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The Five Factor Model Of Personality

The Five Factor Model of Personality


The precise definition of personality has been a point of discussion
amongst many different theorists within many different disciplines since the
beginning of civilisation. Personality can be defined as "the distinctive and
characteristic patterns of thought, emotion, and behaviour that define an
individual's personal style and influence his or her interactions with the
environment" (Atkinson, Atkinson, Smith & Bem, 1993: 525). It can be proposed
that personality psychology has two different tasks. "The first involves
specifying the variables on which individuals differ from one another. The
second involves synthesising the psychological processes of human functioning
into an integrated account of the total person" (Atkinson et al., 1993: 532).
There are many different theories of personality and many different theorists.
The purpose of this essay is to examine the trait approach, specifically the
five-factor model. Both the development and limitations of the Five-Factor model
of personality shall be discussed.

Trait theory is based on several assumptions. The first assumption is
that any difference between people that is seen as significant will have a name.
Secondly, these names, known as traits, are conceived of as continuous
dimensions. In general, trait theories assume that people vary simultaneously on
a number of personality factors. These traits are of both the conjunctive and
disjunctive form. Therefore, to understand a trait, it is necessary to
understand what a particular trait is and what type of behaviour is evidence of
that trait. (Atkinson et al., 1993). Five factor theorists are one set of trait
theorists. The claim of five factor theorists is that behaviour can be best
predicted and explained by measurement of five dominant personality factors. The
five factor theory is a fairly recent proposal and has its basis in earlier work,
which shall be discussed.

One of the statistical techniques most commonly...