THE BIG FIVE PERSONALITY

November 2010

What is the Big Five?

Personality Traits or Personality Dimensions An integration of personality research that represents the various personality descriptions in one common framework. Individual differences in social and emotional life organized into a five-factor model of personality broad abstract level and each dimension summarized a larger number of personality characteristics (Oliver & Srivastava, 1999)

Where did the Big Five come from?

Personality relevant terms from dictionary Lexical hypothesis: most of the socially relevant and salient personality characteristics have become encoded in the natural language. Allport and Odbert (1936): 18,000 terms, identified 4 categories Cattell (1943) : broke 18,000 down to subset of 4,500 trait terms, then down to 35 Tupes and Christal (1961) through analysis found five factors

Factor I
Extroversion, Sociability, Surgency
High
Sociable Energetic Adventurous Enthusiastic Outgoing

Low
Quite Reserved Shy

Factor II
Agreeableness High
Forgiving Kind Appreciative Trusting Sympathetic

Low
Cold Unfriendly Quarrelsome

Factor III
Conscientiousness High
Organized Thorough Deliberate Responsible Precise

Low
Careless Disorderly Frivolous

Factor IV
Emotional Stability (Neuroticism)
High
Tense Moody Anxious Fearful Touchy

Low
Stable Calm Contented

Factor V
Openness to Experience
Curious Imaginative Wide interests Original Intelligent

Low
Narrow interests Simple Shallow

Examples of personality tests

NEO Five Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI)
Full sentences, 240 items (Costa & McCrey , 1988)

Big Five Inventory (BFI)

Short phrases, 44 items (John & Srivastava, 1999)

Trait Descriptive Adjectives TDI

100 trait-descriptive adjectives (Goldberg, 1992)

Extraversion and Agreeableness

Conscientiousness and Neuroticism

Openness

Reliabilities of Big 5 Tests

Convergent Validities of Big 5 Tests

Validity Coefficients from Confirmatory Factor Analysis

The Big 5 and Job Performance

Barrick, M. R., & Mount, M. K. (1991). The Big Five personality dimensions and job performance: A meta-analysis. Personnel Psychology, 44 (1), 1-26.

C showed consistent relations with all job performance criteria for all occupational groups

E predicted success in management and sales (requiring social interaction)

O and E predicted training proficiency A and N predict performance when employees work in groups

Meta-Analysis Results

The Big 5 and Job Satisfaction

Judge, T. A., Heller, D., & Mount, M. K. (2002). Five-factor model of personality and job satisfaction: A meta-analysis. Journal of Applied Psychology, 87 (3).

Job satisfaction was correlated with each of the traits individually (see next slide)

Only the relationships between N and E and job satisfaction generalized across all studies Together, the Big 5 traits had a multiple correlation of .41 with job satisfaction

Meta-Analysis Results

Criticisms of the Big Five

According to Block (1995) and others
A frequent objection to the Big Five is that five dimensions cannot possibly capture all of the variation in human personality

The dimensions are much too broad Not all support the Big Five, because there are discrepancies surrounding which Big Five, and so on. Of the five factors, each seems to have many different names

Criticisms of the Big Five

The fact that the labels differ does not mean they are different, though. There is a large amount of communality across various labels Other names for all five:
Need for stability, originality, extroversion, accommodation, consolidation

Criticisms of the Big Five

Most of the other four factors generalize across cultures and countries, but the fifth factor (openness to experience) is usually the dimension that varies In Netherlands, their openness to experience emphasized unconventionality and rebelliousness, rather than intellect and imagination (as in ours)

Criticisms of the Big Five

The advantage of categories as broad as the Big Five is their enormous bandwidth
Their disadvantage, of course, is their low fidelity

Extremely useful for some initial rough distinctions but of less value for predicting specific behaviors of a particular object

Names and methods of assessment

Lexical - The term "Big Five" was coined by Lew Goldberg Originally associated with studies of personality traits used in natural language Tend to call the fifth factor intellect or imagination
Questionnaire - The term "Five-Factor Model" has been more commonly associated with studies of traits using personality questionnaires Developed by Costa & McCrae Tend to call the fifth factor openness to experience

