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Five Factor Model Of Personality Essay, Research Paper

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 used in the study of personality is that of

factor analysis:

By identifying groups of highly intercorrelated variables, factor analysis enables us to

determine how many underlying factors are measured by a set of p original variables. In other

words, factor analysis is used to uncover the factor structure of a set of variables. (Diekhoff,

1992: 333)

A factor analysis will generally show that a smaller number of factors represents the same information

as the original number of variables. Once the variables making up the factors have been identified,

some of the redundant variables may be removed (Diekhoff, 1992). As such, a large number of traits

may be reduced to a number of personality factors. The procedure of factor analysis was a significant

part of both the development and criticism of the five personality factor theory, as well as the theories

on which it is based.

An experiment conducted by Allport and Oddbert (1936, cited in Goldberg, 1990) was based

on the assumption that a dictionary contains a list of every possible trait name. Oddbert and Allport

took every word from a dictionary that related to personality descriptors. This list was then revised to

remove synonyms and unclear or doubtful words. Another researcher, Raymond Cattell (1945, cited

in Atkinson et al, 1993) further revised the Allport-Oddbert list to 171 words. A study was then

conducted by Cattell on a group of subjects who were asked to rate people they knew on the 171

traits. The results were factor analysed and 12 personality factors were found. However, 4 additional

factors were found by analysing self-ratings. Cattell concluded that, in the adult human, 16

personality factors were dominant.

Eyesenck, (1953, cited in Atkinson et al, 1993) was another major theorist to use factor

analysis. Although using the same basic approach as Cattell, Eyesenck used a more discriminatory

factor analysis which resulted in far less than 16 factors. Eyesencks’ major factors are introversion-

extroversion and neuroticism. These are believed to be ordinal factors and as such, scores on each

dimension are independent of one another. The majority of future studies concluded that the actual

number of personality factors, for which there is significant evidence, is between Eyesencks’ two and

Cattells’ 16.

Since Cattells’ study, many researchers have conducted similar studies, or re-analysis of

Cattells’ original data. Most of the researchers, such as Norman (1967, cited in Merenda, 1993)

found support for far less than 16 personality factors. At most, it was generally concluded that there

are between three and seven factors of personality. As a compromise, many researchers agree that

there are five personality factors, as suggested by Norman’s original work (1963, cited in Goldberg,

1990). Support for the Five-Factor model comes from current researchers such as McCrae and Costa

(1985) and Goldberg and Saucier (1995). Opposition to the theory is also abundant, such as the work

of Jack Block (1995).

All trait theorists agree that there is a finite number of traits on which people have a “score”.

The exact number of traits is still currently a point of contention amongst theorists. However, “today

we believe it is more fruitful to adopt the working hypothesis that the five-factor model of personality

is essentially correct.” (McCrae & John, 1992: 175). There is also still “disagreement among analysts

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