The Big Five Essay

Personality theories, or models, are metaphors for describing something which is intrinsically indescribable, the human personality. Currently, one of the most popular approaches among psychologists for studying personality theory is the Five-Factor Model (FFM) or Big Five dimensions of personality. This essay will explore the 'Big Five ' personality constructs and seek to explain how useful they are to understanding how people are likely to perform in a work situation. In conclusion, this essay will also discuss some of the arguments against the relevance and accuracy of personality testing within the employment context.

The five-factor model (FFM) is a contemporary construct describing personality. It incorporates five traits – openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism also referred to as OCEAN. Within each dimension, there are specific personality attributes, for example, openness includes subcategories of feelings and actions. The FFM was influenced by Cattell’s 16-factor model (1957) and shares traits with many other personality theories such as Eysenck’s PEN model. There has been an ongoing debate discussing how many factors appropriately represent the brain structure of personality, suggestions have varied from 2-7, recently Almagor et al. (1995) advocated that a 7-factor model unfolds when evaluative traits are involved. Costa & Mcrae (1992) claim that the FFM is the best theory of personality, however, the model has received much criticism. Through examining different aspects of the model its credibility can be explored.

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).

inspection can be analyzed and broken down. Personality, when broken down, is really just a

Of the Big Five personality traits, I scored highest on neuroticism. I compared myself to my friend. My friend scored highest on extraversion. I scored lowest on extraversion, whereas my friend scored lowest on agreeableness. I was somewhat surprised at my results that my friend received. However, I was not surprised by my results. I am a typically anxious person, so I knew I would probably score high on neuroticism. However, I thought my friend would score higher on agreeableness. I don’t agree with some of these because I believe that my friend falls a little higher on the agreeableness, while I believe we both fall a little higher on the openness scale. I also believe there is more to a person’s personality than that.

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.

Each dimension contains a wide range of specific traits. The one that interest us is the agreeableness which contains traits such as being good-natured, cooperative, forgiving, compassionate, understanding and trusting. Indeed, those can be used as a reference to kindness (= being nice).

The research used the Five-Factor Personality Inventory (FFPI) to contribute to the validity of it, in three different aspects: generalizability and reliability, construct validity, and predictive validity. Overall, 249 participants, 120 males and 129 females, were separate into three different sample groups. The first sample consisted of 23 psychology students who completed the self-ratings. Each of the 23 students was asked to contact five people who knew them well; this made the second sample. The second sample was asked to rate themselves and the person who contacted them. Each member of the second sample was asked to contact a friend that did not belong to the first nor second sample. The third sample of 115 were asked to rate the person

Other core personality variables that are present at birth and innate to human beings. To better understand the biological and genetic factors that affect personality one must consider how prominent researchers define personality. According to Joshua Wilt and William Revelle (2015), personality is “the coherent pattern of affect, cognition, and desires (goals) as they lead to behavior” (p. 479). Correspondingly, the most prevalent personality framework is the “Big Five,” or the five-factor model of personality developed by McCrae and Costa who specifically assume that traits are biologically based, inherent tendencies that persistently influence thoughts, feelings, and behaviors throughout life (Broderick, & Blewitt, 2015). The five traits are as follows: (1) Extraversion which has the characteristics of being outgoing, enthusiastic, active, talkative, and assertive. (2) Agreeableness which has the characteristics of being warm, forgiving, sympathetic, kind, affectionate, generous, and compliant. (3) Conscientiousness which has the characteristics of being organized, reliable, careful, responsible, self-controlled, and efficient. (4) Neuroticism which has the characteristics of being tense, sensitive, moody, anxious, self-pitying, and self-conscious. (5) Openness to Experience which has the characteristics of being insightful, imaginative, artistic, curious, having wide-ranging interests, and a positive orientation to learning.

Recently we discussed the Myers Briggs types and how although these types are a very well known and popular measure of personality, that the Big 5 personality Types (OCEAN) are a more scientifically backed measure of personality. While the Myers Briggs types measure individuals based on four traits, on which individuals are usually generalized either to be at one extreme end of the scale or the other based on their placement on a scale. This allows individuals to be labeled as personalities such as “ENFJ” or “INTP”. However, The OCEAN model rates people on a scale of how much of a certain trait they possess. Individuals are often deemed to be “high” or “low” on a certain trait. The 5 traits (also known as OCEAN) are as follows: openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism. Individuals who are high in the trait of openness tend to enjoy new experiences and trying new things. Those who are high in the trait of conscientiousness are very organized and detail-oriented. People high in extraversion are very outgoing and talkative. Individuals who are very agreeable tend to be trustworthy, kind and affectionate. Individuals high in neuroticism tend to be emotionally

The big five factors of personality are five broad domains or dimensions of personality which have been scientifically discovered to define human personality at the highest level of the organization. These five over-arching domains have been found to contain and subsume more or less all known personality traits within their five domains and to represent the basic structure behind all personality traits. They have brought order to the often-bewildering array of specific lower level personality concepts that are constantly being proposed by psychologists, which are often found to be overlapping and confusing. These five factors provide a rich conceptual frame work for integrating all the research findings and theory in personality psychology.

The five-factor model of personality or Big Five has five dimensions which underlie human behavior. These dimension are extroversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional stability and openness to experience (Robbins & Judge, 2008). My scores to the assessment are as follows: extroversion – 5, agreeableness -10, conscientiousness – 12, emotional stability – 5, openness to experience -11 (Robbins & Judge, 2008). Two of my strengths are that I am dependable and conscientious. I received a moderate score on openness to experience. I am open to new experiences. I am imaginative, intellectual, and artistically sensitive. I enjoy writing and the performing arts. My score on agreeableness was moderate. The analysis and interpretation described a person who possessed agreeableness as being trusting,

Upon completion of The Big Five Personality Test I was able to reconfirm key components of my personality. For instance, the ability to open up an experience new events with minimal hesitation. Next, a military mindset helps to promote a strong work ethic with an abundance of attention to detail. Thirdly, enthusiasm makes it easy to thrive in any social environment. Additionally, amicability helps with considering other’s emotional needs during regular interactions. Finally, stability aids with maintaining a high level of relaxation during times of unease. Now, that these five personality traits have been discussed, let’s move onward.

The Big Five model is broken down into five dimensions, including; openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism. Openness includes those who are open to experience and are intellectually curious, they may also be open to emotion, and willing to try new things. Conscientiousness individuals display self-discipline, act loyally, and aim for achievement against measures or outside expectations. Additionally, it is related to the way in which individuals control, regulate and direct their impulses. Extraversion is related with ones engagement with the external world, introverts on the other hand have lower social engagement and energy levels. Agreeableness reflects individual differences in

The big five personality traits are traits are openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism. Openness is how open someone is to trying different things or how adventurous they are. Someone that rates very high in openness would have a wide variety of interests. Conscientiousness is having good control of one’s thoughts and urges, being organized in life. Extraversion is how sociable a person is. If the person is talkative, easy to get along with, and likes being around others they would be an extravert. Agreeableness is how easily someone is to agree with another person. People that rate highly in agreeableness are also known as nice and understanding. Neuroticism is instability in one’s emotions. People high in