The Big Five Factor-These Is Not My Essay Just a Sample
Big Five Personality Factors
Why do we study personality?
The NEO that you have just completed looks at 5 personality traits, known as the Big Five. We will briefly look at what traits are, how these personality factors were determined, what the traits mean, what the Big Five predict about our behaviour, and how these factors might relate to motivation.
What are traits?
Traits are consistent patterns of thoughts, feelings, or actions that distinguish people from one another. Traits are basis tendencies that remain stable across the life span, but characteristic behaviour can change considerably through adaptive pr ocesses. A trait is an internal characteristic that corresponds to an extreme position on a behavioural dimension.
There have been different theoretical perspectives in the field of personality psychology over the years including human motivation, the whole person, and individual differences. The Big Five falls under the perspective of individual differences.
How were these personality factors determined?
The Big Five represents a taxonomy (classification system) of traits that some personality psychologists suggest capture the essence of individual differences in personality. These traits were arrived at through factor analysis studies. Factor anal ysis is a technique generally done with the use of computers to determine meaningful relationships and patterns in behavioural data. You begin with a large number of behavioural variables. The computer finds relationships or natural connections where vari ables are maximally correlated with one another and minimally correlated with other variables, and then groups the data accordingly. After this process has been done many times a pattern appears of relationships or certain factors that capture the essence of all of the data. Such a process was used to determine the Big Five Personality factors. Many researchers tested factors other than the Big Five and found the Big Five to be the only consistently
Why do we study personality?
The NEO that you have just completed looks at 5 personality traits, known as the Big Five. We will briefly look at what traits are, how these personality factors were determined, what the traits mean, what the Big Five predict about our behaviour, and how these factors might relate to motivation.
What are traits?
Traits are consistent patterns of thoughts, feelings, or actions that distinguish people from one another. Traits are basis tendencies that remain stable across the life span, but characteristic behaviour can change considerably through adaptive pr ocesses. A trait is an internal characteristic that corresponds to an extreme position on a behavioural dimension.
There have been different theoretical perspectives in the field of personality psychology over the years including human motivation, the whole person, and individual differences. The Big Five falls under the perspective of individual differences.
How were these personality factors determined?
The Big Five represents a taxonomy (classification system) of traits that some personality psychologists suggest capture the essence of individual differences in personality. These traits were arrived at through factor analysis studies. Factor anal ysis is a technique generally done with the use of computers to determine meaningful relationships and patterns in behavioural data. You begin with a large number of behavioural variables. The computer finds relationships or natural connections where vari ables are maximally correlated with one another and minimally correlated with other variables, and then groups the data accordingly. After this process has been done many times a pattern appears of relationships or certain factors that capture the essence of all of the data. Such a process was used to determine the Big Five Personality factors. Many researchers tested factors other than the Big Five and found the Big Five to be the only consistently
References: 1. Pervin, L. & John, O. (Eds.) (1999). Handbook of personality: theory and research. New York: Gilford. 2. Hogan, R., Johnson, J. & Briggs, S. (Eds.) (1997). Handbook of personality psychology. California: Academic Press. 3. Potkay, C. & Allen, B. (1986). Personality: theory, research, and applications. California: Brooks/Cole.