This thread exists to inform all you Kiwis about one of the only few personality models that have actually been created empirically: the Big Five!
The Big Five is for the most part exactly what it says on the tin: a model focusing around five major traits that can be found within the human personality: Openness to Experience, Conscientiousness, Extroversion, Agreeableness and Neuroticism, abbreviated as OCEAN. These five traits are usually broken down into six sub-traits each that make up that trait.
Now I'm going to explain what the living hell I'm actually talking about!
I could also tell you about the circumplex model derived from this but I'm just going to leave it at that.
Well, that just about sums it up. Let me know what you make of all this! Perhaps you can even test yourself on the Big Five and post the results here? I highly recommend this site for this purpose. My results tell me I'm a RIOAS which to be honest is fairly accurate.
The Big Five is for the most part exactly what it says on the tin: a model focusing around five major traits that can be found within the human personality: Openness to Experience, Conscientiousness, Extroversion, Agreeableness and Neuroticism, abbreviated as OCEAN. These five traits are usually broken down into six sub-traits each that make up that trait.
Now I'm going to explain what the living hell I'm actually talking about!
In a nutshell, Openness to Experience describes how much a person prefers variety and novelty to the same old thing. People with high openness are imaginative, interested in the arts and hobbies/careers which involve using the mind such as crosswords, chess, philosophy, etc, in touch with their emotions, love to broaden their horizons by going new places and trying new activities, and trend towards challenging authority, rules and conventions.
People with low openness are concrete-minded, think art and anything requiring using a brain is a waste of time, barely aware of their emotions, cautious about unfamiliarity and stick to their own domain and routine and prefer to do what they're told rather than rocking the boat and expecting people they have authority over to do the same.
Both of these in the extreme are incredibly destructive. People who are extremely open are significantly more likely to sympathise with criminals than an ordinary person would (think about Elliot Rodgers and his apologists trying to excuse his crimes) and have their heads up in the clouds 100% of the time while folk who are extremely conventional are complete sticks in the mud and overly dogmatic and stubborn to the point of tyranny (think about Christian fundamentalists trying to get creationism taught in schools, for example).
People with low openness are concrete-minded, think art and anything requiring using a brain is a waste of time, barely aware of their emotions, cautious about unfamiliarity and stick to their own domain and routine and prefer to do what they're told rather than rocking the boat and expecting people they have authority over to do the same.
Both of these in the extreme are incredibly destructive. People who are extremely open are significantly more likely to sympathise with criminals than an ordinary person would (think about Elliot Rodgers and his apologists trying to excuse his crimes) and have their heads up in the clouds 100% of the time while folk who are extremely conventional are complete sticks in the mud and overly dogmatic and stubborn to the point of tyranny (think about Christian fundamentalists trying to get creationism taught in schools, for example).
Conscientiousness measures a person's amount of self-discipline as opposed to spontaneity. People with high conscientiousness are self-efficient and overwhelmingly believe they are able to get stuff done, well-organised and often using lists and plans to this effect, have a very strong sense of duty to those they feel accountable to, work themselves to the bone to achieve excellence and feel they're going in the direction they want to, and always think through their ideas and plans before they act upon them.
People with low conscientiousness feel they are incompetent and hopeless at carrying out their responsibilites, are disorganised and scatter-brained, think themselves not bound to any contract nor regulation and are often seen as unreliable and irresponsible, content to get by with the minimum possible effort and work they can get away with, often procrastinate and do not follow through with the things they do, and do what they want with mostly no regard for the consequences.
Please note that despite the negative slant there is on low conscientiousness, it can give people a large amount of spontaneity and unpredicability, which can make for an exciting and curious person to be around!
As always, the extremes are both as equally bad: extremely disciplined people can be total workaholics and not make any time for light-heartedness in their lives, while extremely spontaneous people are generally despised by people who take their duties seriously for being inconsistent, dismissive of any sense of obligation, and overall just plain lazy and capricious.
People with low conscientiousness feel they are incompetent and hopeless at carrying out their responsibilites, are disorganised and scatter-brained, think themselves not bound to any contract nor regulation and are often seen as unreliable and irresponsible, content to get by with the minimum possible effort and work they can get away with, often procrastinate and do not follow through with the things they do, and do what they want with mostly no regard for the consequences.
Please note that despite the negative slant there is on low conscientiousness, it can give people a large amount of spontaneity and unpredicability, which can make for an exciting and curious person to be around!
As always, the extremes are both as equally bad: extremely disciplined people can be total workaholics and not make any time for light-heartedness in their lives, while extremely spontaneous people are generally despised by people who take their duties seriously for being inconsistent, dismissive of any sense of obligation, and overall just plain lazy and capricious.
This category measures how outgoing or reserved a person is. People who are extroverted are openly friendly towards others and form emotional connections easily, enjoy the excitement of being in large crowds, assertive and like to take charge and lead other people, very physically and mentally active, are chaotic and seek thrills for the adrenaline rush it gives them, and are cheerful, boisterous and bubbly, experiencing a whole range of happy emotions. This is called positive affectivity, in contrast with negative affectivity (neuroticism).
People who are introverted are not as outreaching and tend to keep themselves to themselves, feel uncomfortable in crowds and prefer to be with only a few close friends or on their own, are passive and let other people take the limelight, live life at a leisurely and relaxed pace, feel overwhelmed by commotion and chaos and do not seek stimulation in the form of thrills, and rarely ever feel vigorously cheerful.
There aren't really all that many downsides to both extremes in comparison with other traits, save for extreme extroverts being domineering and boisterous and extreme introverts being doormats and lethargic.
