How would you describe your personality? Are you neurotic? Agreeable? How extroverted are you? Maybe you wouldn't use any of these terms to describe yourself. Using the Big Five approach to describing personality, you will only have five terms to pick from.
- What is the Big Five trait theory of personality?
- What are the Big Five personality traits?
- How is the Big Five trait theory of personality applied in real life?
- How are the Big Five traits measured?
- What are some criticisms and limitations of the Big Five trait theory?
The Big Five Trait Theory of Personality
The Big Five trait theory of personality is a model of five primary personality dimensions: extraversion, neuroticism, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and openness.
So many psychology research articles have included the Big Five personality theory. Personality is a big topic, but the Big Five makes it easier to understand and measure. This theory combines all possible personality traits under five categories, making personality theory more universal and applicable. Each trait is measured on a continuum.
So even though there are only five traits, these continuums turn the five traits into ten. It is important to remember that the Big Five is a trait approach to personality and not a typology approach. You won't be able to figure out your personality type by taking a Big Five assessment. Instead, you will find out more about your personality based on how high or low you score on the Big Five traits.
This personality theory is one of the most cited psychology topics. Over the years, it has been through many revisions, and many psychologists have helped refine the theory. Some of the main contributors to The Big Five theory are psychologists Paul Costa, Donald McRae, Warren Norman, Lewis Goldberg, and Ann Arbor. The earliest version of the theory was created by D. W. Fiske (1949).
Definitions of The Big Five Traits
So what is neuroticism? How about extraversion? What does it mean if you score low on agreeableness or openness? How conscientious are you?
Fg. 1 The Big Five traits, pixabay.com
The Big Five: Openness
Openness to experience is the willingness to engage in new social interactions, cultures, and perspectives. If you score low on openness, you are more hesitant to try new things. You might choose to go to a familiar place rather than somewhere new. If you score high, you love exploring, trying new things, and experiencing other cultures.
| Low Score | High Score |
- Predictability
- Fond of routines
- Reluctant to change
- Selective
- Chooses comfort over discomfort
| - Exploration
- Curiosity
- Adventurous
- Likes to try new things
- Changes opinions more easily
|
The Big Five: Conscientiousness
Conscientiousness is all about responsibility, intrinsic motivation, and self-control. If you score high in this trait, you are driven to achieve goals, determined, organized, and take life seriously. You care a lot about doing your best and handling your responsibilities well. If you score low in this trait, you struggle with being disciplined and self-controlled. Duties are optional to you; you put little pressure on yourself to do your best in everything.
| Low Score | High Score |
- Impulsive
- Disorganized
- Procrastinator
- Unmotivated
- Easy-going
| - Disciplined
- Controlled
- Responsible
- Goal-oriented
- Organized
|
The Big Five: Extraversion
Do you feel energized after interacting with the world and other people? If yes, you would probably score high on extraversion. Highly extroverted people enjoy engaging socially with others and are usually outgoing and friendly. Do you feel drained and depleted after talking to lots of people? Those who score low on extraversion are considered introverted. Introversion means you need time alone to re-energize and be ready to socialize again.
| Low Score (Introversion) | High Score (Extraversion) |
- Reserved
- Quiet
- Exhausted by people
- Recharges alone
- Needs to balance time spent alone and with others
| - Enjoys a busy social life
- Outgoing
- Expressive
- Talkative
- Time with others is often energizing
|
The Big Five: Agreeableness
Scoring high in agreeableness means that you are generally positive, cooperative, and kindhearted. You may be so agreeable that you often put the needs of others above your own. What if you score low in agreeableness? This means you are harder to get along with. You like things a certain way, and you get frustrated having to work on a team. You are likely to argue with others or confront them.
| Low Score | High Score |
- Confrontational
- Negative
- Highly independent
- Likes to argue
- Aggressive
| - Compliant
- Empathetic
- Pleasant
- Positive
- Helpful
|
The Big Five: Neuroticism
This trait sounds bad, doesn't it? Neuroticism just means being highly emotional. If you score low on neuroticism, you are emotionally stable and tend to be pretty serious or unaffected. If you score high, you go through many emotional highs and lows. Moodiness is pretty typical for you, and sometimes you feel distressed or out of control emotionally.
| Low Score | High Score |
- Adaptable
- Consistent
- Stable
- Content
- Unemotional about many things
| - Irritable
- Moody
- Anxious
- Depressed
- Dramatic
|
Here's a trick for remembering The Big Five traits: use the acronym OCEAN! Openness, Conscientiousness, Extroversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism!
The Big Five Aspects Scale
After reading through the Big Five traits, you might be wondering how you would score. An official Big Five test measures how you score on each trait based on self-report questions. Tests like this are very useful in psychology research, and some of history's most Famous Psychologists helped develop it. The Big Five Aspects Scale contains 100 questions with a 5-point Likert scale for responses. The most recent version of the test was revised by Peterson et al. (2022).
One item on the scale looks like this:
“I often feel blue.” strongly agree agree neutral disagree strongly disagree
A Likert scale is a style of question response that gives the participant a range of possible answers. The responses usually range from 0-3, 0-4, 1-4, or 1-5. Likert scales are particularly useful for measuring concepts based on a continuum or a spectrum.
Criticisms and Limitations of the Big Five Personality Theory
Even though the Big Five personality theory has been widely-supported and used in psychology research, the theory still has some limitations and criticisms. One of the big ones is that it only contains five traits to describe every single person in the world. Some researchers believe that five traits are just too few to accurately describe personality, even though the traits are continuums.
One study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology suggests that this theory isn't applicable in specific geographic regions. A small tribe in South America took the test, and their results were confusing and contradictory. The responses seemed inconsistent since some reported being “reserved” but also marked “talkative”. This could be due to cultural differences or language barriers, but it may also mean that the theory doesn't work well for all cultures.
Another criticism is that The Big Five theory is static or fails to account for the growth and development of personality over time. Humans are constantly Learning and changing, but the Big Five traits only tell us what we are like when we take the test. You could retake the test in a few years and compare your new results to your old ones, but that still doesn't take into account all the time in between. This means that The Big Five may not be reliable or generalizable.
Think about it. Are you the same person you were five years ago? Have you changed? If so, to what extent? Can any personality theory be accurate for you at all points in time?
The Big Five - Key takeaways
- The Big Five trait theory of personality is a model of five primary personality dimensions: extraversion, neuroticism, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and openness.
- The Big Five is a trait approach to personality and not a typology approach. You won't be able to figure out your personality type by taking a Big Five assessment.
- Here's a trick for remembering The Big Five traits: use the acronym OCEAN! Openness, Conscientiousness, Extroversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism!
- Openness to experience is the willingness to engage in new social interactions, cultures, and perspectives.
- Conscientiousness is all about responsibility, intrinsic motivation, and self-control.
- Highly extroverted people are energized by engaging socially with others.
- Agreeableness means that you are generally positive, cooperative, and kindhearted.
- Neuroticism just means being highly emotional.
- Two criticisms of the Big Five theory are that it only contains five traits and is a static measure of personality.
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