520 The Big Five ver 3.0 S08 personality

1. Jeremy Alexander
Doug Berry
Gayle Oatley
THE BIG FIVE
February 2, 2008

2. What is the Big Five?
 Personality Traits or Personality Dimensions
 An integration of personality research that
represents the various personality descriptions in
one common framework.
 Individual differences in social and emotional life
organized into a five-factor model of personality
 “broad abstract level and each dimension
summarized a larger number of … personality
characteristics” (Oliver & Srivastava, 1999)

3. Wheredid the Big Fivecome from?
 Personality relevant terms from dictionary
 Lexical hypothesis: most of the socially relevant
and salient personality characteristics have
become encoded in the natural language.
 Allport and Odbert (1936): 18,000 terms, identified
4 categories
 Cattell (1943) : broke 18,000 down to subset of
4,500 trait terms, then down to 35
 Tupes and Christal (1961) through analysis found
five factors

4. Factor I
 Extroversion, Sociability, Surgency
 High
 Sociable
 Energetic
 Adventurous
 Enthusiastic
 Outgoing
 Low
 Quite
 Reserved
 Shy

5. Factor II
 Agreeableness
 High
 Forgiving
 Kind
 Appreciative
 Trusting
 Sympathetic
 Low
 Cold
 Unfriendly
 Quarrelsome

6. Factor III
 Conscientiousness
 High
 Organized
 Thorough
 Deliberate
 Responsible
 Precise
 Low
 Careless
 Disorderly
 Frivolous

7. Factor IV
 Emotional Stability (Neuroticism)
 High
 Tense
 Moody
 Anxious
 Fearful
 Touchy
 Low
 Stable
 Calm
 Contented

8. FactorV
 Openness to Experience
 Curious
 Imaginative
 Wide interests
 Original
 Intelligent
 Low
 Narrow interests
 Simple
 Shallow

9. Examplesof personality tests
 NEO Five Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI)
 Full sentences, 240 items
 (Costa & McCrey , 1988)
 Big Five Inventory (BFI)
 Short phrases, 44 items
 (John & Srivastava, 1999)
 Trait Descriptive Adjectives TDI
 100 trait-descriptive adjectives
 (Goldberg, 1992)

10. Extraversion and Agreeableness

11. Conscientiousnessand Neuroticism

12. Openness

13. Reliabilitiesof Big 5 Tests

14. ConvergentValidities of Big 5 Tests

15. Validity Coefficients from Confirmatory
FactorAnalysis

16. The Big 5 and Job Performance
 Barrick, M. R., & Mount, M. K. (1991). The Big Five personality dimensions and
job performance: A meta-analysis. Personnel Psychology, 44 (1), 1-26.
 C showed consistent relations with all job performance criteria for
all occupational groups
 E predicted success in management and sales (requiring social
interaction)
 O and E predicted training proficiency
 A and N predict performance when employees work in groups

17. Meta-Analysis Results

18. The Big 5 and Job Satisfaction
 Judge, T. A., Heller, D., & Mount, M. K. (2002). Five-factor model of personality
and job satisfaction: A meta-analysis. Journal of Applied Psychology, 87 (3).
 Job satisfaction was correlated with each of the traits individually
(see next slide)
 Only the relationships between N and E and job satisfaction
generalized across all studies
 Together, the Big 5 traits had a multiple correlation of .41 with job
satisfaction

19. Meta-Analysis Results

20. Criticismsof the “Big Five”
 According to Block (1995) and others…
 A frequent objection to the Big Five is that five
dimensions cannot possibly capture all of the
variation in human personality
 The dimensions are much too broad
 Not all support the Big Five, because there are
discrepancies surrounding “which Big Five,” and so
on. Of the five factors, each seems to have many
different names

21. Criticismsof the “Big Five”
 The fact that the labels differ does not mean they
are different, though. There is a large amount of
communality across various labels
 Other names for all five:
 Need for stability, originality, extroversion,
accommodation, consolidation

22. Criticismsof the “Big Five”
 Most of the other four factors generalize across
cultures and countries, but the fifth factor
(openness to experience) is usually the dimension
that varies
 In Netherlands, their ‘openness to experience’
emphasized unconventionality and rebelliousness,
rather than intellect and imagination (as in ours)

23. Criticismsof the “Big Five”
 The advantage of categories as broad as the “Big
Five” is their enormous bandwidth
 Their disadvantage, of course, is their low fidelity
 Extremely useful for some initial rough
distinctions but of less value for predicting specific
behaviors of a particular object

24. Namesand methodsof assessment
 Lexical - The term
"Big Five" was coined
by Lew Goldberg
 Originally associated
with studies of
personality traits used
in natural language
 Tend to call the fifth
factor “intellect” or
“imagination”
• Questionnaire - The
term "Five-Factor
Model" has been more
commonly associated
with studies of traits
using personality
questionnaires
• Developed by Costa &
McCrae
 Tend to call the fifth
factor “openness to
experience”

