Big Five Personality Traits

BY: T. Franklin Murphy | November 16, 2020

Big Five Personality Traits:

Big Five Personality Traits is a five dimension classification system that illuminates the vast experience of being human. Trait theory reduces human diversity by narrowing personality to five basic groupings.

Gordon Allport and Henry Odbert formed a list of 4,500 personality traits in 1936. Slowly over the decades the primary traits were reduced to sixteen and eventually settling on five.

Lengthy lists make identifying and researching impossible because of the endless variables. The five trait model became known as the “Big Five.” The versatility of five general traits has led to diverse testing across populations and cultures.

The Five Factors

The theory identifies five factors:

extraversion (outgoing/energetic vs. solitary/reserved)
agreeableness (friendly/compassionate vs. critical/rational)
openness to experience (inventive/curious vs. consistent/cautious)
conscientiousness (efficient/organized vs. extravagant/careless)
neuroticism (sensitive/nervous vs. resilient/confident)

Many remember the five factors using the acronyms "OCEAN" or "CANOE."

The Big Five traits are dimensions along which all people can be placed, with most falling in the middle regions and a few falling along the full range of scores. The scores in each dimension are placed on a continua between the two extreme ends.

For example, when measuring the trait of Extraversion, one would not be classified as purely extroverted or introverted, but placed on a continua determining a level of extraversion.

By measuring individuals on each of the five traits, research can effectively examine individual differences in personality based upon rankings.

Key Definition:

The Big Five personality traits are:

Conscientiousness
Agreeableness
Neuroticism
Openness
Extraversion

Personality Inventories

For research purposes, personality traits are measured through standardized testing or inventories. Tests such as the Myers-Briggs lacks reliability and consistency. Results are mostly for personal reflection and entertainment.

The gold standard and most comprehensive personality inventory is NEO PI-R. This revised version of the NEO PI was published in 1992. The NEO PI-R consists of 240 items that provide a detail score for each of the Big Five personality trait categories, along with six subcategories of each Big Five personality trait.

Biology and the Big Five Personality Traits

Like most aspects of our human existence, we are an intricate mixture of biological propensities and environmental interaction with the genetic givens.

Brian R. Little PhD., an internationally acclaimed scholar and speaker in the field of personality and motivational psychology, states that "there is clear evidence that each of these dimensions of personality has a genetic component accounting for roughly 50 percent of the variation between people on each trait" (2016, location 598).

A recent study on sensory processing sensitivity (SPS) found a correlation between SPS, largely a biological condition, and the Big Five personality trait Neuroticism (Yano, Kase, & Oishi, 2021). Perhaps, we may never no the complete picture to accurately assess percentages of nature and nurture impact. We should all agree that both biology and environment have a significant impact.

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T. Franklin Murphy

Wellness. Writer. Researcher.
T. Franklin Murphy has a degree in psychology. He is dedicated to the science of wellness. In 2010, he began publishing his findings.