The Five Factor Model breaks personality down into five components: Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Openness, and Stress Tolerance. Personality tests that are based on this model measure where an individual lies on the spectrum of each of the five traits.
Psychologist Gordon Allport was one of the first to categorize these characteristics: He created a list of more than 4,000 personality traits. Allport grouped these traits into three different categories: cardinal traits, central traits, and secondary traits.
The Big 5 Personality dimensions are: openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism. These spell out the common acronym OCEAN. Each person has a score for all of these aspects and that unique combination of each trait makes up your personality.
Personal outcomes predicted by personality include subjective well-being (predicted by extraversion and neuroticism), spirituality (predicted by conscientiousness, openness, and agreeableness), and health (predicted by conscientiousness, neuroticism, and agreeableness).
An example of openness is someone who's always trying something new. Every time you go out to eat, they get a different dish just to find out. They're always meeting new people and display very liberal ideas about society.
Conscientiousness is the strongest predictor of all five traits for job performance (John & Srivastava, 1999). A high score of conscientiousness has been shown to relate to high work performance across all dimensions. The other traits have been shown to predict more specific aspects of job performance.
Neuroticism, one of the Big 5 personality traits, is typically defined as a tendency toward anxiety, depression, self-doubt, and other negative feelings. All personality traits, including neuroticism, exist on a spectrum—some people are just much more neurotic than others.
Openness to experience, or simply openness, is a basic personality trait denoting receptivity to new ideas and new experiences. It is one of the five core personality dimensions that drive behavior—known as the five-factor model of personality, or the Big 5.
Neuroticism is the trait disposition to experience negative affects, including anger, anxiety, self‐consciousness, irritability, emotional instability, and depression1.
Agreeableness. The agreeableness trait reflects individual differences in 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.
Conscientiousness is a fundamental personality trait—one of the Big Five—that reflects the tendency to be responsible, organized, hard-working, goal-directed, and to adhere to norms and rules.
Negative emotionality is generally defined as the tendency to show various forms of negative affect. This is a personality trait characterized by anxiety, moodiness, worry, envy, and jealousy.
Emotional stability or neuroticism is one of the five personality traits of the Big Five personality theory. Emotional stability refers to a person's ability to remain stable and balanced. At the other end of the scale, a person who is high in neuroticism has a tendency to easily experience negative emotions.
INFJ is the rarest personality type across the population, occurring in just 2% of the population. It is also the rarest personality type among men. INFJ stands for Introversion, Intuition, Feeling, and Judging. This unique combination is hard to find in most people.
In this table, the Big Five domains are ordered by their relative stability: from Extraversion (most stable) to Neuroticism (least stable).
In particular, they talk about the "Big Five": openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism. Evidence suggests that these traits aren't fixed at all, and some research shows you can intentionally change these personality traits.
Agreeableness Examples
Wanting to please others is one of the most common examples of agreeableness. People with an agreeableness personality don't hesitate to compromise on their own needs to keep others happy, which may sometimes make way for self-destructive behavior.
Some common examples of neurotic behavior can include:
Being overly critical of one's self or work (perfectionism that gets in the way of progress) An outsized reaction to a minor problem, such as “road rage” or crying because dinner was burned and couldn't be eaten.
Extraversion includes traits such as talkative, energetic, assertive, and outgoing. Social interaction is the key here. Extraverts often take on positions of leadership; first to offer their opinion and suggestions. They are often quick to approach others, especially on the dating scene.
According to Essentials of Organizational Behavior: 14th Edition, the big five personality dimension that has the biggest influence on job performance is conscientiousness. Those who score higher in this trait are likely to have higher levels of job-related knowledge as those who are highly conscientious learn more.
Agreeableness reflects the individual's tendency to develop and maintain prosocial relationships. Individuals high in this trait are more trustworthy, straightforward, altruistic, compliant, modest, and tender-minded.
Conscientiousness (organization, productiveness, responsibility) Extroversion (sociability, assertiveness; its opposite is Introversion)
Machiavellianism is a personality trait that denotes cunningness, the ability to be manipulative, and a drive to use whatever means necessary to gain power. Machiavellianism is one of the traits that forms the Dark Triad, along with narcissism and psychopathy.