Nature versus nurture is a long-standing debate in biology and society about the relative influence on human behavior of their genetic inheritance or biology (nature) and the environmental conditions of their development (nurture).
Nature is what people think of as pre-wiring and is influenced by
genetic inheritance and other biological factors. Nurture is generally
taken as the influence of external factors after conception e.g. the
product of exposure, experience, and learning on an individual.
The view that humans acquire all or almost all their behavioral traits from "nurture" was termed tabula rasa ('blank tablet, slate') by John Locke in 1690. A blank slate view (sometimes termed blank-slatism) in human developmental psychology,
which assumes that human behavioral traits develop almost exclusively
from environmental influences, was widely held during much of the 20th
century. The debate between "blank-slate" denial of the influence of heritability,
and the view admitting both environmental and heritable traits, was at
the core of an ideological dispute over research agendas throughout the
second half of the 20th century.
Today, the idea of a strong dichotomy of nature versus
nurture is generally considered to have limited relevance. Both
"nature" and "nurture" factors have been found to contribute
substantially, often in an inextricable manner, to many processes
studied by biologists, psychologists and anthropologists. Feedback loops have been found in which nature and nurture influence one another constantly, as seen in self-domestication. In ecology and behavioral genetics, researchers posit that nurture has an essential influence on the nature of an individual. Similarly in other fields, the dividing line between an inherited and an acquired trait has become unclear, as in epigenetics and fetal development.
History of the debate
According to Records of the Grand Historian (94 BC) by Sima Qian, during Chen Sheng Wu Guang uprising in 209 B.C., Chen Sheng asked the rhetorical question as a call to war: "Are kings, generals, and ministers merely born into their kind?" (Chinese:王侯將相寧有種乎). Though Chen was obviously negative to the question, the phrase has
often been cited as an early quest into the nature versus nurture
problem.
The question of "innate ideas" or "instincts" was of some importance in the discussion of free will in moral philosophy.
In 18th-century philosophy, this was cast in terms of "innate ideas"
establishing the presence of a universal virtue, a prerequisite for
objective morals. In the 20th century, this argument was in a way
inverted, since some philosophers (J. L. Mackie)
now argued that the evolutionary origins of human behavioral traits
forces us to concede that there is no foundation for ethics, while
others (Thomas Nagel) treated ethics as a field of cognitively valid statements in complete isolation from evolutionary considerations.
Early to mid-20th century
In the early 20th century, there was an increased interest
in the role of one's environment, as a reaction to the strong focus on
pure heredity in the wake of the triumphal success of Darwin's theory of evolution. During this time, the social sciences developed as the project of studying the influence of culture in clean isolation from questions related to "biology. Franz Boas's The Mind of Primitive Man (1911) established a program that would dominate American anthropology for the next 15 years. In this study, he established that in any given population, biology, language, material, and symbolic culture, are autonomous; that each is an equally important dimension of human nature, but that none of these dimensions is reducible to another.
Purist behaviorism
John B. Watson in the 1920s and 1930s established the school of purist behaviorism
that would become dominant over the following decades. Watson is often
said to have been convinced of the complete dominance of cultural
influence over anything that heredity might contribute. This is based on
the following quote which is frequently repeated without context, as
the last sentence is frequently omitted, leading to confusion about
Watson's position:
Give
me a dozen healthy infants, well-formed, and my own specified world to
bring them up in and I'll guarantee to take any one at random and train
him to become any type of specialist I might select – doctor, lawyer,
artist, merchant-chief and, yes, even beggar-man and thief, regardless
of his talents, penchants, tendencies, abilities, vocations, and race of
his ancestors. I am going beyond my facts and I admit it, but so have
the advocates of the contrary and they have been doing it for many
thousands of years.
During the 1940s to 1960s, Ashley Montagu was a notable proponent of this purist form of behaviorism which allowed no contribution from heredity whatsoever:an
is man because he has no instincts, because everything he is and has
become he has learned, acquired, from his culture ... with the exception
of the instinctoid reactions in infants to sudden withdrawals of
support and to sudden loud noises, the human being is entirely
instinctless.
In 1951, Calvin Hall suggested that the dichotomy opposing nature to nurture is ultimately fruitless.
The tool of twin studies was developed as a research design intended to exclude all confounders based on inherited behavioral traits. Such studies are designed to decompose the variability of a given trait
in a given population into a genetic and an environmental component.
Studies using twin neuroimaging methods show that genetic elements
explain more of the variation in cognitive processing than emotional
regulation which indicates that environmental factors play a greater
role in shaping affective traits. Twin studies established that there was, in many cases, a significant
heritable component. These results did not, in any way, point to
overwhelming contribution of heritable factors, with heritability typically ranging around 40% to 50%, so that the controversy may not be cast in terms of purist behaviorism vs. purist nativism. Rather, it was purist behaviorism
that was gradually replaced by the now-predominant view that both kinds
of factors usually contribute to a given trait, anecdotally phrased by Donald Hebb
as an answer to the question "which, nature or nurture, contributes
more to personality?" by asking in response, "Which contributes more to
the area of a rectangle, its length or its width?"
In a comparable avenue of research, anthropologist Donald Brown in the 1980s surveyed hundreds of anthropological studies from around the world and collected a set of cultural universals.
He identified approximately 150 such features, coming to the conclusion
there is indeed a "universal human nature", and that these features
point to what that universal human nature is.
At the height of the controversy, during the 1970s to 1980s, the debate was highly ideologised. In Not in Our Genes: Biology, Ideology and Human Nature (1984), Richard Lewontin, Steven Rose and Leon Kamin criticise "genetic determinism" from a Marxist framework, arguing that "Science is the ultimate legitimator of bourgeois ideology ... If biological determinism
is a weapon in the struggle between classes, then the universities are
weapons factories, and their teaching and research faculties are the
engineers, designers, and production workers." The debate thus shifted
away from whether heritable traits exist to whether it was politically or ethically
permissible to admit their existence. The authors deny this, requesting
that evolutionary inclinations be discarded in ethical and political
discussions regardless of whether they exist or not.
1990s
Heritability studies became much easier to perform, and
hence much more numerous, with the advances of genetic studies during
the 1990s. By the late 1990s, an overwhelming amount of evidence had
accumulated that amounts to a refutation of the extreme forms of
"blank-slatism" advocated by Watson or Montagu.
This revised state of affairs was summarized in books aimed at a popular audience from the late 1990s. In The Nurture Assumption: Why Children Turn Out the Way They Do (1998), Judith Rich Harris was heralded by Steven Pinker as a book that "will come to be seen as a turning point in the history of psychology." However, Harris was criticized for exaggerating the point of "parental
upbringing seems to matter less than previously thought" to the
implication that "parents do not matter."
The situation as it presented itself by the end of the 20th century was summarized in The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature (2002) by Steven Pinker.
The book became a best-seller, and was instrumental in bringing to the
attention of a wider public the paradigm shift away from the
behaviourist purism of the 1940s to 1970s that had taken place over the
preceding decades.
Pinker portrays the adherence to pure blank-slatism as an ideological dogma linked to two other dogmas found in the dominant view of human nature in the 20th century:
"noble savage", in the sense that people are born good and corrupted by bad influence; and
"ghost in the machine", in the sense that there is a human soul capable of moral choices completely detached from biology.
Pinker argues that all three dogmas were held onto for an
extended period even in the face of evidence because they were seen as desirable
in the sense that if any human trait is purely conditioned by culture,
any undesired trait (such as crime or aggression) may be engineered away
by purely cultural (political) means. Pinker focuses on reasons he
assumes were responsible for unduly repressing evidence to the contrary,
notably the fear of (imagined or projected) political or ideological
consequences.
This
chart illustrates three patterns one might see when studying the
influence of genes and environment on traits in individuals. Trait A
shows a high sibling correlation, but little heritability (i.e. high
shared environmental variance c2; low heritability h2).
Trait B shows a high heritability since the correlation of trait rises
sharply with the degree of genetic similarity. Trait C shows low
heritability, but also low correlations generally; this means Trait C
has a high nonshared environmental variance e2.
In other words, the degree to which individuals display Trait C has
little to do with either genes or broadly predictable environmental
factors—roughly, the outcome approaches random for an individual. Notice
also that even identical twins who are raised in a common family rarely
show 100% trait correlation.
The term heritability only refers to the
degree of genetic variation between people on a trait. It does not
refer to the degree to which a trait of a particular individual is due
to environmental or genetic factors. The traits of an individual are
always a complex interweaving of both. For an individual, even strongly genetically influenced, or "obligate"
traits, such as eye color, assume the inputs of a typical environment
during ontogenetic development (e.g., certain ranges of temperatures,
oxygen levels, etc.).
In contrast, the "heritability index" statistically quantifies the extent to which variation between individuals
on a trait is due to variation in the genes those individuals carry. In
animals where breeding and environments can be controlled
experimentally, heritability can be determined relatively easily. Such
experiments would be unethical for human research. This problem can be
overcome by finding existing populations of humans that reflect the
experimental setting the researcher wishes to create.
One way to determine the contribution of genes and environment to a trait is to study twins. In one kind of study, identical twins
reared apart are compared to randomly selected pairs of people. The
twins share identical genes, but different family environments. Twins
reared apart are not assigned at random to foster or adoptive parents.
In another kind of twin study, identical twins reared together (who
share family environment and genes) are compared to fraternal twins
reared together (who also share family environment but only share half
their genes). Another condition that permits the disassociation of genes
and environment is adoption. In one kind of adoption study,
biological siblings reared together (who share the same family
environment and half their genes) are compared to adoptive siblings (who
share their family environment but none of their genes).
In many cases, it has been found that genes make a
substantial contribution, including psychological traits such as
intelligence and personality. Yet heritability may differ in other circumstances, for instance
environmental deprivation. Examples of low, medium, and high
heritability traits include:
Low heritability
Medium heritability
High heritability
Specific language
Weight
Blood type
Specific religion
Religiosity
Eye color
Twin and adoption studies have their methodological
limits. For example, both are limited to the range of environments and
genes which they sample. Almost all of these studies are conducted in
Western countries, and therefore cannot necessarily be extrapolated
globally to include non-western populations. Additionally, both types
of studies depend on particular assumptions, such as the equal environments assumption in the case of twin studies, and the lack of pre-adoptive effects in the case of adoption studies.
Since the definition of "nature" in this context is tied
to "heritability", the definition of "nurture" has consequently become
very wide, including any type of causality that is not heritable. The
term has thus moved away from its original connotation of "cultural
influences" to include all effects of the environment, including;
indeed, a substantial source of environmental input to human nature may arise from stochastic variations in prenatal development and is thus in no sense of the term "cultural".
The interactions of genes with environment, called gene–environment interactions,
are another component of the nature–nurture debate. A classic example
of gene–environment interaction is the ability of a diet low in the
amino acid phenylalanine to partially suppress the genetic disease phenylketonuria. Yet another complication to the nature–nurture debate is the existence of gene–environment correlations.
These correlations indicate that individuals with certain genotypes are
more likely to find themselves in certain environments. Thus, it
appears that genes can shape (the selection or creation of)
environments. Even using experiments like those described above, it can
be very difficult to determine convincingly the relative contribution of
genes and environment. The analogy "genetics loads the gun, but
environment pulls the trigger" has been attributed to Judith Stern.
