Big Five: The Five-Factor Model of Personality #AtoZChallenge

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. For my letter B post in the #AtoZChallenge on personal growth, I’d like to discuss the five-factor model of personality, also known as the Big Five.

The Big Five are five personality traits that psychologists think comprise the human personality. These were proposed based on factor analysis of words people use to describe someone’s behavior. Apparently, these five traits encompass all aspects of the human personality.

Unlike with some other personality typologies, the Big Five isn’t a dichotomous system. Rather, the traits are a spectrum ranging from one extreme to the other and everyone falls somewhere along the spectrum on each trait.

The traits are commonly summed up in the CANOE or OCEAN acronym. They are:


  • Conscientiousness: efficient/organized vs. haphazard/careless.

  • Agreeableness: sympathetic/cooperative vs. cold/competitive.

  • Neuroticism (or low emotional stability): moody/nervous vs. relaxed/calm.

  • Openness to experience: imaginative/philosophical vs. uncreative/unintellectual.

  • Extraversion: bold/energetic vs. shy/bashful.

As you can probably see, most of these traits are not formulated in a morally neutral way. For example, it’s often seen as better to be efficient and organized than to be careless. As such, a high score on all subscales (except for neuroticism) is generally seen as desirable.

I took a Big Five test once when in college and scored badly on all subscales except for openness to experience. Then again, there was a validity scale too, which scored how much you tend to answer in socially acceptable ways even if this isn’t genuine. On this subscale, I scored such that it’s likely that I rate myself more negatively than I am.

How valid are the Big Five in actually assessing someone’s personality? Studies have shown that they can be measured, but whether these are the real or only important personality traits, is still up for debate. For example, some researchers have suggested a sixth trait: honesty vs. humility. Do you notice how this one is actually worded in a morally neutral way?

28 thoughts on “Big Five: The Five-Factor Model of Personality #AtoZChallenge”

  3. Thanks for the wonderful information. I was looking for some kind of easy way to have my neurotic heroine classify herself and you’ve sent me down the road I needed. Hope you don’t mind if I pinch this idea.

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  4. I’ve run across the Big Five before and found it helpful, with that big caveat that the two poles aren’t morally neutral which only encourages judgmentalism, something I try to avoid.

    Also, I feel like these could be seen as journeys. For example, I’ve worked to develop more calmness and to be a bit more extraverted.

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    1. Yes, I see. The validity scale is there to solve a bit of that problem. In case you don’t know what it is, a validity scale, sometimes called a “liar scale”, has questions on it that are judgmental in nature but that are really meant to trick people who think they know how to answer favorably, because people who answer honestly, would admit on that scale that they do some things that aren’t socially appropriate. Like I said, I scored in such a way on the scale that indicates I actually rate myself more negatively than I am.

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