Big five personality traits - Definition and Overview

In psychology, the big five personality traits are an approach to personality theory. It uses major clusters of personality traits identified by Paul Costa and Robert McRae in 1987. They arrived with the traits using factor analysis over a list of 35 traits identified by Raymond Cattell, eliminating any traits that correlate directly with one another. The big five personality traits are as follows:

• Neuroticism: a tendency to easily experience unpleasant emotions
• Extraversion: a tendency to seek stimulation and the company of others
• Agreeableness: a tendency to be compassionate rather than antagonistic about others
• Conscientiousness: a tendency to show self-discipline, act dutiful, and aim for achievement and competence
• Openness to new experience: a tendency to enjoy new intellectual experiences and ideas

Later psychologists added other personality traits they believed just as important, believing that they were excluded only because of their lack of synonyms within the English language. These are:

• Religiousness
• Manipulativeness
• Honesty
• Sexiness
• Thriftiness
• Conservativeness
• Masculinity/Femininity
• Snobbishness
• Sense of humor

See also

• Trait theory
• Myers-Briggs Type Indicator