25. Goldberg’s (1992) Personality Questionnaire
Please use this list of common human traits to describe yourself as accurately as possible. Describe
yourself as you see yourself at the present time not as you wish to be in the future. Describe yourself as
your are generally or typically, as compared with other persons you know of the same sex and of roughly
your same age. Before each trait, please write a number indicating how accurately that trait describes
you, using the following rating scale:
Inaccurate Accurate
____________________________________ ___________________________________
Extremely Very Quite Slightly Neither Slightly Quite Very Extremely
____ Active ____Extraverted ____ Negligent ____ Trustful
____ Agreeable ____ Fearful ____ Nervous ____ Unadventurous
____ Anxious ____ Fretful ____ Organized ____ Uncharitable
____ Artistic ____ Generous ____ Philosophical ____ Uncooperative
____ Assertive ____ Haphazard ____ Pleasant ____ Uncreative
____ Bashful ____ Harsh ____ Practical ____ Undemanding
____ Bold ____ Helpful ____ Prompt ____ Undependable
____ Bright ____ High-strung ____ Quiet ____ Unemotional
____ Careful ____ Imaginative ____ Relaxed ____ Unenvious
____ Careless ____ Imperceptive ____ Reserved ____ Unexcitable
____ Cold ____ Imperturbable ____ Rude ____ Unimaginative
____ Complex ____ Impractical ____ Self-pitying ____ Uninquisitive
____ Conscientious ____ Inconsistent ____ Selfish ____ Unintellectual
____ Considerate ____ Inefficient ____ Shallow ____ Unintelligent
____ Cooperative ____ Inhibited ____ Shy _____Unkind
____ Creative ____ Innovative ____ Simple _____Unreflective
____ Daring ____ Insecure ____ Sloppy _____Unrestrained
____ Deep ____ Intellectual ____ Steady _____Unsophisticated
____ Demanding ____ Introspective ____ Sympathetic _____Unsympathetic
____ Disorganized ____ Introverted ____ Systematic _____Unsystematic
____ Distrustful ____ Irritable ____ Talkative _____Untalkative
____ Efficient ____ Jealous ____ Temperamental _____Verbal
____ Emotional ____ Kind ____ Thorough _____Vigorous
____ Energetic ____ Moody ____ Timid _____ Warm
____ Envious ____ Neat ____ Touchy _____ Withdrawn

26. Support for lexical approach
 Their interest is primarily in the language of
personality
 These concepts are of interest because language
encodes the characteristics that are central for
cultural, social, or biological reasons, to human life
and experience
 So….they highlight the important and meaningful
psychological phenomena

27. Criticismsof lexical approach
 There may exist important characteristics
that people may not be able to observe and
describe verbally
 If so, the agenda specified by the lexical
approach may be incomplete and would
need to be supplemented by more
theoretically driven approaches

28. Mini-Test
1. Restrained or Emotional
2. Dependent or Independent
3. Firm or Changeable
4. Anxious or Tranquil
5. Unconcerned or Self-Critical
6. Talkative or Untalkative
7. Serious or Cheerful
8. Sluggish or Energetic
9. Extroverted or Introverted
10. Shy or Forward
11. Satisfied or Curious
12. Unaware or Observant
13. Logical or Imaginative
14. Practical or Insightful
15. Curious or Uninquisitive
16. Irritable or Pleasant
17. Neighborly or Impersonal
18. Strict or Lenient
19. Helpful or Reluctant
20. Cooperative or Resistant
21. Efficient or Sloppy
22. Carefree or Responsible
23. Precise or Inexact
24. Reliable or Forgetful
25. Inattentive or Cautious

29. BFI Individual Scores
totE totA totC totN totO
2.50 3.56 3.78 4.25 3.30
2.38 3.44 4.78 2.75 3.30
4.50 3.89 3.56 2.13 3.40
2.25 5.00 4.44 2.50 3.10
2.38 4.33 4.22 1.75 3.70
2.88 2.33 4.11 3.75 4.20
4.00 3.89 4.00 2.25 4.00
2.25 4.11 4.56 2.13 3.10
2.88 3.22 4.89 2.63 3.50
4.38 4.11 4.00 2.00 4.40
4.63 4.44 4.00 2.13 3.50
4.63 4.11 3.00 2.75 3.50
4.25 3.78 3.89 2.88 3.20
3.75 4.56 3.89 4.13 3.30
Number of cases read: 14 Number of cases listed: 14

30. BFI Class Averages
N Minimum Maximum Mean Stan. Dev.
totE
totA
totC
totN
totO
Valid N
(listwise)
14
14
14
14
14
14
2.25
2.33
3.00
1.75
3.10
4.63
5.00
4.89
4.25
4.40
3.4018
3.9127
4.0794
2.7143
3.5357
.97957
.65107
.49197
.79425
.40308