Many contemporary personality psychologists believe that there are five basic dimensions of personality,often referred to as the “Big 5” personalitytraits.These are extraversion, agreeableness, openness, conscientiousness and neuroticism. The “big five” are broad categories of personality traits. Although research literature supports this five-factor model of personality,researchers differ on the exact labels for each dimension. These five categories are outlined below:
Extraversion is characterized by excitability, sociability, talkativeness, assertiveness and expression of emotions. People who are high in extroversion are outgoing and tend to draw strength from social situations. People who are low in extroversion (or introverted) tend to be more reserved and feel drained of energy in social settings.
This personality dimension includes attributes such as trust, altruism, kindness, affection and other pro-social behaviours. People who are high in agreeableness tend to be more cooperative while those low in this regard tend to be more competitive and even manipulative.
The main attributes of this dimension include high levels of thoughtfulness, with good impulse control and goal-directed behaviours. Those high on conscientiousness tend to be organized and attentive to details.
Neuroticism is a trait characterized by sadness, moodiness, and emotional instability. Individuals who are high in this trait tend to experience mood swings, anxiety, moodiness, irritability and sadness. Those low in this trait tend to be more stable and emotionally resilient.
This trait features characteristics such as imagination and insight, and those high in this trait also tend to have a broad range of interests. People who are high in this trait tend to be more adventurous and creative. People low in this trait are often much more traditional and may struggle with abstract thinking.
The five personality factors represent a range between two extremes. For example, extraversion represents a continuum between extreme extraversion and extreme introversion. In the real world, most people can be placed in between the two polar ends of each dimension. Behaviour involves an interaction between a person’s underlying personality and situational variables. The situation facing
an individual significantly influences howthe person reacts. But in most situations, people respond consistently with their underlying personality traits.
These dimensions represent broad areas of personality. Research has demonstrated that these groupings of characteristicstend to occurtogether in manypeople.For example,individuals who are sociabletend to be talkative.However,thesetraits do not alwaysoccurtogether. Personality is complex and varied and each person may display varied behaviours across several of these dimensions. Psychologists found that the big five traits are remarkably universal. One study which considered people from more than 50 different cultures found that the five dimensions could be accurately used to describe personality.Many psychologistsbelievethat the five personalitydimensions are not only universal but also have biological origins.