Heritability refers to the origins of differences between
people. Individual development, even of highly heritable traits, such as
eye color, depends on a range of environmental factors, from the other
genes in the organism, to physical variables such as temperature, oxygen
levels etc. during its development or ontogenesis.
The variability of trait can be meaningfully spoken of as
being due in certain proportions to genetic differences ("nature"), or
environments ("nurture"). For highly penetrantMendelian genetic disorders such as Huntington's disease
virtually all the incidence of the disease is due to genetic
differences. Huntington's animal models live much longer or shorter
lives depending on how they are cared for.
At a molecular level, genes interact with signals from
other genes and from the environment. While there are many thousands of
single-gene-locus traits, so-called complex traits
are due to the additive effects of many (often hundreds) of small gene
effects. A good example of this is height, where variance appears to be
spread across many hundreds of loci.
Extreme genetic or environmental conditions can predominate in rare circumstances—if a child is born mute due to a genetic mutation,
it will not learn to speak any language regardless of the environment;
similarly, someone who is practically certain to eventually develop
Huntington's disease according to their genotype may die in an unrelated
accident (an environmental event) long before the disease will manifest
itself.
The "two buckets" view of heritabilityMore realistic "homogenous mudpie" view of heritability
[C]oncrete
behavioral traits that patently depend on content provided by the home
or culture—which language one speaks, which religion one practices,
which political party one supports—are not heritable at all. But traits
that reflect the underlying talents and temperaments—how proficient with
language a person is, how religious, how liberal or conservative—are
partially heritable.
When traits are determined by a complex interaction of genotype and environment it is possible to measure the heritability
of a trait within a population. However, many non-scientists who
encounter a report of a trait having a certain percentage heritability
imagine non-interactional, additive contributions of genes and
environment to the trait. As an analogy, some laypeople may think of the
degree of a trait being made up of two "buckets," genes and
environment, each able to hold a certain capacity of the trait. But even
for intermediate heritabilities, a trait is always shaped by both
genetic dispositions and the environments in which people develop,
merely with greater and lesser plasticities associated with these
heritability measures.
Heritability measures always refer to the degree of variation between individuals in a population.
That is, as these statistics cannot be applied at the level of the
individual, it would be incorrect to say that while the heritability
index of personality is about 0.6, 60% of one's personality is obtained
from one's parents and 40% from the environment. To help to understand
this, imagine that all humans were genetic clones. The heritability
index for all traits would be zero (all variability between clonal
individuals must be due to environmental factors). And, contrary to
erroneous interpretations of the heritability index, as societies become
more egalitarian (everyone has more similar experiences) the
heritability index goes up (as environments become more similar,
variability between individuals is due more to genetic factors).
One should also take into account the fact that the
variables of heritability and environmentality are not precise and vary
within a chosen population and across cultures. It would be more
accurate to state that the degree of heritability and environmentality
is measured in its reference to a particular phenotype in a chosen group
of a population in a given period of time. The accuracy of the
calculations is further hindered by the number of coefficients taken
into consideration, age being one such variable. The display of the
influence of heritability and environmentality differs drastically
across age groups: the older the studied age is, the more noticeable the
heritability factor becomes, the younger the test subjects are, the
more likely it is to show signs of strong influence of the environmental
factors.
For example, one study found no statistically significant difference in self-reported wellbeing between middle-aged monozygotic
twins separated at birth and those reared in the same household,
suggesting that happiness in middle-aged adults is not based in
environmental factors related to family rearing. The same result was
also found among middle-aged dizygotic
twins. Furthermore, there was significantly more variance in the
dizygotic twins' self-reported wellbeing than there was in the
monozygotic group. Genetic similarity has thus been estimated to account
for around 50% of the variance in adult happiness at a given point in
time, and as much as 80% of the variance in long-term happiness
stability. Other studies have similarly found the heritability of happiness to be around 0.35–0.50.
Some have pointed out that environmental inputs affect the expression of genes. This is one explanation of how environment can influence the extent to which a genetic disposition will actually manifest.
Obligate vs. facultative adaptations
Traits may be considered to be adaptations (such as the
umbilical cord), byproducts of adaptations (the belly button) or due to
random variation (convex or concave belly button shape). An alternative to contrasting nature and nurture focuses on "obligate vs. facultative" adaptations. Adaptations may be generally more obligate (robust in the face of
typical environmental variation) or more facultative (sensitive to
typical environmental variation). For example, the rewarding sweet taste
of sugar and the pain of bodily injury are obligate psychological
adaptations—typical environmental variability during development does
not much affect their operation.
On the other hand, facultative adaptations are somewhat like "if-then" statements. An example of a facultative psychological adaptation may be adult attachment style.
The attachment style of adults, (for example, a "secure attachment
style," the propensity to develop close, trusting bonds with others) is
proposed to be conditional on whether an individual's early childhood
caregivers could be trusted to provide reliable assistance and
attention. An example of a facultative physiological adaptation is
tanning of skin on exposure to sunlight (to prevent skin damage).
Facultative social adaptation have also been proposed. For example,
whether a society is warlike or peaceful has been proposed to be
conditional on how much collective threat that society is experiencing.
Developmental genetic analysis examines the effects of
genes over the course of a human lifespan. Early studies of
intelligence, which mostly examined young children, found that heritability
measured 40–50%. Subsequent developmental genetic analyses found that
variance attributable to additive environmental effects is less apparent
in older individuals, with estimated heritability of IQ increasing in
adulthood.
Multivariate genetic analysis examines the genetic
contribution to several traits that vary together. For example,
multivariate genetic analysis has demonstrated that the genetic
determinants of all specific cognitive abilities (e.g., memory, spatial
reasoning, processing speed) overlap greatly, such that the genes
associated with any specific cognitive ability will affect all others.
Similarly, multivariate genetic analysis has found that genes that
affect scholastic achievement completely overlap with the genes that
affect cognitive ability.
Extremes analysis examines the link between normal and pathological traits. For example, it is hypothesized that a given behavioral disorder may represent an extreme of a
continuous distribution of a normal behavior and hence an extreme of a
continuous distribution of genetic and environmental variation.
Depression, phobias, and reading disabilities have been examined in this
context.
For a few highly heritable traits, studies have identified
loci associated with variance in that trait, for instance in some
individuals with schizophrenia. New research is showing that gene expression can happen in adults due
to environmental stimuli. For example, people with schizophrenic gene
have a genetic predisposition for this illness but the gene lays dormant
in most people. However, if introduced to chronic stress or introducing
some amphetamines it caused the methyl groups to stick to hippocampi
histones.
Cognitive functions have a significant genetic component. A
2015 meta-analysis of over 14 million twin pairs found that genetics
explained 57% of the variability in cognitive functions. Evidence from behavioral genetic research suggests that family environmental factors may have an effect upon childhood IQ, accounting for up to a quarter of the variance. The American Psychological Association's report "Intelligence: Knowns and Unknowns"
(1995) states that there is no doubt that normal child development
requires a certain minimum level of responsible care. Here, environment
is playing a role in what is believed to be fully genetic (intelligence)
but it was found that severely deprived, neglectful, or abusive
environments have highly negative effects on many aspects of children's
intellect development. Beyond that minimum, however, the role of family
experience is in serious dispute. On the other hand, by late adolescence
this correlation disappears, such that adoptive siblings no longer have
similar IQ scores.
Moreover, adoption studies indicate that, by adulthood,
adoptive siblings are no more similar in IQ than strangers (IQ
correlation near zero), while full siblings show an IQ correlation of
0.6. Twin studies reinforce this pattern: monozygotic (identical) twins
raised separately are highly similar in IQ (0.74), more so than
dizygotic (fraternal) twins raised together (0.6) and much more than
adoptive siblings (≈0.0). Recent adoption studies also found that supportive parents can have a positive effect on the development of their children.
Environment's effect on IQ
Other studies have focused on environmental factors that may affect IQ.
For example, research has shown that factors such as access to
education, nutrition, and social support can have a significant impact
on IQ. Recent research shows that children who spend time in nature
develop better executive functioning and attention skills according to
recent meta-analytic studies although the results show small effects
that vary between studies. A study examining the brain-wide associations of hundreds of
environmental and phenotypic factors showed socioeconomic status and IQ
to have similar brain patterns linked to arousal, sleep deprivation and
stress, with socioeconomic status having the stronger brain links,
relative to IQ.
Personality is a frequently cited example of a heritable trait that has been studied in twins and adoptees using behavioral genetic
study designs. The most famous categorical organization of heritable
personality traits were defined in the 1970s by two research teams led
by Paul Costa & Robert R. McCrae and Warren Norman & Lewis
Goldberg in which they had people rate their personalities on 1000+
dimensions they then narrowed these down into "The Big Five"
factors of personality—openness, conscientiousness, extraversion,
agreeableness, and neuroticism. Studies have found that extraversion has
a genetic component, with estimates of heritability ranging from 30% to
50%. The close genetic relationship between positive personality traits and,
for example, our happiness traits are the mirror images of comorbidity
in psychopathology. These personality factors were consistent across
cultures, and many studies have also tested the heritability of these
traits. Personal agency also factors into this debate. While genetic
and environmental factors can shape personality, individuals also have
agency in shaping their own personality through their choices,
behaviors, and attitudes. For example, one study found that college
students who participated in study abroad programs scored higher on
measures of openness to experience compared to those who did not
participate. Another study found that individuals who lived in diverse
neighborhoods were more likely to score higher on openness to experience
compared to those who lived in more homogenous neighborhoods.
Identical twins reared apart are far more similar in
personality than randomly selected pairs of people. Likewise, identical
twins are more similar than fraternal twins. Also, biological siblings
are more similar in personality than adoptive siblings. Each observation
suggests that personality is heritable to a certain extent. A
supporting article had focused on the heritability of personality (which
is estimated to be around 50% for subjective well-being) in which a
study was conducted using a representative sample of 973 twin pairs to
test the heritable differences in subjective well-being which were found
to be fully accounted for by the genetic model of the Five-Factor
Model's personality domains. However, these same study designs allow for the examination of environment as well as genes.
Adoption studies also directly measure the strength of
shared family effects. Adopted siblings share only family environment.
Most adoption studies indicate that by adulthood the personalities of
adopted siblings are little or no more similar than random pairs of
strangers. This would mean that shared family effects on personality
are zero by adulthood.
In the case of personality traits, non-shared
environmental effects are often found to out-weigh shared environmental
effects. That is, environmental effects that are typically thought to be
life-shaping (such as family life) may have less of an impact than
non-shared effects, which are harder to identify. One possible source of
non-shared effects is the environment of pre-natal development. Random
variations in the genetic program of development may be a substantial
source of non-shared environment. These results suggest that "nurture"
may not be the predominant factor in "environment". Environment and our
situations, do in fact impact our lives, but not the way in which we
would typically react to these environmental factors. We are preset with
personality traits that are the basis for how we would react to
situations. An example would be how extraverted prisoners become less
happy than introverted prisoners and would react to their incarceration
more negatively due to their preset extraverted personality. Behavioral genes are somewhat proven to exist when we take a look at
fraternal twins. When fraternal twins are reared apart, they show the
same similarities in behavior and response as if they have been reared
together.
