The Big 5 Lucas Nelson Ross Brandon Richard Severs.

The Big 5The Big 5Lucas Nelson RossBrandon Richard Severs

OverviewOverviewWhat are the Big 5?HistoryDimensionsCriticismsPsychometric PropertiesBig 5 and Job Performance, Job

Satisfaction and Leadership

What are the Big Five?What are the Big Five?Five broad dimensions of personality traits.Five basic source traits that make up the

fundamental building blocks of personality.Collectively, a taxonomy of personality

traitsA coordinate system that maps which traits

go together.Five trait clusters that are strongly

internally correlated and not strongly correlated with one another.

History of Big FiveHistory of Big Five Lexical Hypothesis assumes important human traits

will be…◦ represented in all languages◦ have many nuanced synonyms

Allport and Odbert:◦ Went through an English-language dictionary and

discovered more than 4,000 words that described specific personality traits.

Cattell:◦ Reduced 4,000 terms to about 171 characteristics◦ Used factor analysis to identify traits closely related to

one another.◦ Eventually reduced his list to 16 key personality factors.

Eysenck:◦ Three dimensions

Introversion-extroversion Neuroticism-emotional Psychoticism

History of Big FiveHistory of Big FiveLew Goldberg coined the term “Big Five”.Began with a study by Tupes and Christal

(1958, 1961).The Big Five structure was derived from

statistical analyses of which traits tend to co-occur in people’s descriptions of themselves or other people.◦ A factor analysis was used to analyze how various

personality traits are correlated in humans.Costa and McCrae

◦ Big Five Model◦ Neuroticism, Extroversion, Openness to Experience,

Agreeableness, Conscientiousness.

NeuroticismNeuroticismThe tendency to experience negative

emotions, such as anger, anxiety, or depression

High◦ Anxiety ◦ Self-consciousness ◦ Depression ◦ Vulnerability ◦ Impulsiveness ◦ Angry hostility

Low◦ Calm◦ Even-tempered◦ Unemotional◦ Hardy

NeuroticismNeuroticismIndividuals high on Neuroticism

have more bad feelings and psychological distress because…◦Generate more stressful situations by

getting into arguments, etc.◦React more strongly negatively to

stressful events.◦Direct bad feelings associated with

Neuroticism even without stressors.Individuals have more

psychosomatic symptoms, irritation, anger, and nervousness.

ExtroversionExtroversionCharacterized by positive emotions,

surgency, and the tendency to seek out stimulation and the company of others.

High◦ Gregariousness ◦ Activity Level ◦ Assertiveness ◦ Excitement Seeking ◦ Positive Emotions ◦ Warmth

Low◦ Reserved◦ Loner◦ Quiet

ExtroversionExtroversionMore resistant to distraction,

cognitive interference, and perform better on tasks requiring divided attention.

Its sociability is related to positive affect.

Impulsivity is related to negative affect

Openness to ExperienceOpenness to Experience A general appreciation for art, emotion, adventure,

unusual ideas, imagination, curiosity, and variety of experience.

High◦ Fantasy ◦ Aesthetics ◦ Feelings ◦ Ideas ◦ Actions ◦ Values

Low◦ Down-to-earth◦ Conventional◦ Uncreative◦ Prefer routine

Openness to ExperienceOpenness to ExperienceAlternately labeled culture,

intelligence, openness.High in very creative people.Correlated with…

◦Active intelligence ◦Education◦# of career changes◦Aesthetic interests and sensitivity◦ Intellectual absorption ◦Broad values

AgreeablenessAgreeablenessTendency to be compassionate and

cooperative rather than suspicious and antagonistic towards others.

High◦ Straightforwardness ◦ Trust ◦ Altruism ◦ Modesty ◦ Tendermindedness ◦ Compliance

Low◦ Aggressive◦ Ruthless◦ Suspicious

AgreeablenessAgreeablenessIncludes altruism, affection,

humaneness, sincerityMost related to good parenting in

mothers.