Goldbergs (1992) Personality Questionnaire Please use this list of common human traits to describe yourself as accurately as possible. Describe yourself as you see yourself at the present time not as you wish to be in the future. Describe yourself as your are generally or typically, as compared with other persons you know of the same sex and of roughly your same age. Before each trait, please write a number indicating how accurately that trait describes you, using the following rating scale: Inaccurate ____________________________________ Extremely ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ Very Quite Slightly Neither ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ Accurate ___________________________________ Slightly Negligent Nervous Organized Philosophical Pleasant Practical Prompt Quiet Relaxed Reserved Rude Self-pitying Selfish Shallow Shy Simple Sloppy Steady Sympathetic Systematic Talkative Temperamental Thorough Timid Touchy Quite Very Extremely

Active Agreeable Anxious Artistic Assertive Bashful Bold Bright Careful Careless Cold Complex Conscientious Considerate Cooperative Creative Daring Deep Demanding Disorganized Distrustful Efficient Emotional Energetic Envious

____Extraverted ____ Fearful ____ Fretful ____ Generous ____ Haphazard ____ Harsh ____ Helpful ____ High-strung ____ Imaginative ____ Imperceptive ____ Imperturbable ____ Impractical ____ Inconsistent ____ Inefficient ____ Inhibited ____ Innovative ____ Insecure ____ Intellectual ____ Introspective ____ Introverted ____ Irritable ____ Jealous ____ Kind ____ Moody ____ Neat

____ Trustful ____ Unadventurous ____ Uncharitable ____ Uncooperative ____ Uncreative ____ Undemanding ____ Undependable ____ Unemotional ____ Unenvious ____ Unexcitable ____ Unimaginative ____ Uninquisitive ____ Unintellectual ____ Unintelligent _____Unkind _____Unreflective _____Unrestrained _____Unsophisticated _____Unsympathetic _____Unsystematic _____Untalkative _____Verbal _____Vigorous _____ Warm _____ Withdrawn

Support for lexical approach

Their interest is primarily in the language of personality These concepts are of interest because language encodes the characteristics that are central for cultural, social, or biological reasons, to human life and experience So.they highlight the important and meaningful psychological phenomena

Criticisms of lexical approach

There may exist important characteristics that people may not be able to observe and describe verbally If so, the agenda specified by the lexical approach may be incomplete and would need to be supplemented by more theoretically driven approaches

Mini-Test
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. Restrained or Emotional Dependent or Independent Firm or Changeable Anxious or Tranquil Unconcerned or Self-Critical Talkative or Untalkative Serious or Cheerful Sluggish or Energetic Extroverted or Introverted Shy or Forward 14. Practical or Insightful 15. Curious or Uninquisitive

16. 17. 18. 19. 20.

21. 22. 23. 24. 25.

Irritable or Pleasant Neighborly or Impersonal Strict or Lenient Helpful or Reluctant Cooperative or Resistant
Efficient or Sloppy Carefree or Responsible Precise or Inexact Reliable or Forgetful Inattentive or Cautious

11. Satisfied or Curious 12. Unaware or Observant 13. Logical or Imaginative

BFI Individual Scores

totE 2.50 2.38 4.50 2.25 2.38 2.88 4.00 2.25 2.88 4.38 4.63 4.63 4.25 3.75 totA 3.56 3.44 3.89 5.00 4.33 2.33 3.89 4.11 3.22 4.11 4.44 4.11 3.78 4.56 totC 3.78 4.78 3.56 4.44 4.22 4.11 4.00 4.56 4.89 4.00 4.00 3.00 3.89 3.89 totN 4.25 2.75 2.13 2.50 1.75 3.75 2.25 2.13 2.63 2.00 2.13 2.75 2.88 4.13 totO 3.30 3.30 3.40 3.10 3.70 4.20 4.00 3.10 3.50 4.40 3.50 3.50 3.20 3.30

Number of cases read: 14

Number of cases listed: 14

BFI Class Averages

N
totE totA totC totN totO Valid N (listwise) 14 14 14 14 14 14

Minimum
2.25 2.33 3.00 1.75 3.10

Maximum Mean
4.63 5.00 4.89 4.25 4.40 3.4018 3.9127 4.0794 2.7143 3.5357

Stan. Dev.
.97957 .65107 .49197 .79425 .40308