. The two teams had different methods that they tested but in the end they both ended up with the same results. The results were that no matter what culture, race, or language people have their personality fits into five dimensions of personality. The five dimensions were created after reviewing lots of surveys and data analysis called factor analysis. Now, just forty years later the Big Five is one of the most commonly accepted personality models.

A universal definition of ‘personality’ has to this day remained a struggle to conclude. The concept of ‘personality’ is so wide that it is difficult to conceptualise succinctly (Maltby, Day, & Macaskill, 2007), and so variation between different personality psychologists and theorists will occur. The known ‘father’ of personality psychology describes personality as “a dynamic organisation, inside the person, of psychophysical systems that create the person’s characteristic patterns of behaviour, thoughts and feelings” (Allport, 1961, p. 11). Due to the intangible and insubstantial nature of personality, precise and reliable methods of measurement are hard to accomplish. Nonetheless, despite the lack of a universally accepted definition, some agreement has emerged forming what formal personality psychologists consider as ‘personality’ (Day, Macaskill, & Maltby, 2007).

The Five Factor Model or Big Five model developed by McCrae and Costa factor together personality traits into 5 major categories. Those factors were Neuroticism (worried insecure, nervous, highly strung), Extraversion (Sociable, talkative, fun-loving, affectionate), Openness (Original, independent, creative, daring), Agreeableness (Good-natured, softhearted, trusting, courteous), and Conscientiousness (Careful, reliable, hardworking, organized). (Schultz & Schultz, 2013). They are able to include most of other lower order traits accounting for specific dimensions of individual differences in personality. (Schultz & Schultz, 2013)

According to Lilienfeld, Lynn, Namy, & Woolf, (2010) the term personality refers to ‘individual patterns of thinking, feeling and behaving that tend to persist across time and contexts”. Personality is more than individual differences; personality is how people interact and evolve in certain environments. All types of environments shape how people process thoughts and action. Five broad dimensions are used when trying the measure an individual’s personality. The five dimensions include; neuroticism, agreeableness, extroversion, conscientiousness and openness-to-experience. There are three approaches to personality; clinical, correlational and experimental. Each approach allows researchers to distinguish the concept of personality throughout the lifespan, using conventional methods. The clinical approach focuses on systematic, in-depth research on individuals. This approach is often difficult