Genetics
The relationship between personality and people's own well-being is influenced and mediated by genes. There has been found to be a stable set point for happiness that is
characteristic of the individual (largely determined by the individual's
genes). Happiness fluctuates around that setpoint (again, genetically
determined) based on whether good things or bad things are happening to
us ("nurture"), but only fluctuates in small magnitude in a normal
human. The midpoint of these fluctuations is determined by the "great
genetic lottery" that people are born with, which leads them to conclude that how happy they may feel at the moment or over time is
simply due to the luck of the draw, or gene. This fluctuation was also
not due to educational attainment, which only accounted for less than 2%
of the variance in well-being for women, and less than 1% of the
variance for men.
They consider that the individualities measured together with personality
tests remain steady throughout an individual's lifespan. They further
believe that human beings may refine their forms or personality but can
never change them entirely. Darwin's Theory of Evolution steered
naturalists such as George Williams and William Hamilton to the concept
of personality evolution. They suggested that physical organs and also
personality is a product of natural selection.
With the advent of gene sequencing,
it has become possible to search for and identify specific gene
polymorphisms that affect traits such as IQ and personality. These
techniques work by tracking the association of differences in a trait of
interest with differences in specific molecular markers or functional
variants.
In contrast to views developed in 1960s that gender
identity is primarily learned (which led to a protocol of surgical sex
changes in male infants with injured or malformed genitals, such as David Reimer), genomics has provided solid evidence that both sex and gender identities are primarily influenced by genes:
It is now clear
that genes are vastly more influential than virtually any other force in
shaping sex identity and gender identity ... The growing consensus in
medicine is that ... children should be assigned to their chromosomal
(i.e., genetic) sex regardless of anatomical variations and
differences—with the option of switching, if desired, later in life.
neuroticism (N) measures depression, irritability, and proneness to anxiety.
The five-factor model was developed using empirical research into the language people used to describe themselves, which found patterns
and relationships between the words people use to describe themselves.
For example, because someone described as "hard-working" is more likely
to be described as "prepared" and less likely to be described as
"messy", all three traits are grouped under conscientiousness. Using dimensionality reduction techniques, psychologists showed that most (though not all) of the variance in human personality can be explained using only these five factors.
Today, the five-factor model underlies most contemporary
personality research, and has replaced theoretically derived models of
personality. The general structure of the five factors has been
independently replicated across cultures and time, and they have predictive validity
against external metrics other than self-reports such as ratings by
others, job performance and academic success (predicted by
conscientiousness), and self-harm and suicidal behavior (predicted by neuroticism).
Research into personality inventories found five broad dimensions could explain most variation in human personality and temperament, with more-detailed analyses typically dividing the traits into more
specific subfactors. For example, extraversion is typically associated
with qualities such as gregariousness, assertiveness,
excitement-seeking, warmth, activity, and positive emotions. Other models, like HEXACO, supplement the Big 5 traits with additional variables, trading off complexity for model fit.
History
The Big Five model originated from the lexical hypothesis, which suggests that the most important personality traits are encoded in language. Raymond Cattell built upon earlier lexical work by reducing thousands of descriptors to 16 personality factors, later clustered into five global traits, which some consider the "original Big Five". Ernest Tupes and Raymond Christal then analyzed peer ratings of U.S. Air Force officers and derived five core dimensions: Surgency, Agreeableness, Dependability, Emotional Stability, and Culture—an approach later popularized by Warren Norman. In the 1980s, John M. Digman and colleagues consolidated evidence from previous studies and reaffirmed five major traits, while Paul Costa Jr and Robert R. McCrae developed the NEO model, starting with three factors and expanding it into the widely accepted Five Factor Model (FFM). These four sets of researchers used somewhat different methods in
finding the five traits, making the sets of five factors have varying
names and meanings. However, all have been found to be strongly
correlated with their corresponding factors.
In 1884, British scientist Sir Francis Galton became the first person known to consider deriving a comprehensive taxonomy of human personality traits by sampling language. The idea that this may be possible is known as the lexical hypothesis.
British-American psychologist William McDougall of Duke University proposed five factors in 1929. In 1932, these "five distinguishable but inseparable factors" were
listed as "intellect, character, temperament, disposition and temper",
and have been seen as "anticipating" the adoption of the Big Five model
in subsequent years.[27][28]
Swiss psychologist Franziska Baumgarten of the University of Bern
implemented the lexical hypothesis, publishing the first psycholexical
classification of personality-descriptive terms in 1933. Using
dictionaries and characterology publications, she identified 1093
separate terms in the German language used for the description of
personality and mental states.
In 1936, American psychologists Gordon Allport of Harvard University and Henry Odbert of Dartmouth College
implemented the lexical hypothesis using the English language. They
organised for three anonymous people to categorise adjectives from Webster's New International Dictionary
and a list of common slang words. The result was a list of 4504
adjectives they believed were descriptive of observable and relatively
permanent traits.
In 1943, British-American psychologist Raymond Cattell
of Harvard University took Allport and Odbert's list and reduced this
to a list of roughly 160 terms by eliminating words with very similar
meanings. To these, he added terms from 22 other psychological
categories, and additional "interest" and "abilities" terms. This
resulted in a list of 171 traits. From this he used factor analysis to
derive 60 "personality clusters or syndromes" and an additional 7 minor
clusters. Cattell then narrowed this down to 35 terms, and later added a 36th factor in the form of an IQ measure. Through factor analysis from 1945 to 1948, he created 11 or 12 factor solutions.
In 1947, German-British psychologist Hans Eysenck of University College London published his book Dimensions of Personality. He posited that the two most important personality dimensions were "Extraversion" and "Neuroticism", a term that he coined.
In July 1949, American psychologist Donald Fiske of the University of Chicago
used 22 terms either directly taken or adapted from Cattell's 1947
study, and through surveys of male university students and statistics
derived five factors: "Social Adaptability", "Emotional Control", "Conformity", "Inquiring Intellect", and "Confident Self-expression".
In the same year, Cattell, (with Maurice Tatsuoka and
Herbert Eber), found 4 factors in addition to those they had found
before, which they believed consisted of information that could only be
provided through self-rating. With this understanding, they created and
published the sixteen factor 16PF Questionnaire.
In 1957, Ernest Tupes and Raymond Christal, research psychologists at the Lackland Air Force Base,
undertook a personality trait study of US Air Force officers. Each was
rated by their peers using Cattell's 35 terms (or in some cases, the 30
most reliable terms). In 1958, Tupes and Christal began a US Air Force study by taking 37
personality factors and other data found in Cattell's 1947 paper,
Fiske's 1949 paper, and Tupes' 1957 paper. Through statistical analysis, they derived five factors they labeled
"Surgency", "Agreeableness", "Dependability", "Emotional Stability", and
"Culture".In addition to the influence of Cattell and Fiske's work, they strongly noted the influence of French's 1953 study. Tupes and Christal further tested and explained their 1958 work in a 1961 paper.
Warren Norman of the University of Michigan
replicated Tupes and Christal's work in 1963. He relabeled "Surgency"
as "Extroversion or Surgency", and "Dependability" as
"Conscientiousness". He also found four subordinate scales for each
factor. Norman's paper was much more read than Tupes and Christal's papers had been. Norman's later Oregon Research Institute colleague Lewis Goldberg continued this work.
In the 4th edition of the 16PF Questionnaire released in
1968, 5 "global factors" derived from the 16 factors were identified:
"Extraversion", "Independence", "Anxiety", "Self-control" and
"Tough-mindedness". 16PF advocates have since called these "the original big five".
Six factors were found to be present in Finnish people by Jorma Kuusinen[fi] of the University of Jyvaskyla in 1969, "Trustworthiness", "Self-confidence", "Rationality", "Uniqueness", "Tolerance", and "Sociability".
In 1978, Paul Costa and Robert McCrae of the National Institutes of Health published a book chapter describing their Neuroticism-Extraversion-Openness (NEO) model. The model was based on the three factors in its name. They used Eysenck's concept of "Extraversion" rather than Carl Jung's. Each factor had six facets. The authors expanded their explanation of the model in subsequent papers.
Also in 1978, British psychologist Peter Saville of Brunel University
applied statistical analysis to 16PF results, and determined that the
model could be reduced to five factors, "Anxiety", "Extraversion",
"Warmth", "Imagination" and "Conscientiousness".
At a 1980 symposium in Honolulu, Lewis Goldberg, Naomi Takemoto-Chock, Andrew Comrey, and John M. Digman, reviewed the available personality instruments of the day. In 1981, Digman and Takemoto-Chock of the University of Hawaiʻi
reanalysed data from Cattell, Tupes, Norman, Fiske and Digman. They
re-affirmed the validity of the five factors, naming them "Friendly
Compliance vs. Hostile Non-compliance", "Extraversion vs. Introversion",
"Ego Strength vs. Emotional Disorganization", "Will to Achieve" and
"Intellect". They also found weak evidence for the existence of a sixth
factor, "Culture".
1981 also saw Lewis Goldberg coin the term "Big Five" for the factors.
Peter Saville and his team included a five-factor "Pentagon" model as part of the Occupational Personality Questionnaires (OPQ) in 1984. This was the first commercially available Big Five test. Its factors are "Extroversion", "Vigorous", "Methodical", "Emotional Stability", and "Abstract".
This was closely followed by another commercial test, the NEO PI
three-factor personality inventory, published by Costa and McCrae in
1985. It used the three NEO factors. The methodology employed in
constructing the NEO instruments has since been subject to critical
scrutiny.
In 1990, J.M. Digman of the University of Hawaii further advanced his five-factor model of personality, which Goldberg put at the highest organised level, and was highly cited.
In 1992, the NEO PI evolved into the NEO PI-R, adding the factors "Agreeableness" and "Conscientiousness", and becoming a Big Five instrument. This set the names for the factors
that are now most commonly used. The NEO maintainers called their model
the "Five Factor Model" (FFM). Each NEO personality dimension has six
subordinate facets.
Wim Hofstee at the University of Groningen used a lexical hypothesis approach with the Dutch language to develop what became the International Personality Item Pool
in the 1990s. Further development in Germany and the United States saw
the pool based on three languages. Its questions and results have been
mapped to various Big Five personality typing models.
Kibeom Lee and Michael Ashton released a book describing their HEXACO model in 2004. It adds a sixth factor, "Honesty-Humility"
to the five (which it calls "Emotionality", "Extraversion",
"Agreeableness", "Conscientiousness", and "Openness to Experience").
Each of these factors has four facets.
In 2007, Colin DeYoung, Lena C. Quilty and Jordan Peterson concluded that the 10 aspects of the Big Five may have distinct biological substrates. This was derived through factor analyses of two data samples with the
International Personality Item Pool, followed by cross-correlation with
scores derived from 10 genetic factors identified as underlying the
shared variance among the Revised NEO Personality Inventory facets.
By 2009, personality and social psychologists generally
agreed that both personal and situational variables are needed to
account for human behavior.
When factor analysis is applied to personality survey
data, semantic associations between aspects of personality and specific
terms are often applied to the same person. For example, someone
described as conscientious
is more likely to be described as "always prepared" rather than
"messy". These associations use terms from common language to describe
the human personality, temperament, and psyche. These traits are not black and white; each one is a spectrum, with personality varying continuously across each of these dimensions (unlike in the MBTI inventory).
