The Big5 - Big Five personality test

Personality test has evolved on the basis of the early thoughts and thinking of Freud. For long Meyers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) has been the undisputed leader in the personality test field. Big Five has taken up the competition with the MBTI about being the most popular/progressive personality test.

Big Five Personality dimensions

The Big Five personality traits is summarized below:

•    Openness - open-minded, an interest in art, emotional, adventurous, new ideas and curiosity.

•    Conscientiousness - typically self-disciplined, result oriented and structured, tradition and dutiful.

•    Extraversion - high energy level, people person, extrovert and gets stimulated by being around others.

•    Agreeableness - compassionate, cooperative, ability to forgive and being pragmatic, lets get the thing done.

•    Neuroticism - sensible, vulnerable, in extreme: emotional unstable and neurotic.

The big five model tests help you identify your personality traits and explore your strengths. You must be honest while answering the questions because feedback is given only with your answers.

Feedback based on big five model is generally given in percentile scores signifying the presence of each of the factor in your whole personality.

Big Five Personality average scores

Studies suggest that that the distributed average score of people on the Big Five traits is as the following:

•    Openness: 57%

•    Extraversion: 54%

•    Conscientiousness: 49%

•    Neuroticism: 48%

•    Agreeableness: 42%

Big Five Background

Big Five has many founders - among others: H. S. Odbert, Raymond Cattell, Ernest Tupes, Raymond Christal, Walter Mischel, Lewis Goldberg, Sir Francis Galton and Gordon Allport.

The Big Five personality test was developed back in the 1970’s by two research teams - headed by Paul Costa and Robert McCrae, and Warren Norman, Lewis Goldberg.

The two teams had slightly different approaches to the study of personlity traits but ended up at the same results: most personality traits can be reduced to five dimensions.

Psychologists have analyzed several thousands of people asking them hundreds of questions. The results led to the formation of five general personality dimmensions/traits: Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism.

Discussion & Critique of the Big Five

Critics argue that there are limitations to the construct of the Big Five as an explanatory or predictive tool. It is argued that the Big Five does not explain all of human personality.

Another frequent criticism is that the Big Five is not theory-driven. It is merely a data-driven investigation of certain descriptors that tend to cluster together under factor analysis.

The big five model is itself interrelated. Positive and negative correlations exist between the factors that form the model. There are people who say that the model does not suffice for further analysis of persons according to psychology. However, the big five model does give you a good overall introduction about your personality.