The 5-Factor Model AKA The “Big 5”

Five Factor Model History: Lexical Hypothesis (1936) Allport and Odbert. – 17,953 trait terms in English. – Divided these into groups. – Identified 4,500 stable trait terms. (1943) Cattell – Reduced the list to 171 clusters. – Later refined it to 35 groups of personality traits. (1949) Fiske – Through factor analysis identified five factors.

Big Five History, Continued  (1961) Tupes and Christal  – Expanded on Fiske’s work with larger  sample.  Current.  – Same five factors identified in many  languages and cultures.

The Five Factors  Openness  Conscientiousness  Extraversion  Agreeableness  Neuroticism

Universality The Big Five are based on an analysis of the relation between trait words in the English language. Studies in other languages have shown that similar factors emerge in other languages. This finding suggests that the Big Five characterize universal human traits. Openness received the weakest support for universality.

Issues and Contributions  Issues  – Where do the factors come from?  – Descriptive.  – How comprehensive?  Contributions  – Framework across cultures and languages.  – Strong empirical support.

Pure Markers of the Big Five Openness: artistic, creative, broad interests, cultured, knowledgeable Conscientiousness: careful, fussy, tidy, hardworking, neat, punctual Extraversion: extraverted, frank, talkative, fun loving, sociable Agreeableness: acquiescent, mild, gentle, softhearted Neuroticism: angry, anxious, worried, guilt ridden, nervous

Relation between Big Five dimensions One goal of factor analysis is to find dimensions that are not correlated with each other (orthogonal). The Big Five are supposed to be uncorrelated with each other. A score on one dimension does not predict scores on other dimensions. In reality, some weak correlations exists. For example, neuroticism tends to be negatively correlated with extraversion, agreeableness, and conscientiousness.

Problems of the Big Five Surely, scores on five factors cannot capture all aspects of individual differences. What important traits are not represented?

Factor analysis also does not provide a clear answer to the number of factors. Different researchers have argued for different numbers of factors. The Five Factor Model has become the dominant classification system in the past 20 years.