Big Five Major Personality Traits

When psychologist first tried to determine a way to identify personal trait, they created a list of words that that described observable traits out of a dictionary. In later efforts to pinpoint personality traits, this list was condensed to 16 major personality traits. “A common theme found in the work of early trait theorists is that relatively few traits are required to describe and predict an individual’s behavior accurately.” This lead way to The Big Five Theory. This can be described as recognizing five core traits, which are openness to experience, conscientiousness, surgency or extroversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism. Through this theory, physiologists were able to create a personality test that classifies its testers based on

This trait can be defined as competence, order, dutifulness, achievement striving, self-discipline, and deliberation. Most people are reliable, work hard, and complete tasks on time when they score high on this trait. In contrast, those who score low on this trait tend to be more unreliable, somewhat lazy, and undependable. Although it seems like the people who score very low on this part of the test would be frustrating to work with, they can sometimes be useful when recognized pointless unnecessary steps, or be able to more effectively think outside the

People who are extroverts are most often warm, gregarious, assertive, active, feel positive emoting in addition to being excitement seekers. The downfall to extroversion is these people tend to be a bit insensitive and overbearing. The opposite of exerts are introverts. “Introversion is characterized by coolness, reserve, passivity, and caution, although introverts also tend to be sensitive and reflective.” Extraverts are more likely to be found at large parties with many people than their counter introverts who would rather have time to themselves.

This trait, agreeableness, is seen in people who demonstrate trust, straightforwardness, altruism, compliance, modesty, and tender mindedness. When people score low on this part of the test, they often tend to be cynical, uncooperative, 
and rude. Although scoring very low in this part of the test appears to be completely negative, those who do score low find it easier to make tough decisions in business. One study showed that men who scored below the mean on measures of agreeableness earned 18% more than men who were scored higher than