Beneath each proposed global factor, there are a number of
correlated and more specific primary factors. For example, extraversion
is typically associated with qualities such as gregariousness,
assertiveness, excitement-seeking, warmth, activity, and positive emotions.
Openness to experience
Openness to experience
is a general appreciation for art, emotion, adventure, unusual ideas,
imagination, curiosity, and variety of experience. People who are open
to experience are intellectually curious, open to emotion, sensitive to
beauty, and willing to try new things. They tend to be, when compared to
closed people, more creative and more aware of their feelings. They are
also more likely to hold unconventional beliefs. Open people can be
perceived as unpredictable or lacking focus, and more likely to engage
in risky behaviour or drug-taking. Moreover, individuals with high openness are said to pursue self-actualisation specifically by seeking out intense, euphoric experiences. Conversely, those with low openness want to be fulfilled by persevering and are characterised as pragmatic and data-driven–sometimes
even perceived to be dogmatic and closed-minded. Some disagreement
remains about how to interpret and contextualise the openness factor as
there is a lack of biological support for this particular trait.
Openness has not shown a significant association with any brain regions
as opposed to the other four traits which did when using brain imaging
to detect changes in volume associated with each trait.
Sample items
I have a rich vocabulary.
I have a vivid imagination.
I have excellent ideas.
I am quick to understand things.
I use difficult words.
I spend time reflecting on things.
I am full of ideas.
I have difficulty understanding abstract ideas. (Reversed)
I am not interested in abstract ideas. (Reversed)
I do not have a good imagination. (Reversed)
Conscientiousness
Conscientiousness is a tendency to be self-disciplined,
act dutifully, and strive for achievement against measures or outside
expectations. It is related to people's level of impulse control,
regulation, and direction. High conscientiousness is often perceived as
being stubborn and focused. Low conscientiousness is associated with
flexibility and spontaneity, but can also appear as sloppiness and lack
of reliability. High conscientiousness indicates a preference for planned rather than spontaneous behaviour.
Sample items
I am always prepared.
I pay attention to details.
I get chores done right away.
I like order.
I follow a schedule.
I am exacting in my work.
I leave my belongings around. (Reversed)
I make a mess of things. (Reversed)
I often forget to put things back in their proper place. (Reversed)
I shirk my duties. (Reversed)
Extraversion
Extraversion is characterised by breadth of activities (as opposed to depth), surgency from external activities/situations, and energy creation from external means. The trait is marked by pronounced engagement with the external world.
Extraverts enjoy interacting with people, and are often perceived as
energetic. They tend to be enthusiastic and action-oriented. They
possess high group visibility, like to talk, and assert themselves.
Extraverts may appear more dominant in social settings, as opposed to
introverts in that setting.
Introverts have lower social engagement and energy levels
than extraverts. They tend to seem quiet, low-key, deliberate, and less
involved in the social world. Their lack of social involvement should
not be interpreted as shyness or depression, but as greater independence
of their social world than extraverts. Introverts need less stimulation
and more time alone than extraverts. This does not mean that they are
unfriendly or antisocial; rather, they are aloof and reserved in social
situations.
Generally, people are a combination of extraversion and introversion, with personality psychologist Hans Eysenck suggesting a model by which differences in their brains produce these traits.
Sample items
I am the life of the party.
I feel comfortable around people.
I start conversations.
I talk to a lot of different people at parties.
I do not mind being the center of attention.
I do not talk a lot. (Reversed)
I keep in the background. (Reversed)
I have little to say. (Reversed)
I do not like to draw attention to myself. (Reversed)
I am quiet around strangers. (Reversed)
Agreeableness
Agreeableness
is the general concern for social harmony. Agreeable individuals value
getting along with others. They are generally considerate, kind,
generous, trusting and trustworthy, helpful, and willing to compromise
their interests with others. Agreeable people also have an optimistic view of human nature. Being agreeable helps us cope with stress.
Disagreeable individuals place self-interest above getting
along with others. They are generally unconcerned with others'
well-being and are less likely to extend themselves for other people.
Sometimes their skepticism about others' motives causes them to be
suspicious, unfriendly, and uncooperative. Disagreeable people are often competitive or challenging, which can be seen as argumentative or untrustworthy.
Because agreeableness is a social trait, research has
shown that one's agreeableness positively correlates with the quality of
relationships with one's team members. Agreeableness also positively
predicts transformational leadership
skills. In a study conducted among 169 participants in leadership
positions in a variety of professions, individuals were asked to take a
personality test and be directly evaluated by supervised subordinates.
Very agreeable leaders were more likely to be considered
transformational rather than transactional. Although the relationship was not strong (r=0.32, β=0.28, p<0.01),
it was the strongest of the Big Five traits. However, the same study
could not predict leadership effectiveness as evaluated by the leader's
direct supervisor.
Conversely, agreeableness has been found to be negatively
related to transactional leadership in the military. A study of Asian
military units showed that agreeable people are more likely to be poor
transactional leaders. Therefore, with further research, organisations may be able to
determine an individual's potential for performance based on their
personality traits. For instance, in their journal article "Which Personality Attributes Are Most
Important in the Workplace?" Paul Sackett and Philip Walmsley claim that
conscientiousness and agreeableness are "important to success across
many different jobs."
Sample items
I am interested in people.
I sympathise with others' feelings.
I have a soft heart.
I take time out for others.
I feel others' emotions.
I make people feel at ease.
I am not really interested in others. (Reversed)
I insult people. (Reversed)
I am not interested in other people's problems. (Reversed)
I feel little concern for others. (Reversed)
Neuroticism
Neuroticism is the tendency to have strong negative emotions, such as anger, anxiety, or depression. It is sometimes called emotional instability, or is reversed and referred to as emotional stability.
Neuroticism is a classic temperament trait that has been
studied in temperament research for decades, even before it was adapted
by the Five Factor Model. For example, in Hans Eysenck's
(1967) theory of personality, neuroticism is associated with low
tolerance for stress (N+ in the FFM) or a strong dislike of change (O-
in the FFM). Neuroticism in the FFM is similar but not identical to being neurotic in the Freudian sense (i.e., neurosis). Some psychologists prefer to call neuroticism by the term emotional instability to differentiate it from the term neurotic in a career test.
Neurotic people are emotionally volatile, emotionally
reactive and vulnerable to stress. They are more likely to spontaneously
experience negative emotions (see sample items below) and their negative emotional
reactions tend to stay for longer periods of time, which means they are
more often in a bad mood. They are more likely to interpret ordinary
situations as threatening. They can perceive minor frustrations as
hopelessly difficult. For instance, neuroticism is connected to
pessimism toward work, to certainty that work hinders personal
relationships, and to higher levels of anxiety from the pressures at
work. Furthermore, highly neurotic people may display more skin-conductance reactivity than less neurotic people. These problems in emotional regulation can make a highly neurotic
person think less clearly, make worse decisions, and cope less
effectively with stress. Being disappointed with one's life achievements
can make one more neurotic and increase one's chances of falling into
clinical depression. Moreover, neurotic individuals tend to experience
more negative life events,but neuroticism also changes in response to positive and negative life experiences. Also, neurotic people tend to have worse psychological well-being.
At the other end of the scale, less neurotic individuals
are less easily upset and are less emotionally reactive. They tend to be
calm, emotionally stable, and free from persistent negative feelings.
Freedom from negative feelings does not mean that low scorers experience
a lot of positive feelings; that is related to extraversion instead.
The Ten-Item Personality Inventory (TIPI) and the Five
Item Personality Inventory (FIPI) are very abbreviated rating forms of
the Big Five personality traits.
Self-descriptive sentence questionnaires
Lexical questionnaires
Self-report questionnaires
Relative-scored big five measure
The most frequently used measures of the Big Five comprise either items that are self-descriptive sentences or, in the case of lexical measures, items that are single adjectives. Due to the length of sentence-based and some lexical measures, short
forms have been developed and validated for use in applied research
settings where questionnaire space and respondent time are limited, such
as the 40-item balanced International English Big-Five Mini-Markers or a very brief (10 item) measure of the Big Five domains. Research has suggested that some methodologies in administering
personality tests are inadequate in length and provide insufficient
detail to truly evaluate personality. Usually, longer, more detailed
questions will give a more accurate portrayal of personality. The five factor structure has been replicated in peer reports. However, many of the substantive findings rely on self-reports.
Limitations of self-report
Much of the evidence on the measures of the big five
relies on self-report questionnaires, which makes self-report bias and
falsification of responses difficult to deal with and account for. It has been argued that the Big Five tests do not create an accurate
personality profile because the responses given on these tests are not
true in all cases and can be falsified. For example, questionnaires are answered by potential employees who might choose answers that paint them in the best light.
Research suggests that a relative-scored Big Five measure
in which respondents had to make repeated choices between equally
desirable personality descriptors may be a potential alternative to
traditional Big Five measures in accurately assessing personality
traits, especially when lying or biased responding is present. When compared with a traditional Big Five measure for its ability to
predict GPA and creative achievement under both normal and "fake
good"-bias response conditions, the relative-scored measure
significantly and consistently predicted these outcomes under both
conditions; however, the Likert
questionnaire lost its predictive ability in the faking condition.
Thus, the relative-scored measure proved to be less affected by biased
responding than the Likert measure of the Big Five.
Labels and dimensionality
The five overarching domains of the big five model have
been found to contain most known personality traits and are assumed to
represent the basic structure behind them all. Research into personality inventories found five broad dimensions could explain most variation in human personality and temperament, with more-detailed analyses typically dividing the traits into more
specific subfactors. For example, extraversion is typically associated
with qualities such as gregariousness, assertiveness,
excitement-seeking, warmth, activity, and positive emotions. Other models, like HEXACO, supplement the big five traits with additional variables.
Factor analysis,
the statistical method used to identify the dimensional structure of
observed variables, lacks a universally recognized basis for choosing
among solutions with different numbers of factors. A five factor solution depends on some degree of interpretation by the
analyst. A larger number of factors may underlie these five factors.
This has led to disputes about the "true" number of factors. Big Five
proponents have responded that although other solutions may be viable in
a single data set, only the five-factor structure consistently
replicates across different studies. Block argues that the use of factor analysis as the exclusive paradigm for conceptualizing personality is too limited.
Some research suggests that the Big Five should not be
conceived of as dichotomies (such as extraversion vs. introversion) but
as continua. Each individual has the capacity to move along each
dimension as circumstances (social or temporal) change. Someone is
therefore not simply on one end of each trait dichotomy but is a blend
of both, exhibiting some characteristics more often than others: DeYoung proposed a model where each of the Big Five personality traits
contains two separate, but correlated, aspects reflecting a level of
personality below the broad domains but above the many facet scales also
making up part of the Big Five. The aspects are labelled as follows: Volatility and Withdrawal for
Neuroticism; Enthusiasm and Assertiveness for Extraversion; Intellect
and Openness for Openness to Experience; Industriousness and Orderliness
for Conscientiousness; and Compassion and Politeness for Agreeableness.
In many studies, the five factors are not fully orthogonal to one another; that is, the five factors are not independent. Orthogonality is viewed as desirable by some researchers because it
minimizes redundancy between the dimensions. This is particularly
important when the goal of a study is to provide a comprehensive
description of personality with as few variables as possible. Cheung,
van de Vijver, and Leong (2011) suggest that the Openness factor is
particularly unsupported in Asian countries and that a different fifth
factor is identified. Attempts to replicate the Big Five have succeeded in some countries but
not in others. Some research suggests, for instance, that Hungarians do
not have a single agreeableness factor. Other researchers have found evidence for agreeableness but not for other factors. There may be debate as to what counts as personality and what does not
and the nature of the questions in the survey greatly influence outcome.