People who are introverted are not as outreaching and tend to keep themselves to themselves, feel uncomfortable in crowds and prefer to be with only a few close friends or on their own, are passive and let other people take the limelight, live life at a leisurely and relaxed pace, feel overwhelmed by commotion and chaos and do not seek stimulation in the form of thrills, and rarely ever feel vigorously cheerful.
There aren't really all that many downsides to both extremes in comparison with other traits, save for extreme extroverts being domineering and boisterous and extreme introverts being doormats and lethargic.
Agreeableness measures how much a person is willing to accommodate other people and their needs.
People with high agreeableness find it easy to trust others and assume that most people they know have no malevolent intentions towards them, think it's unacceptable to manipulate people or lie to them for selfish gain*, feel immensely great when doing altruistic deeds that offer no self-benefit, dislike confrontation and prefer cooperating with peoples' wants and needs, are disturbed at the idea that they are superior to others and feel compassion for other people's suffering.
People with low agreeableness often suspect others of being selfish, conniving and possibly dangerous, have no problems with being deceptive to people as they feel it's necessary, feel that helping out is just wasted time that could be spent doing better things, are uncooperative and use force and/or influence to get their way, love to brag about how superior/greater they are than their peers and are not moved at all by human suffering and prefer making objective judgements to acting out of pity.
I shouldn't even HAVE to explain why extremely low agreeableness is bad, especially since it has links to narcissism and sociopathy. Extremely high agreeableness however, can make people seriously gullible, naive, somewhat of a doormat and easy to manipulate. This is really bad news, since people on the OPPOSITE END of the spectrum of agreeableness are usually the ones who do the manipulating. Said person may be extremely vulnerable to bullying and may need to be taught to have a healthy skepticism of people.
*Almost everyone LOVES this sub-trait because it makes the individual relatable and they can rest at ease in his/her presence because they know he/she/whatever won't try to screw them over to benefit themselves.
People with high agreeableness find it easy to trust others and assume that most people they know have no malevolent intentions towards them, think it's unacceptable to manipulate people or lie to them for selfish gain*, feel immensely great when doing altruistic deeds that offer no self-benefit, dislike confrontation and prefer cooperating with peoples' wants and needs, are disturbed at the idea that they are superior to others and feel compassion for other people's suffering.
People with low agreeableness often suspect others of being selfish, conniving and possibly dangerous, have no problems with being deceptive to people as they feel it's necessary, feel that helping out is just wasted time that could be spent doing better things, are uncooperative and use force and/or influence to get their way, love to brag about how superior/greater they are than their peers and are not moved at all by human suffering and prefer making objective judgements to acting out of pity.
I shouldn't even HAVE to explain why extremely low agreeableness is bad, especially since it has links to narcissism and sociopathy. Extremely high agreeableness however, can make people seriously gullible, naive, somewhat of a doormat and easy to manipulate. This is really bad news, since people on the OPPOSITE END of the spectrum of agreeableness are usually the ones who do the manipulating. Said person may be extremely vulnerable to bullying and may need to be taught to have a healthy skepticism of people.
*Almost everyone LOVES this sub-trait because it makes the individual relatable and they can rest at ease in his/her presence because they know he/she/whatever won't try to screw them over to benefit themselves.
This measures to what degree a person is emotionally volatile and how badly the person copes with stress.
People with high neuroticism have overactive fight-or-flight systems that lead to more anxiety than normal, become strongly irritated when things don't go their way, are prone to depressed moods and feel discouraged from initiating activities, are sensitive to other people's opinions of them and are insecure as a result, find it difficult to control their urges and seek short-term rewards over long-term rewards, and likely to get plunged into a state of panic and confusion when they're under pressure.
People with low neuroticism feel calm and at peace most of the time and fear almost nothing, don't become angry regularly or easily, are not bogged down by depressive tendencies, are secure and don't care what people think about them, never overindulge or have issues controlling their desires, and are well-adjusted and clear-minded in times of adversity.
There really is no downside to being emotionally balanced except that it can lead to being dangerously aloof if a mixture of introversion and low agreeableness is present, and possibly even insensitive if the person also possesses low openness on top of that. It's obvious why extremely high neuroticism is absolutely undesirable, but if you're some kind of idiot or you've been living under a rock, please read the note below.
People with high neuroticism have overactive fight-or-flight systems that lead to more anxiety than normal, become strongly irritated when things don't go their way, are prone to depressed moods and feel discouraged from initiating activities, are sensitive to other people's opinions of them and are insecure as a result, find it difficult to control their urges and seek short-term rewards over long-term rewards, and likely to get plunged into a state of panic and confusion when they're under pressure.
People with low neuroticism feel calm and at peace most of the time and fear almost nothing, don't become angry regularly or easily, are not bogged down by depressive tendencies, are secure and don't care what people think about them, never overindulge or have issues controlling their desires, and are well-adjusted and clear-minded in times of adversity.
There really is no downside to being emotionally balanced except that it can lead to being dangerously aloof if a mixture of introversion and low agreeableness is present, and possibly even insensitive if the person also possesses low openness on top of that. It's obvious why extremely high neuroticism is absolutely undesirable, but if you're some kind of idiot or you've been living under a rock, please read the note below.
I could also tell you about the circumplex model derived from this but I'm just going to leave it at that.
Well, that just about sums it up. Let me know what you make of all this! Perhaps you can even test yourself on the Big Five and post the results here? I highly recommend this site for this purpose. My results tell me I'm a RIOAS which to be honest is fairly accurate.
Some psychologists use the latter label to avoid Freudian connotations. Neuroticism was chosen as a label originally because high emotional instability is strongly linked with vulnerability to mental illnesses like depression and anxiety disorders, which were more often called neuroses back in Sigmund Freud's day, which is the word that the former label is inspired by.
