The Big Five Personality Traits
Personality traits reflect an individual's characteristic patterns of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors and imply consistency and Stability over time.
For example, someone who scores high on a specific trait like Extraversion is expected to be sociable in many situations.
Thus, Trait Psychology is based on the idea that people differ regarding trait dimensions that persist over time and across conditions.
Three criteria characterize personality traits: (1) consistency, (2) stability, and (3) individual differences.
To have a personality trait, individuals must be somewhat consistent across situations in their behaviors.
For example, if they are talkative at home, they also tend to be talkative at work.
Individuals with a trait are also somewhat stable in behaviors over time.
If they are talkative, for example, at age 30, they will also tend to be talkative at age 40.
People differ in behaviors related to the trait. For example, using speech is not a personality trait, nor walking on two feet—virtually all individuals do these activities, and there are almost no individual differences.
But people differ on how frequently they talk and how active they are; thus, personality traits such as Talkativeness and Activity Level exist.
Many contemporary personality psychologists believe that there are five basic dimensions of personality, often referred to as the "Big 5" personality traits.
The five broad personality traits described by the model are Extraversion, Agreeableness, Openness, Conscientiousness, and Neuroticism.
When remembering the big five traits, you might find using the acronym OCEAN (Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism) helpful. Or CANOE (for Conscientiousness, Agreeableness, Neuroticism, Openness, and Extraversion).
- People who like to learn new things and enjoy new experiences usually score high in openness.
- Openness includes traits like being insightful and imaginative and having a wide variety of interests.
Conscientiousness
- People with a high degree of Conscientiousness are reliable and prompt.
- Traits include being organized, methodic, and thorough.
Extraversion
- Extraverts get energy from interacting with others, while introverts get energy from within themselves.
- Extraversion includes energetic, talkative, and assertive traits.
Agreeableness
- These individuals are friendly, cooperative, and compassionate.
- People with low Agreeableness may be more distant.
- Traits include being kind, affectionate, and sympathetic.
Neuroticism
- Neuroticism is also sometimes called Emotional Stability.
- This dimension relates to one's emotional Stability and degree of negative emotions.
- People that score high on Neuroticism often experience emotional instability and negative emotions.
- Traits include being moody and tense.
High Extaaversion
People high in extraversion have been found to carry long forms of the gene DRD4. This gene dictates how we produce dopamine.
Those who carry the long form of the gene DRD4 have more dopamine production after a positive experience.
In other words, high extroverts might be wired to seek more social experiences because they get a more significant chemical pleasure to boost.
- High extraverts love chatting.
- They stop by your cubicle.
- They want to go out to lunch.
- They love planning happy hours.
- They’re the ones who plan office birthday parties.
Many extraverts even have little games and pictures at their desks to capture your attention and lure you in for conversations.
Bringing treats to share with people at work is another thing they’ll do to engage people in casual conversations.
Low Extraversion
If you are a low extravert, often called an introvert, you might keep to yourself a little more and not be as chatty at the office.
Depending on how social your job is, you might need downtime after work, so you might not go to the happy hour or office birthday party. If you go, you often only stay for a bit because you must go home to recharge.
If you catch them eating lunch alone, it’s probably not because they’re antisocial or something is wrong; they likely needed a few minutes to themselves because that is how they process.
High Conscientiousness
People with conscientiousness have been found to have more volume in the middle frontal gyrus in the left lateral pre-frontal cortex part of the brain.
This is where we plan for the future and make decisions.
In other words, highly conscientious people might enjoy planning and preparing more because they have more activity in that part of their brain.
People with high conscientiousness love to-do lists and routines.
They’re highly organized, and they always have an agenda.
Low Conscientious
People with low conscientiousness prefer big ideas.
To-do lists and detail-oriented things are going to be overwhelming for them.
They talk with vague, big-picture ideas, but this isn’t bad.
Low conscientious people tend to be great at creating strategies because they can look past all the little details involved in projects and see what needs to be done in the long term.
High Agreeableness
People high in agreeableness have been found to have less volume in the orbitofrontal lobe of their brain—this is where we process emotions and make decisions.
One study also found that highly agreeable people have an easier time predicting the mental states of others.
In other words, perhaps they are good at working in teams because they excel at understanding and forecasting behavioral and emotional states.
The most agreeable person you work with is someone who says yes, is very empathetic, and loves being a team player.
Suppose you say, “Hey! Want to do this?” A highly agreeable will respond with, “Sure, I’ll try it!”
Low Agreeableness
People with low agreeable are data-driven and highly analytical.
They want to see stats, charts, and facts to back up every claim, and if you tell them something you heard on the news or the radio, their first instinct is to google it to verify.
If you interact with a low agreeable person, remember that they will want written information with lots of data to back it up before they are willing to say yes.
High Neuroticism
People high in neuroticism have been found to carry long forms of the Serotonin Transport Gene.
This gene helps us produce serotonin, which calms us down.
However, high neurotics build serotonin more slowly, so they struggle to regulate their emotions after an adverse event.
They also feel their emotions more intensely and for a more extended period.
In other words, neurotics worry more because it physiologically takes them longer to recover from something terrible happening to them.
Low Neuroticism
People with low neuroticism respond to difficulties by saying ‘It’s all going to work out just fine.”
Low neurotics aren’t worried about things happening in the moment or the future.
They can be a good balance for high neurotics because having someone who worries and rarely gets stressed out by problems means that when you work together, you can find a balance.
Low Openness
Someone who is low open prefers tradition and routine.
So, think about the person who loves doing things the same way.
They start their day by checking their email, working on their main project, going to lunch, rechecking email, etc.
If you made them do the project before the email, their brains would explode.
Low-open people are focused on things staying the same and are change averse.
10 questions based on brief version of The Big Five Inventory (BFI-10) questionnaire