Big Five personality traits

In personality psychology and psychometrics, the Big 5 or five-factor model (FFM) is a widely-used scientific model for describing how personality traits differ across people using five distinct factors:

These traits are not black and white; each one is a spectrum, with personality varying continuously across each of these dimensions (unlike in the MBTI inventory).

The five-factor model was among the first personality models in psychology derived from empirical research into natural-language data which found consistent correlations between the adjectives people use to describe themselves. For example, someone described as conscientious is more likely to be described as "always prepared", and less likely to be described as "messy".

Research into personality inventories found five broad dimensions could explain most variation in human personality and temperament, with more-detailed analyses typically dividing the traits into more specific subfactors. For example, extraversion is typically associated with qualities such as gregariousness, assertiveness, excitement-seeking, warmth, activity, and positive emotions. Other models, like HEXACO, supplement the Big 5 traits with additional variables.

Today, the five-factor model underlies most contemporary personality research, and the model has been described as one of the major breakthroughs of quantitative behavioural science. The five-factor structure has been confirmed by many subsequent studies across cultures and languages, which have replicated the original model and reported largely-similar factors.

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