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Big Five (The Five‐Factor Model and The Five‐Factor Theory)

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DOI: 10.1002/9781118339893.wbeccp054

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Big Five (The Five-Factor
Model and The Five-Factor
Theory)
Irina A. Novikova
Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia, Russia
The Big Five factors (the Five Factor Model,
FFM; or the global factors of personality) is
one of the contemporary versions of factor
models of personality developed in the
framework of trait theory. The Big Five per-
sonality traits are the most basic dimensions
in the structure of human personality that
determine the features of human thinking,
feeling, and behavior. This model of person-
ality suggests that all people, regardless of
gender, age, or culture, share the same basic
traits, but differ in the degree of their
manifestation.
The Big Five factors and their constituent traits
are Openness to Experience (O), Conscientiousness
(C), Extraversion (E), Agreeableness (A), and
Neuroticism (N); common acronyms for the Big
Five are OCEAN, NEOAC, or CANOE. Each
of  the Big Five dimensions is a combination
of  several distinct but closely related traits,
which  describe a continuum between two
extreme poles.
People who score high on Openness to
Experience (also called Openness, Culture, or
Intellect) are usually artistic, curious, imagina-
tive, and original; and have wide interests,
sensitivity to aesthetic experiences and fantasy,
and a rich emotional life. People low in
Openness have a narrower set of interests
and  are more conventional in their outlook
and behavior; they are closed to new ideas and
experience their emotions less intensely.
Persons who have high scores on
Conscientiousness strive to achieve high
standards and are self-disciplined, orderly,
deliberate, responsible, thorough, and dutiful.
The Encyclopedia of Cross-Cultural Psychology, First Edition. Edited by Kenneth D. Keith.
© 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2013 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
1
Low-conscientious persons rarely plan ahead;
they may be careless and disorganized in
personal matters, and often fail to establish a
well-defined set of life goals.
Highly Extraverted (or Surgency) people are
warm, talkative, assertive, active and energetic,
cheerful, and high in positive affect; they
generally like to be around others and prefer
stimulating environments. Introverted people,
in contrast, like to be alone or with a few
close  friends; they are reserved and serious,
value  their independence, and prefer quiet
environments.
People high in Agreeableness are altruistic,
cooperative, compassionate, appreciative, for-
giving, generous, kind, sympathetic, and trust
the good intentions of others. Disagreeable
people, in contrast, tend to be characterized by
antagonism, skepticism, and a competitive
rather than cooperative approach to life.
People who score high on Neuroticism are
emotionally sensitive; they become upset easily
and frequently experience negative emotions.
This pole of Neuroticism also includes sad-
ness, anger, anxiety, worry, self-consciousness,
vulnerability to stress, and a tendency to
act  impulsively. People who score low on
Neuroticism are calm and emotionally stable
(the N factor is sometimes referred to by its
low pole – “Emotional Stability”). Even under
stressful conditions, low-N people remain con-
fident and experience few negative emotions.
There are several versions of the five-factor
model, which are slightly different on the
names of factors and the methods used to find
the five traits. Ernest Tupes and Raymond
Christal proposed the first model in 1961
(Tupes & Christal, 1961). Using Raymond
Cattell’s (e.g., 1957) trait measures, they found
five factors, which they named Surgency,
Agreeableness, Dependability, Emotional
Stability, and Culture. Warren Norman (1963)
replicated this work, and named the factors
Surgency, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness,
2
Emotional Stability, and Culture. Cattell
(1957), with a second-order factor analysis
of  16 personality traits, discovered five
second-order or global factors: Extraversion;
Independence/Accommodation; Self-Control;
Anxiety; and Openness/Tough-mindedness.
Working independently, Lewis Goldberg
(1992) derived five factors (Extraversion,
Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Emotional
Stability, and Intellect), and he coined the term
“Big Five” as a label for the factors.
In 1992, Paul T. Costa, Jr. and Robert R.
McCrae proposed a five-factor model variant,
the FFM, which is an empirical generalization
about the covariation of personality traits. In
studying factorially analyzed trait personality
theories, they found more agreement at the level
of the higher-order factors than lower-order
factors. Initially, they found evidence of the
existence of the broad and agreed-upon traits of
Neuroticism (N) and Extraversion (E), but
factor analysis also led them to add a third
broad  trait, Openness to Experience (O). The
Neuroticism-Extroversion-Openness Inventory
(NEO-I) was designed to measure these
traits.  Later, Costa and McCrae recognized
two  more  factors: Agreeableness (A) and
Conscientiousness (C) and revised the NEO to
include all five traits and renamed the NEO
Personality Inventory (NEO PI). They published
a Revised NEO (NEO-PI-R) manual, including
six facets for each factor (30 total). There are two
forms for the NEO-PI-R, one for self report
(form S) and one for observer rating (form R);
both forms have 240 items (descriptions of
behavior) answered on a five-point scale. Finally,
there is a 60-item assessment of domains called
the NEO FFI (Neuroticism-Extroversion-
Openness Five-Factor Inventory). The final list
of the personality dimensions measured by the
NEO PI-R, including facets, is as follows:
Neuroticism – Anxiety, Hostility, Depression, Self-
Consciousness, Impulsiveness, Vulnerability to
Stress
Extraversion – Warmth, Gregariousness,
Assertiveness, Activity, Excitement Seeking,
Positive Emotion
Openness to Experience – Fantasy, Aesthetics,
Feelings, Actions, Ideas, Values
Agreeableness – Trust, Straightforward-
ness, Altruism, Compliance, Modesty,
Tendermindedness
Conscientiousness – Competence, Order,
Dutifulness, Achievement Striving, Self-
Discipline, Deliberation
In the late 1990s, McCrae and Costa proposed
the Five-Factor Theory (FFT), which is an
attempt to conceptualize findings about person-
ality traits in the context of the development and
function of the personality system. FFT pro-
posed to consider the interaction between
biology and culture in the development of habits,
attitudes, values, roles, and relationships, which
express both individual traits and the role of the
social environment. McRae suggested that anal-
ysis should be conducted on three levels: trans-
cultural, intracultural, and intercultural analysis.
Transcultural analyses look for universals in per-
sonality that transcend cultural differences: If, as
FFT asserts, N, E, O, A, and C are biologically-
based aspects of human nature, then they must
be universal. And now, a large number of studies
has replicated the FFM in all the studied cultures.
Intracultural analyses examine the specific
expression of traits in a given culture. For
example, McCrae reported culture-level factor
analyses of NEO-PI-R facet scores: The resulting
factors reflect the covariation of traits across cul-
tures. Intercultural analyses compare cultures’
aggregated trait characteristics, and study their
relations to aspects of culture. Some research has
found relations between Geert Hofstede’s (1980)
cultural dimensions (Individualism, Power
Distance, Masculinity, and Uncertainty
Avoidance) and average Big Five scores in a
country. For instance, the degree to which a
country values Individualism correlates with its
average Extraversion, while people living in cul-
tures accepting of large inequalities in their
power structures tend to score higher on
Conscientiousness.
Thus, according to FFT, personality traits
are genetically based biological dispositions.
Research has shown that personal profiles of

