Trait Theory : The Five Factor Model Of Personality

The five-factor model is a common ground between Raymond Cattell’s 16 personality factor and Hans Eysenck’s three-factor theory. The five-factor model was designed by Robert McCrae and Paul Costa. The five-factor model consist of five different main personality traits known as the big five. Personality is fundamental traits, or characteristic behaviors and conscious motives. The five personality traits are extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, openness, and neuroticism. These are also known as OCEAN. These traits are used to predict individual’s attitude and behavior. Each factor characterizes the level between two extremes. Openness is creativity, intelligence, perceptive, flexibility, imaginative, the and the ability to try new things (Fuhrman, 2015). Conscientiousness is to be future oriented, organized, and goal driven. Extraversion is warmness fun-loving, sociable, affectionate, and optimistic emotionality. Agreeableness is nurturing, emotionally supportive, and trustworthy. Neuroticism is commonly characterized by stress, anxiety, and depression as well as secure, calm and self-satisfied. Researchers believe that environmental and biological factors can influence individual’s personality. These traits are stable but can change over time. People become more conscientiousness and agreeable as they get older, and less neurotic, open, and extraverted. The outcome of clinical studies and research settings can be guessed using these five personality traits (Ilie,

Personality is one of the concepts that often be used by social scientists.According to Schultz (2009), “Personality can be defined as the unique, relatively enduring internal and external aspects of a person’s character that influence behaviour in different situations”. In general, personality theories can be classified based on four major approaches which are psychoanalytic theory, trait theory, social learning theory, and humanistic theory (Refer to Figure 1 in Appendix 1).

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.

In psychology, there are four major theories of personality: psychodynamic, trait or five-factor model, humanistic, and social-cognitive. The psychodynamic theory primarily focuses on the role of the unconscious mind. The social cognitive theory focuses on the effect of the environment on behavior and is based on theories of learning. Whereas, the humanistic theory emphasizes conscious life experiences and choices. The trait or five-factor model focuses on characteristics themselves and not the roots of personality.

the five personality factor theory, as well as the theories on which it is based.

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 four major personality theories: psychodynamic, trait, humanistic, and social-cognitive. The psychodynamic theory focuses on the role of the unconscious mind in the development of personality. The humanistic theory focuses on the role of each person’s conscious life experiences and choices in personality development. The social-cognitive theory emphasizes the importance of both learning and cognitive processes play an important role in personality. Whereas, the trait theory is more concerned with the end result of personality as well as the characteristics themselves.

James Baron and David Kreps had given the Five-Factor model, which is based on Michael Porter’s Five Forces model of business analysis (Porter, 1980). These factors will influence the Competitive Intelligence system in any organization. These factors are External Environment, Workforce, Organizational Culture and Structure, Organizational Strategy, and Technology of Production and Organization of Work (Baron & Kreps, 1999). Lack of correspondence between any one of these factors can lead the firm’s CI practices to the failure.

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

One of the long held goals of psychology has been to establish a model that can conveniently describe human personality and disorders therein, with the intent to use this model in the remedying of personality disorders and improving general understanding of personality. Currently, a handful of models have risen to prominence, and have thus far stood the test of time. Some models are more generally accepted than others. Support for some models seems to come and go in cycles.

This course has taught me a lot about the different personality theories as well as the best known psychology theorists that have developed these theories. Personality consists of the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that make an individual unique. Numerous theories have been emerged to implicit the different features of personality. The main purpose of some theories is to focus on explaining how personality developed.

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)

To understand personality there are three main aspects that must be looked at: LArsen and Buss Definition of personality, The Six Domains of knowledge of personality, and Costa and McCrae's Five Factor Theory. In this essay I will first break down larsen and Buss definition and connect it to the domains, then connect the domains to the five factor thoery (FFT).

The Big Five model imparts a method to predict credible viewpoints, feelings, thoughts, and actions of individuals who finish the personality test. As such, it is the most well-known and consistent personality test in the field of psychology.

The study of personality traits is beneficial in identifying the many variables that exist from human to human; the combinations of these variables provide us with a true level of individuality and uniqueness. In the field of psychology, trait theory is considered to be a key approach to the study of human personality (Crowne, 2007; Burton, Westen & Kowalski, 2009). This paper aims to identify a number of significant contributors who have played crucial roles in both the development and application of trait theory. This paper then moves focus to these theorists, outlining their theory and analysing both the strengths and weaknesses of those theories. An illustration of the methods used in trait measurement is given and includes the