Costa and McRae - Five Factors

"The Big Five" that make up the human personality are stated by Costa and McRae to be neuroticism, extraversion, agreeableness, openness to experience, and conscientiousness, but it did not start out as measuring these 5, as their personality inventories have grown and developed throughout time. But what do these five personality aspects mean and how do we know if we have them? Costa and McRae have described them all throughout their work and in applying them to human behaviors. What must be reminded is that the scores you receive if you take a 5-Factor personality test will not determine you as good or evil, as there is no "wrong" score of any of these factors. The acronym used to remember the traits listed above is OCEANS. They based their theory off of Cattel's previous personality inventories.

Openness to experience was highlighted to mean the ways in which people remain open and quizzical of life and could include their appreciation for aesthetics. What this trait may tell us about a person's personality is that if they score high in this category, they may be more "go with the flow" surrounding their days, much less scheduled and rudimentary. Conscientiousness measures one's work mentality and their routine. Extraversion is defined by what we already know about extroverts in comparison to introverts, so someone who scores lower on the extraversion scale would most likely be deemed an introvert. Agreeableness measures one's tendencies to act toward others such as trusting and amiable, the opposite or lower scaled version would be someone who has an overall pessimistic view of others and their intent. Lastly is neuroticism, which is defined by a person's likelihood to experience negative emotions. Someone who is clinically depressed may rate higher in neuroticism than someone who does not share that diagnosis.

Both praise and criticism exist surrounding this theory. One journal writes that the traits are too broad and they do not do justice for individuals with "normal personality domain". In applying the theory to real-world situations, in which some employers have been known to utilize this 5-factor model, one study proved that the validity of predicting workplace conduct was low, not recommended to be used scientifically. Costa and McRae's work has lead to important research on personality and the many factors that it may accompany, however, researchers are hesitant to suggest that we use their theory as an end-all-be-all to explain personalities, let alone to predict performance in any area of our lives, whether that be social or work related. There is also controversial findings of this theory when looked at from a multicultural perspective. This study has only been tested on specific populations, specifically English speaking, educated, and within a certain socioeconomic range. In order to gain more empirical evidence of accuracy, it may be beneficial that more research be done when applying this theory to other cultures and countries.

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 https://open.baypath.edu/psy321book/chapter/c19p2/
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 https://www.researchgate.net/publication/27826750\_Critique\_of\_the\_five-factor\_model\_of\_personality
3. ↑ https://www.simplypsychology.org/big-five-personality.html
**Further Reading**

1. DeYoung, C. G., Carey, B. E., Krueger, R. F., & Ross, S. R. (2016). Ten aspects of the Big Five in the Personality Inventory for DSM-5. *Personality disorders*, *7*(2), 113–123.
2. Soto, C. J., & John, O. P. (2017). The next Big Five Inventory (BFI-2): Developing and assessing a hierarchical model with 15 facets to enhance bandwidth, fidelity, and predictive power. *Journal of personality and social psychology*, *113*(1), 117–143.
3. Stricker, J., Buecker, S., & Pietrowsky, R. (2022). Alignment of the personality inventory for ICD-11 with the five-factor model of personality. *Psychological Assessment*.