Multiple particularly broad question databases have failed to produce
the Big Five as the top five traits.
The structure, manifestations, and development of the Big
Five in childhood and adolescence have been studied using a variety of
methods, including parent- and teacher-ratings, preadolescent and adolescent self- and peer-ratings, and observations of parent-child interactions. Results from these studies support the relative stability of
personality traits across the human lifespan, at least from preschool
age through adulthood. More specifically, research suggests that four of the Big Five – namely
Extraversion, Neuroticism, Conscientiousness, and Agreeableness –
reliably describe personality differences in childhood, adolescence, and
adulthood. However, some evidence suggests that Openness may not be a fundamental,
stable part of childhood personality. Although some researchers have
found that Openness in children and adolescents relates to attributes
such as creativity, curiosity, imagination, and intellect, many researchers have failed to find distinct individual differences in Openness in childhood and early adolescence.Potentially, Openness may (a) manifest in unique, currently unknown
ways in childhood or (b) may only manifest as children develop socially
and cognitively. Other studies have found evidence for all of the Big Five traits in
childhood and adolescence as well as two other child-specific traits:
Irritability and Activity. Despite these specific differences, the majority of findings suggest
that personality traits – particularly Extraversion, Neuroticism,
Conscientiousness, and Agreeableness – are evident in childhood and
adolescence and are associated with distinct social-emotional patterns
of behavior that are largely consistent with adult manifestations of
those same personality traits. Some researchers have proposed the youth personality trait is best
described by six trait dimensions: neuroticism, extraversion, openness
to experience, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and activity. Despite some preliminary evidence for this "Little Six" model, research in this area has been delayed by a lack of available measures.
Gender differences
Some cross-cultural research has shown some patterns of
gender differences on responses to the NEO-PI-R and the Big Five
Inventory. For example, women consistently report higher Neuroticism,
Agreeableness, warmth (an extraversion facet) and openness to feelings,
and men often report higher assertiveness (a facet of extraversion) and
openness to ideas as assessed by the NEO-PI-R.
A study of gender differences in 55 nations using the Big
Five Inventory found that women tended to be somewhat higher than men in
neuroticism, extraversion, agreeableness, and conscientiousness. The
difference in neuroticism was the most prominent and consistent, with
significant differences found in 49 of the 55 nations surveyed.
Gender differences in personality traits are largest in
prosperous, healthy, and more gender-egalitarian nations. The
explanation for this, as stated by the researchers of a 2001 paper, is
that actions by women in individualistic, egalitarian countries are more
likely to be attributed to their personality, rather than being
attributed to ascribed gender roles within collectivist, traditional
countries.
Measured differences in the magnitude of sex differences
between more or less developed world regions were caused by the changes
in the measured personalities of men, not women, in these respective
regions. That is, men in highly developed world regions were less
neurotic, less extraverted, less conscientious and less agreeable
compared to men in less developed world regions. Women, on the other
hand tended not to differ in personality traits across regions.
Frank Sulloway
argues that firstborns are more conscientious, more socially dominant,
less agreeable, and less open to new ideas compared to siblings that
were born later. Large-scale studies using random samples and
self-report personality tests, however, have found milder effects than
Sulloway claimed, or no significant effects of birth order on personality. A study using the Project Talent
data, which is a large-scale representative survey of American high
school students, with 272,003 eligible participants, found statistically
significant but very small effects (the average absolute correlation
between birth order and personality was .02) of birth order on
personality, such that firstborns were slightly more conscientious,
dominant, and agreeable, while also being less neurotic and less
sociable. Parental socioeconomic status and participant gender had much larger correlations with personality.
In 2002, the Journal of Psychology
posted a Big Five Personality Trait Difference; where researchers
explored the relationship between the five-factor model and the
Universal-Diverse Orientation (UDO) in counselor trainees. (Thompson,
R., Brossart, D., and Mivielle, A., 2002). UDO is known as one social
attitude that produces a strong awareness and/or acceptance towards the
similarities and differences among individuals. (Miville, M., Romas, J.,
Johnson, J., and Lon, R. 2002) The study found that the counselor
trainees that are more open to the idea of creative expression (a facet
of Openness to Experience, Openness to Aesthetics) among individuals are
more likely to work with a diverse group of clients, and feel
comfortable in their role.
Heritability
Personality research often uses twin studies to determine how much heritable and environmental factors contribute to the Big Five personality traits.
A 1996 behavioural geneticsstudy of twins suggested that heritability (the degree of variation in a trait within a population that is due to genetic variation in that population) and environmental factors both influence all five factors to the same degree. Among four twin studies examined in 2003, the mean percentage for
heritability was calculated for each personality and it was concluded
that heritability influenced the five factors broadly. The self-report
measures were as follows: openness to experience was estimated to have a
57% genetic influence, extraversion 54%, conscientiousness 49%,
neuroticism 48%, and agreeableness 42%.
Non-humans
The Big Five personality traits can be seen in chimpanzees.
The Big Five personality traits have been assessed in some
non-human species but methodology is debatable. In one series of
studies, human ratings of chimpanzees using a scale designed for non-human apes,
revealed factors of extraversion, conscientiousness and agreeableness–
as well as an additional factor of dominance–across hundreds of
chimpanzees in zoological parks, a large naturalistic sanctuary, and a research laboratory.
Neuroticism and openness factors were found in an original zoo sample,
but were not replicated in a new zoo sample or in other settings
(perhaps reflecting the design of the assessment scale). A study review found that markers for the three dimensions
extraversion, neuroticism, and agreeableness were found most
consistently across different species, followed by openness; only
chimpanzees showed markers for conscientious behavior.
A study completed in 2020 concluded that dolphins
have some similar personality traits to humans. Both are large brained
intelligent animals but have evolved separately for millions of years.
Applications and uses
The Big Five model has become a dominant framework in
contemporary personality psychology. Its wide acceptance stems from
strong empirical support and its practical utility in both research and
applied settings. However, its applicability is not universal, and
several methodological and conceptual criticisms limit its effectiveness
in certain contexts.
Clinical psychology and psychopathology
Dementia
Some diseases cause changes in personality. For example, although gradual memory impairment is the hallmark feature of Alzheimer's disease, a systematic review
of personality changes in Alzheimer's disease by Robins Wahlin and
Byrne, published in 2011, found systematic and consistent trait changes
mapped to the Big Five. The largest change observed was a decrease in
conscientiousness. The next most significant changes were an increase in
Neuroticism and decrease in Extraversion, but Openness and
Agreeableness were also decreased. These changes in personality could
assist with early diagnosis.
A study published in 2023 found that the Big Five
personality traits may also influence the quality of life experienced by
people with Alzheimer's disease and other dementias, post diagnosis. In
this study people with dementia with lower levels of Neuroticism
self-reported higher quality of life than those with higher levels of
Neuroticism while those with higher levels of the other four traits
self-reported higher quality of life than those with lower levels of
these traits. This suggests that as well as assisting with early
diagnosis, the Big Five personality traits could help identify people
with dementia potentially more vulnerable to adverse outcomes and inform
personalized care planning and interventions.
As of 2002, there were over fifty published studies relating the FFM to personality disorders. Since that time, quite a number of additional studies have expanded on
this research base and provided further empirical support for
understanding the DSM personality disorders in terms of the FFM domains. Beyond simply predicting symptoms, the Five-Factor Model has been
formally proposed as a foundational framework for the classification of
personality disorders within the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of
Mental Disorders (DSM-5),
offering a dimensional approach to diagnosis alongside traditional
categorical models. This proposal underscores its growing acceptance and
utility in clinical psychology for understanding and assessing personality pathology.
In her review of the personality disorder literature published in 2007, Lee Anna Clark
asserted that "the five-factor model of personality is widely accepted
as representing the higher-order structure of both normal and abnormal
personality traits". However, other researchers disagree that this model is widely accepted
(see the section Critique below) and suggest that it simply replicates
early temperament research. Noticeably, FFM publications never compare their findings to temperament models even though temperament and mental disorders (especially personality disorders) are thought to be based on the same neurotransmitter imbalances, just to varying degrees.
The five-factor model was claimed to significantly predict all ten personality disorder symptoms and outperform the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) in the prediction of borderline, avoidant, and dependent personality disorder symptoms. However, most predictions related to an increase in Neuroticism and a
decrease in Agreeableness, and therefore did not differentiate between
the disorders very well.
Common mental disorders
Average deviation of five factor personality profile of heroin users from the population mean. N stands for Neuroticism, E for Extraversion, O for Openness to experience, A for Agreeableness and C for Conscientiousness.
Converging evidence from several nationally representative
studies has established three classes of mental disorders which are
especially common in the general population: Depressive disorders (e.g.,
major depressive disorder (MDD), dysthymic disorder), anxiety disorders (e.g., generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), panic disorder, agoraphobia, specific phobia, and social phobia), and substance use disorders (SUDs). The Five Factor personality profiles of users of different drugs may be different. For example, the typical profile for heroin users is , whereas for ecstasy users the high level of N is not expected but E is higher: .
These common mental disorders (CMDs) have been empirically
linked to the Big Five personality traits, neuroticism in particular.
Numerous studies have found that having high scores of neuroticism
significantly increases one's risk for developing a common mental
disorder. A large-scale meta-analysis (n > 75,000) examining the relationship
between all of the Big Five personality traits and common mental
disorders found that low conscientiousness yielded consistently strong
effects for each common mental disorder examined (i.e., MDD, dysthymic
disorder, GAD, PTSD, panic disorder, agoraphobia, social phobia,
specific phobia, and SUD). This finding parallels research on physical health, which has
established that conscientiousness is the strongest personality
predictor of reduced mortality, and is highly negatively correlated with
making poor health choices. In regards to the other personality domains, the meta-analysis found
that all common mental disorders examined were defined by high
neuroticism, most exhibited low extraversion, only SUD was linked to
agreeableness (negatively), and no disorders were associated with
Openness. A meta-analysis of 59 longitudinal studies showed that high neuroticism
predicted the development of anxiety, depression, substance abuse,
psychosis, schizophrenia, and non-specific mental distress, also after adjustment for baseline symptoms and psychiatric history.
Five major models have been posed to explain the nature of
the relationship between personality and mental illness. There is
currently no single "best model", as each of them has received at least
some empirical support. These models are not mutually exclusive – more
than one may be operating for a particular individual and various mental
disorders may be explained by different models.
The Vulnerability/Risk Model:
According to this model, personality contributes to the onset or
etiology of various common mental disorders. In other words,
pre-existing personality traits either cause the development of CMDs
directly or enhance the impact of causal risk factors. There is strong support for neuroticism being a robust vulnerability factor.
The Pathoplasty Model: This model
proposes that premorbid personality traits impact the expression,
course, severity, and/or treatment response of a mental disorder. An example of this relationship would be a heightened likelihood of
committing suicide in a depressed individual who also has low levels of
constraint.
