The Big 5 Model

The current, most scientifically backed, model of personality is the “Big 5” or “OCEAN” model. The Big 5 model was discovered in the 1980s by psychologists Paul Costa and Robert McCrae. It was done by doing statistical factor analysis on the ways people described other people. By analyzing correlations, they found that the vast majority of descriptors of people could be grouped into 5 traits in the Western world. These 5 traits are Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism. I asked my best friend ChatGPT to list the psychological definitions of these five words, with my addendums in italics.

Openness to Experience: This trait refers to an individual's level of creativity, imagination, and openness to new ideas and experiences. People who score high in openness tend to be curious, adventurous, and enjoy exploring new things. The first thing that comes to mind when you think of an open person is some artsy hippie. This however, is not true. People who are passionate about science are highly open as well. One facet of openness is intellect, and people who are higher in intellect tend to like abstract concepts.

Conscientiousness: This trait reflects an individual's level of organization, self-discipline, and responsibility. People who score high in conscientiousness tend to be reliable, goal-oriented, and detail-oriented. Studies show that this personality trait is highly correlated with income. Conscientious people tend to find inactivity aversive.

Extraversion: This trait refers to an individual's level of sociability, assertiveness, and energy. People who score high in extraversion tend to be outgoing, talkative, and enjoy being around other people. For reasons I may or may not specify in this article, a better definition of extraversion may be one’s propensity to seek and experience positive emotions, the opposite of neuroticism.

Agreeableness: This trait reflects an individual's level of kindness, empathy, and cooperativeness. People who score high in agreeableness tend to be compassionate, helpful, and prioritize maintaining social harmony. People high in agreeableness tend to have more friends and be happier. People low in agreeableness tend to be in positions of power.

Neuroticism: This trait refers to an individual's level of emotional instability and sensitivity to stress. People who score high in neuroticism tend to be anxious, moody, and experience negative emotions more frequently. People low in neuroticism may actually be more risk prone.

Big 5 traits are measured on percentiles rather than binaries. This means extraversion is measured by how extraverted you are relative to the general population. Most people will be middling in most traits. I myself rank very high in extraversion and openness, very low in agreeableness and conscientiousness, and am slightly high in neuroticism, since I know you were all asking.

Studies show that these personality traits are stable over time: they do not change much over a lifetime. Already, the Big 5 is a good model for tracking enduring traits, so why are we talking about the MBTI? I believe the Big 5 is still tracking behavior rather than that elusive concept of personality. It is good because it tracks certain behaviors that are highly correlated with certain personality traits, but it fails to tell us what is going on under the hood. This is where MBTI comes in.

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