The Big Five Model of Personality

The Big Five model or OCEAN model is one of the most famous ways to structure personality. It is used to carry out a multitude of studies. Now, what exactly does the Big Five model of personality consist of?

This model is based on Personality can be divided into 5 mutually independent traits. These traits are: extraversion, neuroticism, empathy, openness and conscientiousness. Knowing the values ​​that an individual has in each of them allows us to know their personality.

To achieve a greater understanding of the Big Five model, it is important to take into account 2 aspects. The first of them is to know what they refer to and how each of the features are described and, the second, to know the criticisms that have been made of it. Let’s dig deeper.

Features of the Big Five Model

Theories of personality traits have attempted to determine exactly how many Personality traits exist. Theories prior to it have suggested several 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 believed that Cattell’s theory was too complicated and Eysenck’s too limited in scope. As a consequence of the above, the five-factor theory emerged to describe the essential traits that serve as basic components of personality.

Extraversion

Through this trait, the individual’s disposition towards personal interactions is evaluated, that is, the level of activity and stimulation that the person has when interacting with others. It is also closely related to the degree of pleasure or enjoyment that is acquired through social relationships.

High scores indicate that we are dealing with sociable, talkative, people-oriented individuals, optimists, dThey enjoy being the center of attention, they find it easy to make new friends, they are fun loving and affectionate. On the other hand, low scores would indicate individuals who find it difficult to make friends and start conversations, reserved, sober, not euphoric, lonely, quiet or withdrawn.

Neuroticism

With neuroticism, what we seek to evaluate is emotional adjustment vs. emotional instability. This trait identifies individuals with a tendency toward psychological distress, unrealistic ideas, excessive rumination or craving, and maladaptive coping responses.

A high score in neuroticism would be an indicator of people who are worried, nervous, emotional, sensitive to stress, insecure or hypochondriac. On the contrary, those individuals with a low score would be characterized as relaxed, non-emotional, secure, emotionally stable, resilient, self-satisfied, do not worry much and have high self-esteem.

Empathy

This trait is useful to know the quality of interpersonal orientation. Empathy occurs along a continuum, ranging from compassion to antagonism in thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. That is, it has to do with to what extent the individual is capable or not of putting himself in the place of another and acting according to his emotions and concerns.

If an individual scores high on empathy, he or she will be compassionate, kind, trusting, attentive, not spiteful, gullible, or frank. On the other hand, a low score shows us a cynical, rude, suspicious, competitive, vengeful, ruthless, irritable, indifferent and manipulative person.

Openness to experience

This trait assesses the extent to which an individual actively seeks out new experiences and enjoys non-routine activities. Basically, it is responsible for measuring tolerance and exploration of unfamiliar situations.

A high score in this trait shows us people who are curious, open to trying new things, with broad interests, creative, original, imaginative or non-traditional. In contrast, if the score is low, we will be faced with people who do not like change, do not enjoy new things, are conventional, pragmatic, realistic and have few interests.

Conscientiousness or thoroughness

It is responsible for evaluating the degree of organization, persistence and motivation for goal-directed behavior.. It differentiates people between those who are dedicated to ensuring that the result of their work is optimal and perfect and those who do not care about the results of their performance.

If you score high in conscientiousness we will be faced with individuals who are organized, planners, formal, hard-working, punctual, orderly, attentive to details, ambitious or persevering. And those who have low scores will be characterized as people without objectives, informal, lazy, careless, undisciplined, procrastinators and with little willpower.

What factors influence the big five traits?

Biological and environmental influences have important functions in the formation of our personality. A twin study suggests that both nature like nurture They play a role in the development of each of the five personality factors. That research found that a broad genetic influence on the five dimensions: neuroticism (41%), extraversion (53%), openness to experience (61%), empathy (41%) and conscientiousness (44%).

Criticism of the big five model

Although the Big Five model is widely used in psychology, you have to be cautious with it. Personality is a difficult construct to measure and involves a series of methodological difficulties. Therefore, the big five model may suffer from a few flaws.

The first of them is that To measure different personality traits, self-report is usually used. This is a type of test in which the subject gives the answers explicitly. This makes it easy to lie and respond according to social desirability.

Another possible error is the existence of biases as the subject judges himself. From social psychology studies we know that there are many biases that make us value ourselves more positively than others. In the Big Five model, when measured by self-report, the responses tend to have very little objectivity.

And possibly, the biggest flaw that this model can have is that It is based on the study of personality as a trait. This is a very internalist approach, and forgets the possible interaction of the individual with the environment. This creates a rigid model, according to which personality remains stable in all situations. However, studies suggest that personality is somewhat unstable and is created through a strong interaction between the individual and their context.

To conclude, despite its errors and criticisms, This model may have some convenience in stable contexts taking into account its limitations.. It can even have other uses, such as measuring a person’s self-concept. After all, it is a very interesting model with statistical data that supports its reliability, as long as it is used with some care.

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