The Common Cause Model: According to
the common cause model, personality traits are predictive of CMDs
because personality and psychopathology have shared genetic and
environmental determinants which result in non-causal associations
between the two constructs.
The Spectrum Model: This model proposes
that associations between personality and psychopathology are found
because these two constructs both occupy a single domain or spectrum and
psychopathology is simply a display of the extremes of normal
personality function. Support for this model is provided by an issue of criterion overlap.
For instance, two of the primary facet scales of neuroticism in the
NEO-PI-R are "depression" and "anxiety". Thus the fact that diagnostic
criteria for depression, anxiety, and neuroticism assess the same
content increases the correlations between these domains.
The Scar Model: According to the scar
model, episodes of a mental disorder 'scar' an individual's personality,
changing it in significant ways from premorbid functioning. An example of a scar effect would be a decrease in openness to experience following an episode of PTSD.
The predictive effects of the Big Five personality traits
relate mostly to social functioning and rules-driven behavior and are
not very specific for prediction of particular aspects of behavior. For
example, it was noted by all temperament researchers that high
neuroticism precedes the development of all common mental disorders and is not associated with personality. Further evidence is required to fully uncover the nature and
differences between personality traits, temperament and life outcomes.
Social and contextual parameters also play a role in outcomes and the
interaction between the two is not yet fully understood. The dimensional trait models of the ICD‐11 and DSM‐5 Section III were
explicitly made consistent with the FFM. The FFM is also the personality
and temperament foundation for the Hierarchical Taxonomy of Psychopathology.
Career, education, and life transitions
Personality can sometimes be flexible and measuring the
big five personality for individuals as they enter certain stages of
life may predict their educational identity. Recent studies have
suggested the likelihood of an individual's personality affecting their
educational identity. It is also believed that the Big Five traits are predictors of future
performance outcomes to varying degrees. Specific facets of the Big Five
traits are also thought to be indicators of success in the workplace,
and each individual facet can give a more precise indication as to the
nature of a person. Different traits' facets are needed for different
occupations. Various facets of the Big Five traits can predict the
success of people in different environments. The estimated levels of an
individual's success in jobs that require public speaking versus
one-on-one interactions will differ according to whether that person has
particular traits' facets.
Academic achievement
Personality plays an important role in academic
achievement. A study of Israeli high-school students found that those in
the gifted program systematically scored higher on openness and lower on neuroticism
than those not in the gifted program. While not a measure of the Big
Five, gifted students also reported less state anxiety than students not
in the gifted program. Another study found that GPA and exam performance are both predicted by conscientiousness while neuroticism is negatively related to academic success.
Vocational and educational transitions
In a study, conscientiousness predicted success in the
transition from secondary school to vocational education and training
(VET). Extraversion predicted the final VET grade and obtaining a VET
position; agreeableness was linked to a higher risk of dropout. Effect
sizes were small but comparable to established predictors such as
cognitive ability and parental socioeconomic status.
Learning styles
Learning styles have been described as "enduring ways of thinking and processing information". In 2008, the Association for Psychological Science
(APS) commissioned a report that concludes that no significant evidence
exists that learning-style assessments should be included in the
education system. Thus it is premature, at best, to conclude that the evidence links the
Big Five to "learning styles", or "learning styles" to learning itself.
However, the APS report also suggested that all existing learning styles
have not been exhausted and that there could exist learning styles
worthy of being included in educational practices. There are studies
that conclude that personality and thinking styles may be intertwined in
ways that link thinking styles to the Big Five personality traits. There is no general consensus on the number or specifications of
particular learning styles, but there have been many different
proposals.
As one example, Schmeck, Ribich, and Ramanaiah (1997) defined four types of learning styles:
synthesis analysis
methodical study
fact retention
elaborative processing
When all four facets are implicated within the classroom,
they will each likely improve academic achievement. A study of 308
undergraduates who completed the Five Factor Inventory Processes and
reported their GPA
suggested that conscientiousness and agreeableness have a positive
relationship with all types of learning styles (synthesis-analysis,
methodical study, fact retention, and elaborative processing), whereas
neuroticism shows an inverse relationship. Moreover, extraversion and
openness were proportional to elaborative processing. The Big Five
personality traits accounted for 14% of the variance in GPA, suggesting
that personality traits make some contributions to academic performance.
Furthermore, reflective learning styles (synthesis-analysis and
elaborative processing) were able to mediate the relationship between
openness and GPA. These results indicate that intellectual curiosity
significantly enhances academic performance if students combine their
scholarly interest with thoughtful information processing.
By identifying learning strategies in individuals,
learning and academic achievement can be improved, and a deeper
understanding of information processing can be gained. This model asserts that students develop either agentic/shallow
processing or reflective/deep processing. Deep processors are more often
found to be more conscientious, intellectually open, and extraverted
than shallow processors. Deep processing is associated with appropriate
study methods (methodical study) and a stronger ability to analyze
information (synthesis analysis), whereas shallow processors prefer
structured fact retention learning styles and are better suited for
elaborative processing. The main functions of these four specific learning styles are as follows:
Name
Function
Synthesis analysis
processing
information, forming categories, and organizing them into hierarchies.
This is the only one of the learning styles that has explained a
significant impact on academic performance.
Methodical study
methodical behavior while completing academic assignments
Fact retention
focusing on the result instead of understanding the logic behind something
Elaborative processing
connecting and applying new ideas to existing knowledge
Openness has been linked to learning styles that often
lead to academic success and higher grades like synthesis analysis and
methodical study. Because conscientiousness and openness have been shown
to predict all four learning styles, it suggests that individuals who
possess characteristics like discipline, determination, and curiosity
are more likely to engage in all of the above learning styles.
According to the research carried out by Komarraju, Karau,
Schmeck & Avdic (2011), conscientiousness and agreeableness are
positively related with all four learning styles, whereas neuroticism
was negatively related with those four. Furthermore, extraversion and
openness were only positively related to elaborative processing, and
openness itself correlated with higher academic achievement.
In addition, a previous study by psychologist Mikael
Jensen has shown relationships between the Big Five personality traits,
learning, and academic achievement. According to Jensen, all personality
traits, except neuroticism, are associated with learning goals and
motivation. Openness and conscientiousness influence individuals to
learn to a high degree unrecognized, while extraversion and
agreeableness have similar effects. Conscientiousness and neuroticism also influence individuals to perform
well in front of others for a sense of credit and reward, while
agreeableness forces individuals to avoid this strategy of learning. Jensen's study concludes that individuals who score high on the
agreeableness trait will likely learn just to perform well in front of
others.
Besides openness, all Big Five personality traits helped
predict the educational identity of students. Based on these findings,
scientists are beginning to see that the Big Five traits might have a
large influence of on academic motivation that leads to predicting a
student's academic performance.
Some authors suggested that Big Five personality traits
combined with learning styles can help predict some variations in the
academic performance and the academic motivation of an individual which
can then influence their academic achievements. This may be seen because individual differences in personality
represent stable approaches to information processing. For instance,
conscientiousness has consistently emerged as a stable predictor of
success in exam performance, largely because conscientious students
experience fewer study delays. Conscientiousness shows a positive association with the four learning
styles because students with high levels of conscientiousness develop
focused learning strategies and appear to be more disciplined and
achievement-oriented.
Personality and
learning styles are both likely to play significant roles in influencing
academic achievement. College students (308 undergraduates) completed
the Five Factor Inventory and the Inventory of Learning Processes and
reported their grade point average. Two of the Big Five traits,
conscientiousness and agreeableness, were positively related with all
four learning styles (synthesis analysis, methodical study, fact
retention, and elaborative processing), whereas neuroticism was
negatively related with all four learning styles. In addition,
extraversion and openness were positively related with elaborative
processing. The Big Five together explained 14% of the variance in grade
point average (GPA), and learning styles explained an additional 3%,
suggesting that both personality traits and learning styles contribute
to academic performance. Further, the relationship between openness and
GPA was mediated by reflective learning styles (synthesis-analysis and
elaborative processing). These latter results suggest that being
intellectually curious fully enhances academic performance when students
combine this scholarly interest with thoughtful information processing.
Implications of these results are discussed in the context of teaching
techniques and curriculum design.
—M Komarraju
Distance learning
When the relationship between the five-factor personality
traits and academic achievement in distance education settings was
examined in brief, the openness personality trait was found to be the
most important variable that has a positive relationship with academic
achievement in distance education environments. In addition, it was
found that self-discipline, extraversion, and adaptability personality
traits are generally in a positive relationship with academic
achievement. The most important personality trait that has a negative
relationship with academic achievement has emerged as neuroticism. The
results generally show that individuals who are organized, planned,
determined, who are oriented to new ideas and independent thinking have
increased success in distance education environments. On the other hand,
it can be said that individuals with anxiety and stress tendencies
generally have lower academic success.
Occupation and personality fit
The Vocations Map - clustering of the social media presence of users in different professions
Researchers have long suggested that work is more likely
to be fulfilling to the individual and beneficial to society when there
is alignment between the person and their occupation. For instance, software programmers and scientists often rank high on
Openness to experience and tend to be intellectually curious, think in
symbols and abstractions, and find repetition boring. Psychologists and sociologists rank higher on Agreeableness and Openness than economists and jurists.
Work success
The relationship between Big Five traits and workplace success remains somewhat controversial.
Research has demonstrated that the big five personality traits correlate with important work outcomes such as job performance, training proficiency, and turnover. For example, an early meta-analysis found an estimated population
correlation of 0.26 between conscientiousness and supervisory ratings of
job performance. These results are consistent with research suggesting that personality traits predict a broad range of important life outcomes.
However, these criterion-related validity results have
been criticized, in part because of the apparently weak correlations:
"The problem with personality tests is ... that the validity of
personality measures as predictors of job performance is often
disappointingly low. The argument for using personality tests to predict
performance does not strike me as convincing in the first place."
Subsequent literature has suggested that correlations
obtained by psychometric personality researchers were actually very
respectable by comparative standards, and that the economic value of even incremental increases in prediction
accuracy was exceptionally large, given the vast difference in
performance by those who occupy complex job positions.
One way to explain this controversy is that there is little doubt that personality predicts a broad array of important outcomes but it is also clear that other selection methods have higher validity as compared to personality.
Research has suggested that individuals who are considered
leaders typically exhibit lower amounts of neurotic traits, maintain
higher levels of openness, balanced levels of conscientiousness, and
balanced levels of extraversion. Further studies have linked professional burnout to neuroticism, and extraversion to enduring positive work experience. Studies have linked national innovation, leadership, and ideation to openness to experience and conscientiousness. Occupational self-efficacy has also been shown to be positively correlated with conscientiousness and negatively correlated with neuroticism. Some research has also suggested that the conscientiousness of a
supervisor is positively associated with an employee's perception of
abusive supervision. Others have suggested that low agreeableness and high neuroticism are traits more related to abusive supervision.
Openness
is positively related to proactivity at the individual and the
organizational levels and is negatively related to team and
organizational proficiency. These effects were found to be completely
independent of one another. This is also counter-conscientious and has a
negative correlation to Conscientiousness.
Agreeableness
is negatively related to individual task proactivity. Typically this is
associated with lower career success and being less able to cope with
conflict. However there are benefits to the Agreeableness personality
trait including higher subjective well-being; more positive
interpersonal interactions and helping behavior; lower conflict; lower
deviance and turnover. Furthermore, attributes related to Agreeableness are important for
workforce readiness for a variety of occupations and performance
criteria. Research has suggested that those who are high in agreeableness are not as successful in accumulating income.
