Personality researchers have proposed that there are five basic dimensions of personality.
Today, many contemporary personality psychologists believe that there are five basic dimensions of personality, often referred to as the “Big 5” personality traits. Previous trait theorist had suggested a various number of possible traits, including Gordon Allport’s list of 4,000 personality traits, Raymond Cattell’s 16 personality factors and Hans Eysenck’s three-factor theory.
However, many researchers felt that Cattell’s theory was too complex and Eysenck’s was too limited in scope. As a result, the five-factor theory emerged to describe the basic traits that serve as the building blocks of personality.
If you’ve taken a college psychology course or have any interest in personality, you’ve more than likely come across the term “Big Five” personality dimensions or personality traits. These have been gathered through the result of decades’ worth of psychological research into personality. While they don’t capture the idiosyncrasies of everyone’s personality, it is a theoretical framework in which to understand general components of our personality that seem to be the most important in our social and interpersonal interactions with others.
Decades of research on personality has uncovered five broad dimensions of personality. These so-called Big Five dimensions are called:
These are not “types” of personalities, but dimensions of personality. So someone’s personality is the combination of each of their Big Five personality characteristics. For example, someone may be very sociable (high Extraversion), not very friendly (low Agreeableness), hard working (high Conscientiousness), easily stressed (low Emotional Stability) and extremely creative (high Intellect).
A considerable amount of research suggests that personality is stable throughout life and associated with a range of important life outcomes, from academic and occupational success, to marital stability and physical health.
McCrae and his colleagues have also found that the big five traits are also remarkably universal. One study that looked at people from more than 50 different cultures found that the five dimensions could be accurately used to describe personality.
Based on this research, many psychologists now believe that the five personality dimensions are not only universal; they also have biological origins. Psychology David Buss has proposed that an evolutionary explanation for these five core personality traits, suggesting that these personality traits represent the most important qualities that shape our social landscape.
Always remember that behavior involves an interaction between a person’s underlying personality and situational variables. The situation that a person finds himself or herself in plays a major role in how the person reacts. However, in most cases, people offer responses that are consistent with their underlying personality traits.
These dimensions represent broad areas of personality. Research has demonstrated that these groupings of characteristics tend to occur together in many people. For example, individuals who are sociable tend to be talkative. However, these traits do not always occur together. Personality is a complex and varied and each person may display behaviors across several of these dimensions.
References:
Buss, D. M. (1995). Evolutionary psychology: A new paradigm for psychological science. Psychological Inquiry, 6, 1-31.
Goldberg, L. R. (1981) Language and individual differences: The search for universals in personality lexicons. In L. Wheeler (Ed.), Review of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol. 2. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
McCrae, R.R., & Costa, P.T. (1987) Validation of the five-factor model of personality across instruments and observers.Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 52, 81-90.
McCrae, R.R., & Costa, P.T. (1997) Personality trait structure as a human universal. American Psychologist, 52, 509-516.
McCrae, R. R., Terracciano, A., and Members of the Personality Profiles of Cultures Project. (2005). Universal features of personality traits from the observer’s perspective: Data from 50 different cultures. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 88, 547-561.
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Tags: Agreeableness, Big Five Dimensions, Conscientiousness, Emotional Stability, Extraversion, Intellect, Personality
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