Idon't know the key to

success, but the key to

failure is trying to please
everybody. (Bill Cosby)
Trait approach: The Big Five
 A consensus has emerged over the last 25
years among researchers that the basic
factors that make up „personality‟ are:
1. Neuroticism (or negative affectivity,
emotionality)
2. Extraversion (surgency)
3. Openness (intellect or culture)
4. Agreeableness
5. Conscientiousness (dependability)
3-
4
 The tendency to be sociable
and assertive and to have
positive energy.
 The opposite is „introversion‟
which is the tendency to be
quiet, reserved and
disengaged from the social
world sometimes mistaken
as unfriendliness or
arrogance.
 The tendency to be thorough,
organised, controlled, dependable
and decisive.
 Conscientious individuals avoid
trouble and achieve high levels of
success through purposeful planning
and persistence. On the negative side,
they can be compulsive perfectionists
and workaholics and regarded as stuff
and boring.
 Un-conscientious people may be
criticized for their unreliability, lack of
ambition and failure to stay within the
lines.
 The tendency to be
depressed, anxious, insecure,
vulnerable and hostile these
problems can diminish one‟s
ability to think clearly, make
decisions and cope effectively
with stress.
 However, individuals who
score low on neuroticism are
less easily upset and are less
emotionally reactive
 The tendency to be informed,
creative, insightful and
curious. It distinguishes
imaginative, creative people
from down to earth,
conventional people.
 People with low scores on
openness tend to have narrow,
common interests. They prefer
the plain, straightforward and
obvious over the complex,
ambiguous and subtle.
 The tendency to be accepting,
conforming, trusting and
nurturing. Advantageous for
attaining and maintaining
popularity.
 However, agreeableness is not
useful in situations that require
tough or absolute objective
decisions.
 Disagreeable people can make
excellent scientists or critics
 Judge, Bono, Ilies and Gerhardt (2002) conducted a
major meta-analysis of 78 leadership and personality
studies published between 1967 and 1998.
 They found a strong relationship between the Big Five
traits and leadership
 Extraversion most strongly associated with
leadership
 Conscientiousness second most important factor
 Low neuroticism and openness next most related
factors
 Agreeableness weakly associated with leadership
(recall the quote by Bill Cosby “I don't know the key
to success, but the key to failure is trying to please
everybody.”)
 Critics argue that there are limitations to the scope of Big
Five as an explanatory or predictive theory.
 According to Block (1995) and others…
◦ A frequent objection to the Big Five is that five dimensions cannot
possibly capture all of the variation in human personality
 The methodology used to identify the dimensional
structure of personality traits, factor analysis, is often
challenged for not having a universally-recognized basis
for choosing among solutions with different numbers of
factors. (Why were these five factors particularly chosen?)
 Another frequent criticism is that the Big Five is not
theory-driven. It is merely a data-driven investigation of
certain descriptors that tend to cluster together under
factor analysis.
 The fact that the labels differ does not mean they are
different, though. There is a large amount of commonality
across various labels
Most of the other four factors generalize
across cultures and countries, but the fifth
factor (openness) is usually the dimension
that varies

In Netherlands, their „openness to

experience‟ emphasized unconventionality
and rebelliousness, rather than intellect and
imagination.