Extraversion
results in greater leadership emergence and effectiveness; as well as
higher job and life satisfaction. However extraversion can lead to more
impulsive behaviors, more accidents and lower performance in certain
jobs.
Conscientiousness is highly predictive of job performance in general, and is positively related to all forms of work role performance,
including job performance and job satisfaction, greater leadership
effectiveness, lower turnover and deviant behaviors. However this
personality trait is associated with reduced adaptability, lower
learning in initial stages of skill acquisition and more interpersonally
abrasiveness, when also low in agreeableness. It is also not the case that more or extreme conscientiousness is
always necessarily better as there does appear to be a link between
conscientiousness and obsessive-compulsive personality disorder (OCPD).
Selecting employees for a moderate level of conscientiousness may
actually provide the best occupational outcome.
Neuroticism is negatively related to all forms of work role performance. This increases the chance of engaging in risky behaviors.
Two theories have been integrated in an attempt to account for these differences in work role performance. Trait activation theory
posits that within a person trait levels predict future behavior, that
trait levels differ between people, and that work-related cues activate
traits which leads to work relevant behaviors.
Role theory suggests that role senders provide cues to elicit desired
behaviors. In this context, role senders provide workers with cues for
expected behaviors, which in turn activates personality traits and work
relevant behaviors. In essence, expectations of the role sender lead to
different behavioral outcomes depending on the trait levels of
individual workers, and because people differ in trait levels, responses
to these cues will not be universal.
Remote work/telework
As of 2020, remote work has become more and more prevalent
as brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. However, research has shown
that the Big Five personality traits still influence remote work.
Gavoille and Hazans have found that conscientiousness (β=0.06) and
openness to experience are both positively correlated with willingness
to work and worker productivity within a remote setting, with openness
to experience being less significant (β=0.021). This is then contrasted
with extraversion (β=-0.038), which negatively correlates with
Willingness to work and openness. Another conclusion that was found is
that gender did not play a role in the difference between
conscientiousness and extraversion, and willingness to work from home. Similarly, Wright investigated the influence of Big Five on the soft
skills in the remote workplace, such as effort and cooperation. She
delineated soft skills into two different groups, Task Performance and
Contextual Performance, with each having three subgroups. Task
Performance was more aligned with specific job responsibilities and
handling cognitive tasks associated with their job, and the three
subgroups were Job Knowledge, Organizational Skills, and Efficiency.
Wright found that Job Knowledge did not correlate with any Big Five
traits, Organizational Skill is only significantly correlated with
Conscientiousness (T=7.952, P=.001), and Efficiency is significantly
correlated with Conscientiousness (T=3.8, P=.001), and
Neuroticism(T=-2.6, P=.008), which it is a negative correlation.
Contextual Performance is concerned with non-job core requirements, such
as perceived effort and job cooperation, with the subgroups being
Persistent Effort, Cooperation, and Organizational Conscientiousness.
Wright found that Persistent Effort is positively correlated with
Openness(t=2.4, P=.014) and Conscientiousness (T=3.1, P=.002), and
negatively correlated with Neuroticism (T=-3.2, P=.001). Cooperation was
positively correlated with Extraversion (t=2.6, P=.009) and
Conscientiousness (t=2.82, P=.005), as well as Organizational
Conscientiousness was positively correlated with Agreeableness (t=4.059,
P<.001) and Conscientiousness (t=4.511, P<.001)
On another tack, scientists wanted to discover if the Big
Five has any effect on remote worker burnout, and the effect that
different Big Five traits have on worker health and engagement. Olsen et
al found that when remote work days are increased, individuals high in
extraversion start to struggle with work engagement (β=-.094, P<.03),
and individuals with higher neuroticism are more likely to have poorer
health (p=-.23), work engagement (p=-.18), and an increase in sick
leaves(p=.38). However, Olsen found that conscientiousness, coupled with an increase
in remote work days, can lead to a decrease in general health, contrary
to all of the benefits it has listed above. Similarly, Para et al. found
that individuals with higher Neuroticism (β=.138, p<.05) also tend
to have higher Remote Work Exhaustion (RWE). They also found that
conscientiousness(β=-.336, p<.001) and agreeableness (β=-.267,
p<.001) were negatively correlated with RWE, meaning that they were
more resilient against RWE over large spans of remote work days. The author attributed conscientious individuals to being hard workers
and dependable, while agreeableness was attributed to the situation the
study was completed under, which was the at-home quarantine due to
COVID-19, stating individuals with high agreeableness did well with the
forced contact due to quarantine, which transferred over to their work.
Research into the Big Five has been pursued in a variety of languages and cultures, such as German, Chinese, and South Asian. For example, Thompson has claimed to find the Big Five structure across
several cultures using an international English language scale. Studies of the Revised NEO Personality Inventory,
which has been translated into more than forty languages and dialects,
have found an approximation to the five-factor structure in more than
thirty cultures examined. These findings do not rule out additional
personality traits specific to individual cultures, and the factors may
not be equally important in every culture. For example, Openness to
Experience might be less important in traditional cultures. Individual differences in personality traits are widely understood to be conditioned by cultural context.
Measures of the Big Five constructs appear to show some consistency in
interviews, self-descriptions and observations, and this static
five-factor structure seems to be found across a wide range of
participants of different ages and cultures. However, while genotypic temperament trait dimensions might appear across different cultures, the phenotypic
expression of personality traits differs profoundly across different
cultures as a function of the different socio-cultural conditioning and
experiential learning that takes place within different cultural
settings. Surveys in studies are often online surveys of college students (compare WEIRD bias). Results do not always replicate when run on other populations or in other languages. Different surveys do not always measure the same 5 factors.
Sopagna Eap et al. (2008) found that European-American men
scored higher than Asian-American men on extroversion,
conscientiousness, and openness, while Asian-American men scored higher
than European-American men on neuroticism. Benet-Martínez and Karakitapoglu-Aygün (2003) arrived at similar results.
Recent work has found relationships between Geert Hofstede's cultural factors, Individualism, Power Distance, Masculinity, and Uncertainty Avoidance, with the average Big Five scores in a country. For instance, the degree to which a country values individualism
correlates with its average extraversion, whereas people living in
cultures which are accepting of large inequalities in their power
structures tend to score somewhat higher on conscientiousness.
A 2017 study has found that countries' average personality
trait levels are correlated with their political systems. Countries
with higher average trait Openness tended to have more democratic
institutions, an association that held even after factoring out other
relevant influences such as economic development.
One limitation highlighted by cross-cultural research is
that studies supporting the universality of the Five-Factor Model are
often from 2002 or older, which can influence current results. Methodological concerns may also arise from the reliance on
Western-Developed instruments in some cross-cultural studies, affecting
the validity of findings in diverse cultural contexts.
Political identification, religiosity, and language
The Big Five Personality Model also has applications in
the study of political psychology. Studies have been finding links
between the big five personality traits and political identification. It
has been found by several studies in the West that individuals who
score high in Conscientiousness are more likely to possess a right-wing political identification. On the opposite end of the spectrum, a strong correlation was identified between high scores in Openness to Experience and a left-leaning ideology. While the traits of agreeableness, extraversion, and neuroticism have
not been consistently linked to either conservative or liberal ideology,
with studies producing mixed results, such traits are promising when
analyzing the strength of an individual's party identification. However, correlations between the Big Five and political beliefs, while
present, tend to be small, with one study finding correlations ranged
from 0.14 to 0.24.
Though the effect sizes are small: Of the Big Five
personality traits high Agreeableness, Conscientiousness and
Extraversion relate to general religiosity, while Openness relate
negatively to religious fundamentalism and positively to spirituality.
High Neuroticism may be related to extrinsic religiosity, whereas
intrinsic religiosity and spirituality reflect Emotional Stability.
Andrew H. Schwartz analyzed 700 million words, phrases,
and topic instances collected from the Facebook messages of 75,000
volunteers, who also took standard personality tests, and found striking
variations in language with personality, gender, and age.
China
A 2021 analysis by Princeton University
academic Rory Truex of survey results showed that in China, high
neuroticism and low conscientiousness, agreeableness and openness to
experience correlated with discontent with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), while CCP members on average had very high levels of extraversion, agreeableness, and conscientiousness.
Russia
According to a 2017 research, higher agreeableness and
conscientiousness and lower neuroticism in Russia is correlated with
higher support for President Vladimir Putin,
while lower agreeableness and conscientiousness and higher neuroticism
is correlated with discontent with him; the study did not find major
differences in openness to experience and extraversion.
Lifespan development
Temperament and personality in children
Some consider the big five model as inappropriate for studying early childhood, as language is not yet developed. There are debates between temperament researchers and personality
researchers as to whether or not biologically based differences define a
concept of temperament or a part of personality. The presence of such
differences in pre-cultural individuals (such as animals or young
infants) suggests that they belong to temperament since personality is a
socio-cultural concept. For this reason developmental psychologists
generally interpret individual differences in children as an expression
of temperament rather than personality. Some researchers argue that temperaments and personality traits are
age-specific demonstrations of virtually the same internal qualities. Some believe that early childhood temperaments may become adolescent
and adult personality traits as individuals' basic genetic
characteristics interact with their changing environments to various
degrees.
Researchers of adult temperament point out that, similarly
to sex, age, and mental illness, temperament is based on biochemical
systems whereas personality is a product of socialisation of an
individual possessing these four types of features. Temperament
interacts with socio-cultural factors, but, similar to sex and age,
still cannot be controlled or easily changed by these factors. Therefore, it is suggested that temperament (neurochemically based
individual differences) should be kept as an independent concept for
further studies and not be confused with personality (culturally based
individual differences, reflected in the origin of the word "persona"
(Lat) as a "social mask").
Moreover, temperament refers to dynamic features of
behaviour (energetic, tempo, sensitivity, and emotionality-related),
whereas personality is to be considered a psycho-social construct
comprising the content characteristics of human behaviour (such as
values, attitudes, habits, preferences, personal history, self-image). Temperament researchers point out that the lack of attention to
surviving temperament research by the creators of the Big Five model led
to an overlap between its dimensions and dimensions described in
multiple temperament models much earlier. For example, neuroticism
reflects the traditional temperament dimension of emotionality studied
by Jerome Kagan's group since the 1960s. Extraversion was first introduced by Jung in the 1920s.
Child extraversion/positive emotionality
In Big Five studies, extraversion has been associated with surgency. Children with high Extraversion are energetic, talkative, social, and
dominant with children and adults, whereas children with low
extraversion tend to be quiet, calm, inhibited, and submissive to other
children and adults. Individual differences in extraversion first manifest in infancy as varying levels of positive emotionality. These differences in turn predict social and physical activity during
later childhood and may represent, or be associated with, the behavioral activation system. In children, Extraversion/Positive Emotionality includes four sub-traits: three of these (activity, sociability, and shyness) are similar to the previously described traits of temperament; the other is dominance.
Activity: Similarly to
findings in temperament research, children with high activity tend to
have high energy levels and more intense and frequent motor activity
compared to their peers. Salient differences in activity reliably manifest in infancy, persist
through adolescence, and fade as motor activity decreases in adulthood or potentially develops into talkativeness.