ConscientiousnessConscientiousnessTendency to show self-discipline, act

dutifully, and aim for achievement.High

◦ Self-discipline ◦ Dutifulness ◦ Competence ◦ Order ◦ Deliberation ◦ Achievement striving

Low◦ Lazy◦ Aimless◦ Quitting

ConscientiousnessConscientiousnessMost related to success across

jobs and situations.◦College level individuals high in

Conscientiousness predicts job success years in the future

Related to good scores on integrity tests

Criticisms of the Big FiveCriticisms of the Big FiveThe model is theory-driven rather than

determined by empirical inevitability.The Big Five have repeatedly been found

to be non-orthogonal and correlate with each other.

Cannot encompass all of human personality

Too BroadNot enough clarity over what the factors

actually mean Does not make any advances in getting

towards an understanding of what makes up personality.

Criticisms of the Big FiveCriticisms of the Big FiveBlock (1995) suggests that the lexical

hypothesis is a "psychologically insufficient" hypothesis, drawing on the observation of McCrae and Costa (1985) that psychologists have uncovered important aspects of personality that were not encoded in the language

There are many aspects of personality that cannot be captured with a single-word term

Big 5 TraitsBig 5 TraitsBecause the Big 5 is so broad, there is

some variation from study to study about the dimensions themselves and what they include

Question became “Which Big 5 should be used?” as different researchers simply preferred different labels in their research

As a result, a set of judges combined over 300 adjectives or traits to form the Adjective Check List

Big 5 TraitsBig 5 Traits

Big 5 TraitsBig 5 TraitsIn another study, certain clusters

of personality traits were determined to be independent from a Big 5 dimension

Religious, devout, reverent = .07Sexy, sensual, erotic = .13Egotistical, conceited, snobbish =

.16Humorous, witty, amusing = .13

Psychometric PropertiesPsychometric PropertiesBecause there are many scales

that measure the Big 5, John and Srivastava (1991) looked at the validity and reliability of three commonly used instruments: ◦NEO-FFI◦TDA◦BFI

ReliabilityReliability

ValidityValidity

Big 5 and Job PerformanceBig 5 and Job PerformancePrevious research concluded that

personality tests had low validity for predicting job performance

In a meta-analysis by Barrick & Mount (1991), they compared the Big 5 dimensions to three job performance criteria and five occupational groups

The results indicated that only one dimension, conscientiousness, showed significant relationships between performance and the groups.

Big 5 and Job PerformanceBig 5 and Job PerformanceValidity for Conscientiousness was .2

which suggests the trait is important to the accomplishment of work tasks in all jobs

Extraversion was found to be a valid predictor for two occupations: managers and sales

Openness to experience dimension a valid predictor of training proficiency

Big 5 and Job SatisfactionBig 5 and Job SatisfactionIn a meta-analysis by Judge,

Heller, and Mount (2002), they found moderate correlations of job satisfaction with Neuroticism, Extraversion, and Conscientiousness

Big 5 and Job SatisfactionBig 5 and Job Satisfaction

Big 5 and LeadershipBig 5 and LeadershipCan having certain personality traits

predict that an individual will be a leader?

Transformational leadership (TL) inspires followers with a vision beyond their own self-interest

Uses four dimensions:◦ Idealized influence◦ Inspirational motivation◦ Intellectual stimulation◦ Individual consideration

Big 5 and LeadershipBig 5 and LeadershipResults show that correlation

between Big and TL is .40 and the strongest dimension was agreeableness at .32

Support the construct of TL and generalizes across levels of organizations

Correlations between TL and leader effectiveness are not perfect though

Big 5 and LeadershipBig 5 and LeadershipStudy by Judge et al. (2002) studied the

Big 5 traits and their relationship to leadership emergence and leadership success

They found extraversion and conscientiousness to be related to leadership emergence

Also, they found the Big 5 dimensions to be useful in predicting dispositional qualities of leadership, but there is little understanding as to why these traits predict leadership

Big 5 and Networking Big 5 and Networking IntensityIntensity

In a study by Wanberg, Kanfer, and Banas (2000), predicted individual differences in networking intensity

Participants completed items that assessed the term networking intensity

All dimensions correlated in some way with networking intensity and job-search intensity

Only Extraversion and Conscientiousness predicted networking intensity while the others were non-significant