"I am removing the following section for two reasons:

""Some anthropologists and sociologists are critical of the method because it measures personality traits on a basis of its synonymous adjectives in the English language, thus overlooking possible cultural construction of language. That English alone was used in factor analysis also arguably demonstrates an example of ethnocentrism. Furthermore, sociologists are critical that the theory only reinforces stereotypes and ignores social factors that might have lead to traits being present in certain groups of individuals. For instance, while women have a demonstrated tendency towards agreeableness, this is likely true of most subordinated individuals. Tying this trait to women at a psychological level then only reasserts inequalities by implying that differences exist as a matter of human nature rather than as a result of the social construction of gender.""

1. The information given there is incorrect. I've checked the scientific research to be sure, and English alone was *not* used in factor analysis, and the existence and nature of the Big Five factors has been validated in multiple continents. Here's an excerpt from McCrae & Hofstede's fascinating paper, Personality and Culture Revisited: Linking Traits and Dimensions of Culture (2004):

""Research in the English-speaking world using the NEO-PI-R established that individual differences in the factors are stable throughout most of the adult life span; that self-reports generally agree with observer ratings; and that the five factors, as well as the more specific traits that define them, are strongly heritable. In the 1990s, researchers around the world began to develop translations 2 of the instrument, making cross-cultural research possible. A series of studies showed that much the same factor structure was found in a wide variety of cultures (McCrae & Costa, 1997), that developmental trends in the mean levels of personality traits between adolescence and later
adulthood appeared to be universal (McCrae et al., 1999), and
that similar gender differences were found among cultures (Costa,
Terracciano, & McCrae, 2001).""

Here are the relevant citations from the above; if you can find them, I suggest taking a look:

McCrae, R. R., & Costa, P. T., Jr. (1997). Personality trait structure as a human universal. American Psychologist, 52, 509-516.

McCrae, R. R., Costa, P. T., Jr., Lima, M. P., Simões, A., Ostendorf, F., Angleitner, A., et al. (1999). Age differences in personality across the adult life span: Parallels in five cultures. Developmental Psychology, 35, 466-477.

Costa, P. T., Jr., Terracciano, A., &McCrae;, R. R. (2001). Gender differences in personality traits across cultures: Robust and surprising findings. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 81, 322-331.

As a further note in this regard, one group of subordinated individuals - prisoners - show personality profiles with low Agreeableness scores. Teenagers also show lower Agreeableness than adults. So I don't think it's ""likely true of most subordinated individuals"" that they have high Agreeableness. In point of fact, it appears that Extroversion actually has more to do with social dominance than Agreeableness does. (And men score higher in the Assertiveness sub-scale of Extroversion, incidentally, as given in the last study cited above.)

2. Beyond being incorrect, I don't like the above statement because it demonstrates bias. The fact that psychometric research ""reinforces stereotypes"" does not show that the research is bad or wrong; instead, it supports the truth to these stereotypes. Whether women are Agreeable because of genetic or environmental reasons is irrelevant to the question of whether Agreeableness is a valid and universal psychomentric construct. And of course while sociologists and anthropologists may be unhappy about these research results, that doesn't change the facts.

Hopefully this explanation is thorough enough to obviate the necessity of future arguments.

 22:26, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Clearly the point is biased in some direction; it is, after all, called criticism. However, it is appreciatable to rework claims rather than remove them entirely, as for example my move to redirect back the bias of your word ""discovered"", implying a factual truth of the matter, back to the more neutral term identified, and my return of your loaded attempt of beginning the criticism section with ""While the general consensus favoring a five-factor model is strong, there is still dissention.""

And how was the Big Five originally constructed if not through factor analysis of personality traits from the English dictionary? That's what I had read. If later attempts were made to see if othe