Dominance: Children with high dominance
tend to influence the behavior of others, particularly their peers, to
obtain desirable rewards or outcomes. Such children are generally skilled at organizing activities and games and deceiving others by controlling their nonverbal behavior.
Shyness: Children with high shyness are generally socially withdrawn, nervous, and inhibited around strangers. In time, such children may become fearful even around "known others", especially if their peers reject them. Similar pattern was described in temperament longitudinal studies of shyness.
Sociability: Children with high sociability generally prefer to be with others rather than alone. During middle childhood, the distinction between low sociability and
high shyness becomes more pronounced, particularly as children gain
greater control over how and where they spend their time.
Development during childhood and adolescence
Research on the Big Five, and personality in general, has
focused primarily on individual differences in adulthood, rather than in
childhood and adolescence, and often include temperament traits.Recently, there has been growing recognition of the need to study child
and adolescent personality trait development in order to understand how
traits develop and change throughout the lifespan.
Recent studies have begun to explore the developmental
origins and trajectories of the Big Five among children and adolescents,
especially those that relate to temperament. Many researchers have sought to distinguish between personality and temperament. Temperament often refers to early behavioral and affective characteristics that are thought to be driven primarily by genes. Models of temperament often include four trait dimensions: surgency/sociability, negative emotionality, persistence/effortful control, and activity level. Some of these differences in temperament are evident at, if not before, birth. For example, both parents and researchers recognize that some newborn
infants are peaceful and easily soothed while others are comparatively
fussy and hard to calm. Unlike temperament, however, many researchers view the development of personality as gradually occurring throughout childhood. Contrary to some researchers who question whether children have stable personality traits, Big Five or otherwise, most researchers contend that there are significant psychological
differences between children that are associated with relatively stable,
distinct, and salient behavior patterns.
Findings from studies indicate that, consistent with adult
personality trends, youth personality becomes increasingly more stable
in terms of rank-order throughout childhood. Unlike adult personality research, which indicates that people become
agreeable, conscientious, and emotionally stable with age, some findings in youth personality research have indicated that mean
levels of agreeableness, conscientiousness, and openness to experience
decline from late childhood to late adolescence. The disruption hypothesis, which proposes that biological, social, and
psychological changes experienced during youth result in temporary dips
in maturity, has been proposed to explain these findings.
Aging
Many studies of longitudinal data, which correlate people's test scores over time, and cross-sectional
data, which compare personality levels across different age groups,
show a high degree of stability in personality traits during adulthood,
especially Neuroticism that is often regarded as a temperament trait similarly to longitudinal research in temperament for the same traits. It is shown that the personality stabilizes for working-age individuals
within about four years after starting working. There is also little
evidence that adverse life events can have any significant impact on the
personality of individuals. More recent research and meta-analyses of previous studies, however, indicate that change occurs in all five traits at various points in the lifespan. The new research shows evidence for a maturation
effect. On average, levels of agreeableness and conscientiousness
typically increase with time, whereas extraversion, neuroticism, and
openness tend to decrease. Research has also demonstrated that changes in Big Five personality
traits depend on the individual's current stage of development. For
example, levels of agreeableness and conscientiousness demonstrate a
negative trend during childhood and early adolescence before trending
upwards during late adolescence and into adulthood. In addition to these group effects, there are individual differences:
different people demonstrate unique patterns of change at all stages of
life.
Previous research has found evidence that most adults become more agreeable and conscientious and less neurotic as they age. This has been referred to as the maturation effect. Many researchers have sought to investigate how trends in adult
personality development compare to trends in youth personality
development. Two main population-level indices have been important in this area of
research: rank-order consistency and mean-level consistency. Rank-order
consistency indicates the relative placement of individuals within a
group. Mean-level consistency indicates whether groups increase or decrease on certain traits throughout the lifetime.
Research regarding personality with growing age has
suggested that as individuals enter their elder years (79–86), those
with lower IQ see a raise in extraversion, but a decline in
conscientiousness and physical well-being.
Well-being
Physical health
To examine how the Big Five personality traits are related
to subjective health outcomes (positive and negative mood, physical
symptoms, and general health concern) and objective health conditions
(chronic illness, serious illness, and physical injuries), Jasna
Hudek-Knezevic and Igor Kardum conducted a study from a sample of 822
healthy volunteers (438 women and 384 men). Out of the Big Five personality traits, they found neuroticism most
related to worse subjective health outcomes and optimistic control to
better subjective health outcomes. When relating to objective health
conditions, connections drawn were presented weak, except that
neuroticism significantly predicted chronic illness, whereas optimistic
control was more closely related to physical injuries caused by
accident.
Being highly conscientious may add as much as five years to one's life. The Big Five personality traits also predict positive health outcomes. In an elderly Japanese sample, conscientiousness, extraversion, and openness were related to lower risk of mortality.
Higher conscientiousness is associated with lower obesity
risk. In already obese individuals, higher conscientiousness is
associated with a higher likelihood of becoming non-obese over a
five-year period.
Hope
Studies conducted on college students have concluded that hope, which is linked to agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, and openness, has a positive effect on psychological well-being. Individuals high in
neurotic tendencies are less likely to display hopeful tendencies and
are negatively associated with well-being.
Romantic relationships
Various researchers have explored the association of Big Five and romantic relationships in terms of relationship satisfaction. A meta-analysis showed that there was a higher level of marital
satisfaction if their spouse showed lower levels in neuroticism (.22),
but higher levels in agreeableness (.15) and conscientiousness(.12).
There was only a weak correlation, but it was the same level of
satisfaction for both genders. Much like the previous meta-analysis, a
study on self-reported big five traits showed that those with higher
levels of agreeableness, emotional stability, conscientiousness, and
extraversion had higher levels of marital satisfaction(.20). That same
study found that there was little to no difference in marital
satisfaction if the two partners had similar or different levels of
trait personality.
O'Brien and colleagues examined the association of Big Five and romantic relationships by
investigating participants' commitment levels. The three levels of
commitment are affective commitment (emotional attachment), continuance
commitment (financial considerations), and normative commitment (the
ethical and moral responsibilities). The commitment levels were based on
the taxonomy of organizational commitment and the conceptual model of marital commitment of Johnson and Johnson et al. 122 Individuals currently in a committed relationship responded to a
50-item personality questionnaire from the International Personality
Item Pool (IPIP, 2006), and a questionnaire on commitment modified from
Allen. The key findings showed that participants high in Extraversion reported
high levels of affective commitment; participants high on Extraversion
were higher on Openness to Experience and affective commitment.
Conscientiousness demonstrated a negative relationship with continuance
commitment. While Extraversion and Agreeableness exhibited a positive
correlation with each other, no significant relationships were found
between Agreeableness and any of the commitment measures. The findings
indicated gender differences in that women with lower levels of Openness
to Experience were often paired with partners who scored higher in
Extraversion. Men who exhibited strong affective commitment were more
likely to be in relationships with women high in Conscientiousness.
Additionally, women whose partners showed high affective commitment
tended to be higher in both Conscientiousness and Emotional Stability.
Asselmann and Sprecht examined the association of Big Five (BFI-S) and romantic relationships
through major life events across years in 2005, 2009, 2013, and 2017
with a sample of 49,932 participants in Germany. Those major life events
are (1) moving in with a partner, (2) getting married, (3) getting
separated, and (4) getting divorced. Researchers also examined whether
the Big Five personality traits play a significant role in romantic
relationships. Along the spectrum of a person's life satisfaction,
marital satisfaction (one of romantic relationships) is shown to be
stronger than job satisfaction, health satisfaction, and social
satisfaction. The key findings from Asselmann and Sprecht showed that more
extraverted individuals were more likely to move in with a partner. Less
agreeable and less emotionally stable women were more likely to move in
with a partner. Men were more extraverted in the years before moving in
and became gradually more open and more conscientious after moving in.
Less agreeable men were more likely to get married. Individuals who got
married became less open in the first three years after the marriage.
Women became more extraverted after being separated. Men with lower
emotional stability and women who were both less emotionally stable and
more extraverted were more prone to experiencing relationship breakups.
Individuals who got divorced were less agreeable in the years before the
divorce. Personality may change after specific events. For example,
both men and women who experienced separation or divorce became less
emotionally stable in the following years. The results implicated that
total agreeableness was not a guarantee for long-lasting romantic
relationships, as less agreeable individuals were more likely to
experience both positive and negative major romantic events. Getting into a long-term romantic relationship can kick-start
personality development in young adults ages 20–30 as they are faced
with new social situations and expectations. For instance, high levels
of trait neuroticism at the beginning of relationships can be seen
decreasing over 8 years once the relationship has begun, as well as
other Big Five personality traits, such as Conscientiousness and
Agreeableness, can be seen increasing in long-term relationships.
Critique
The Big Five model has been subjected to considerable critical scrutiny in a number of published studies. One prominent critic of the model has been Jack Block at the University of California, Berkeley. In response to Block, the model was defended in a paper published by Costa and McCrae. This was followed by a number of published critical replies from Block.
The main criticism of the Big Five traits is that they do
not explain enough of human personality. Some psychologists feel it
neglects other domains of personality, such as religiosity, manipulativeness/machiavellianism, honesty, sexiness/seductiveness, thrift, conservatism, masculinity/femininity, snobbishness, egotism, sense of humour, and risk-taking/thrill-seeking. Dan P. McAdams
has called the Big Five a "psychology of the stranger", because they
refer to traits that are relatively easy to observe in a stranger; other
aspects of personality that are more privately held or more
context-dependent are excluded from the Big Five. Block has pointed to several less-recognized but successful efforts to specify aspects of character not subsumed by the model. It has been argued the Big Five may account for as little as 56% of the normal personality trait sphere. Studies indicate that the Big Five traits are not as powerful in
predicting and explaining actual behaviour as the more fine-grained facets or primary traits.
In his 1968 book Personality and Assessment, Walter Mischel asserted that personality instruments could not predict behavior with a correlation of more than 0.3. Social psychologists
like Mischel argued that attitudes and behavior were not stable, but
varied with the situation. Scientists such as Mischel claimed predicting
behavior from personality instruments was impossible. However, during
the 1980s, emerging methodologies increasingly confirmed personality
theories. Though generally failing to predict single instances of
behavior, researchers found that they could predict patterns of behavior
by aggregating large numbers of observations. As a result, correlations between personality and behavior increased
substantially, and it became clear that "personality" did in fact exist.
The Big Five is not theory-driven but a statistical investigation of certain descriptors that tend to cluster.
Most measures of the FFM do not assess all of its
maladaptive variants and therefore will not account for all of the
components of a given personality disorder. Measures to assess
maladaptive FFM traits have been developed, including the Five Factor
Model Personality Disorder scales, the Personality Inventory for ICD‐11,
and the Personality Inventory for DSM‐5. The model has been replicated in several languages, and the ICD and DSM
models for personality disorders are shifting toward the FFM. The five-factor model was among the first personality models in psychology derived from empirical research into natural-language data which found consistent correlations between the adjectives people use to describe themselves.
Today, the five-factor model underlies most contemporary
personality research, and the model has been described as one of the
major breakthroughs of quantitative behavioural science. The five-factor structure has been confirmed by many subsequent studies across cultures and languages, which have replicated the original model and reported largely similar factors.
