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. Where did the Big Five come 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. Factor V Openness to Experience Curious Imaginative Wide interests Original Intelligent Low Narrow interests Simple Shallow

9. Examples of 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. Conscientiousness and Neuroticism

12. Openness

13. Reliabilities of Big 5 Tests

14. Convergent Validities of Big 5 Tests

15. Validity Coefficients from Confirmatory Factor Analysis

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. Criticisms of 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. Criticisms of 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. Criticisms of 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. Criticisms of 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. Names and methods of 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”

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. Criticisms of 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 NMinimumMaximumMeanStan. Dev. totE totA totC totN totO Valid N (listwise) 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