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May 28, 2024 · The trait theory of personality is an approach to studying human personality through traits, such as extraversion, agreeableness, honesty, etc. When somebody asks us about a certain person, then we usually describe them through traits: “She is a little shy” or “he is a perfectionist”.
- Conscientiousness
- Agreeableness
- Extraversion
- Openness to Experience
- Neuroticism
- New Research on Media and Technology
- Critical Evaluation
- History and Background
- References
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Conscientiousness describes a person’s ability to regulate impulse control to engage in goal-directed behaviors (Grohol, 2019). It measures elements such as control, inhibition, and persistence of behavior.
Agreeableness refers to how people tend to treat relationships with others. Unlike extraversion which consists of the pursuit of relationships, agreeableness focuses on people’s orientation and interactions with others (Ackerman, 2017).
Extraversionreflects the tendency and intensity to which someone seeks interaction with their environment, particularly socially. It encompasses the comfort and assertiveness levels of people in social situations. Additionally, it also reflects the sources from which someone draws energy.
Openness to experience refers to one’s willingness to try new things as well as engage in imaginative and intellectual activities. It includes the ability to “think outside of the box.”
Neuroticism describes the overall emotional stability of an individual through how they perceive the world. It takes into account how likely a person is to interpret events as threatening or difficult. It also includes one’s propensity to experience negative emotions.
Openness to experience predicted preferences for complex movies (e.g., documentaries) and unconventional books (e.g., philosophy).Conscientiousness was associated with a preference for informational books.Agreeableness predicted liking for conventional genres such as family movies and romance books.Neuroticism only correlated with a preference for light books, not movies.Cross-Cultural Validity
Although the Big Five has been tested in many countries and its existence is generally supported by findings (McCrae, 2002), there have been some studies that do not support its model. Most previous studies have tested the presence of the Big Five in urbanized, literate populations. More research on illiterate and non-industrialized populations is needed to clarify such discrepancies.
Gender Differences
Differences in the Big Five personality traits between genders have been observed, but these differences are small compared to differences between individuals within the same gender. Another interesting finding was that bigger gender differences were reported in Western, industrialized countries. Researchers proposed that the most plausible reason for this finding was attribution processes. They surmised that the actions of women in individualistic countries would be more likely to be attribu...
Factors that Influence the Big 5
Like with all theories of personality, the Big Five is influenced by both nature and nurture. Twin studies have found that the heritability (the amount of variance that can be attributed to genes) of the Big Five traits is 40-60%. Such twin studies demonstrate that the Big Five personality traits are significantly influenced by genes and that all five traits are equally heritable. Heritability for males and females does not seem to differ significantly (Leohlin et al., 1998). Studies from dif...
The Big Five model resulted from the contributions of many independent researchers. Gordon Allport and Henry Odbert first formed a list of 4,500 terms relating to personality traits in 1936 (Vinney, 2018). Their work provided the foundation for other psychologists to begin determining the basic dimensions of personality. In the 1940s, Raymond Catte...
Ackerman, C. (2017, June 23). Big Five Personality Traits: The OCEAN Model Explained. PositivePsychology.com. https://positivepsychology.com/big-five-personality-theory Buecker, S., Maes, M., Denissen, J. J., & Luhmann, M. (2020). Loneliness and the Big Five personality traits: A meta–analysis. European Journal of Personality, 34(1), 8-28. https://...
McCrae, R. R., & Terracciano, A. (2005). Universal features of personality traits from the observer’s perspective: data from 50 cultures. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 88(3), 547.Cobb-Clark, DA & Schurer, S. The stability of big-five personality traits. Economics Letters. 2012; 115(2): 11–15.Marsh, H. W., Nagengast, B., & Morin, A. J. (2013). Measurement invariance of big-five factors over the life span: ESEM tests of gender, age, plasticity, maturity, and la dolce vita effects. Develo...Jun 26, 2024 · The trait theory of personality suggests that people have certain basic traits, and it is the strength and intensity of those traits that account for personality differences. The trait approach to personality is one of the major theoretical areas in the study of personality. Trait theory suggests that individual personalities are composed of ...
May 1, 2023 · Trait theories tend to view personality as the result of internal characteristics that are genetically based and include: Agreeable : Cares about others, feels empathy, enjoys helping others Conscientiousness : High levels of thoughtfulness, good impulse control, goal-directed behaviors
Oct 23, 2024 · Personality traits are stable patterns of behavior, thought, and emotion. The Big Five theory organizes traits into five broad dimensions. Estimates of the number of traits vary widely, from a few to thousands. Personality traits can be classified as positive, negative, or neutral.
Figure 16.3 Descriptions of the Big Five Personality Traits Figure 16.4 Example behaviours for those scoring low and high for the big 5 traits Scores on the Big Five traits are mostly independent. That means that a person’s standing on one trait tells very little about their standing on the other traits of the Big Five.
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Personality psychology emphasizes behavior that stems from individual characteristics and internal mental processes. Social psychology is more attuned to how the environment influences personality. This is what sparked the person-situation debate (Coaley, 2014).