people of the same country tend to be similar. Or,
in the case of multinational countries such as
Russia, the members of one community or resi-
dents of a national republic have similar profiles.
Moreover, matches are found among people
living in neighboring countries and speaking
related languages, or having similar ethnicity.
Supporters of the FFT believe that people develop
specific patterns of thoughts, feelings, and behav-
iors (also referred to as characteristic adapta-
tions) depending on their relative standing on
the basic five traits and in interaction with their
individual environments. Although the five basic
tendencies are thought to remain generally stable
over time, characteristic adaptations may change.
Some researchers have argued that the
FFM is not a complete theory of personality
(or hardly a theory of personality at all). Block
(2010) summarized criticism of the Big Five
model in terms of: 1) the atheoretical nature of
the five-factors; 2) the five factors’ “cloudy”
measurement; 3) the model’s inappropriateness
for studying early childhood; 4) the use of factor
analysis as the exclusive paradigm for concep-
tualizing personality; 5) the continuing non-
consensual understandings of the five factors;
and 6) the existence of various unrecognized
but successful efforts to specify aspects of
character not subsumed by the five-factors.
Nevertheless, despite the criticisms the Big Five
is one of the most popular models of personality
used in modern cross-cultural psychology.
SEE ALSO: Allik, Juri; Dimensions of Culture;
Eysenck, Hans; Factor Analysis; Personality;
Personality Assessment; Trait, Trait Theory
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References
Block, J. (2010). The five-factor framing of
personality and beyond: Some ruminations.
Psychological Inquiry, 21, 2–25.
Cattell, R. B. (1957). Personality and motivation
structure and measurement. New York, NY:
World Books.
Costa, P. T. Jr., & McCrae, R.R. (1992). Revised NEO
Personality Inventory (NEO-PI-R) and NEO
Five-Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI) manual.
Odessa, FL: Psychological Assessment Resources.
Goldberg, L. R. (1992). The development of
markers for the Big-Five factor structure. Journal
of Personality and Social Psychology, 59,
1216–1229.
Hofstede, G. H. (1980). Culture’s consequences:
International differences in work-related values.
Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
Norman, W. (1963). Toward an adequate taxonomy
of personality attributes: Replicated factor
structure in peer nomination personality ratings.
Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 66,
574–583.
Tupes, E. C., & Christal, R. E. (1961). Recurrent
personality factors based on trait ratings. USAF
ASD Technical Report No. 61–97. Lackland Air
Force Base, TX: U.S. Air Force.
Further Reading
John, O. P., Naumann, L. P., & Soto, C. J. (2008).
Paradigm shift to the integrative Big Five trait
taxonomy. In O. P. John, R. W. Robins, & L. A.
Pervin (Eds.), Handbook of personality: Theory
and research (3rd ed.) (pp. 114–158). New York,
NY: The Guilford Press.
McCrae, R. R., & Allik J. (Eds.). (2002) The
Five-Factor Model of personality across cultures.
New York, NY: Kluwer Academic.