Self Improvement, Personality and Psychology
Uncover Yourself with The Big Five Personality Trait
The five-factor model that has been proven by the research scientist in psychology to be the most accurate way to test your personality
The first time I know about the big five personality trait as psychometric was from Jordan Petterson youtube video on the internet. Before I knew about The Big Five, I was testing my personality trait on 16personalities.com that based on Carl Jung theory about personality, and I satisfied with the result. But this “new personality trait test” for me was more practical to predict people on their behaviour on the social world, so I decided to dig deeper about this topic more by following Jordan Peterson online course Discovering Personality. What I was found then, the big five personality trait is lexical theory test that backed by many researchers around the world and it is a good predictor to show your performance in the social world, workplace etc. Not only that, but it can also help you to show your personality need to get happier in life.
Soo, Why the big five or the five-factor model is a good psychometric? and What determines a good psychometric? To answer the first question then we need to answer the second question first. From what Jordan Peterson said and write in the Discovering Personality online course I can tell you that there are 3 words to measure valid psychometric, that three words are convergent, divergent, and practical value. Convergent mean, that they should predict the same thing that other, similar measures predict. Divergent mean, they should measure something unique that other measures don’t capture. Practical value means, they should help you understand something of importance and practical utility. And now let’s answer the second question, the five-factor model becomes good psychometric because it is fit on the three valid measurement standard, and not only that the convergence has been tested on cross-cultural and it is still valid on the different culture around the world.
The big five factors are openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, neuroticism. We usually use the abbreviation of OCEAN to make it easier to remember to describe another person or ourself with the big five. Every factor that has been described has its own dimension to describe a person. Let say if you high in extraversion it means you need more friend to hang out than to be alone on your solitary shell if you are low in extraversion. If you are high in neuroticism it means you are insecure and need to have more security and a certain situation to make you feel good. So, let see what the factor are in more detail :
Openness
Openness is the openness to experience, there are two aspects of openness that is openness and intellect. Openness is the most likely trait that linked to IQ and it’s associated with creativity. Open people are described as original, imaginative, creative, complex, curious, and have broad interests. So, what the parameter of two aspects of openness?
Some of the openness descriptors are :
1. enjoyed the beauty of nature
2. believe in importance of art
3. love to reflect on things
4. like poetry
5. seldom mention in the emotional aspects of paintings and pictures
6. need a creative outlet
7. tend to get lost in thought
8. daydream frequently
9. see the beauty in things that others might not notice
Some of the intellect descriptors are :
1. quick to understand things
2. understand abstract ideas
3. can handle a lot of information
4. like to solve complex problems
5. find interest in philosophical discussion
6. like difficult reading material
7. have a rich vocabulary
8. think and learn thing quickly
9. formulate clear ideas
Conscientiousness
Conscientious people are careful, reliable, organized, self-discipline and preserving in reverse unconscientious are carefree, laidback, happy-go-lucky, messy, and inattentive. Conscientiousness is one of the best predictors of life success after IQ. Biologically, conscientiousness is related to disgust sensitivity, a kind of negative emotion (but not related to neuroticism) that protect us from parasite and pathogen. In simple term, conscientiousness trait is associated with work and organization, it has two aspects as measurement: industriousness and orderliness.
some of the industriousness descriptors are :
1. carry out my plans
2. don’t waste time
3. don’t find it difficult to get down to work
4. finish what I start
5. get things done quickly (don’t postpone)
6. always know what I’m doing
7. not easily distracted
some of the orderliness descriptors are :
1. tidy
2. like order
3. bothered by messy people
4. want everything to be just right
5. bothered by disorder
6. like routine
7. see that rules are observed
8. want every detail taken care of
Extraversion
Extraversion is the tendency to experience positive emotion. It’s composed of two aspects: enthusiasm and assertiveness, which area two correlated, but distinct, subsets of behaviour. This two-aspect enthusiasm and assertiveness mean in general when you want to use it as measurement, because sometimes introvert people get enthusiast and assertive in their own expertise and they will look like an extrovert in their field. Extraverted people are highly persuasive and tend to lead people, they will first act in any given situation, they are people of crisis, they will still keep their head on the crisis. In reverse, introverted people don’t like to show about themself and their feeling in public, they are rarely get excited and tend to hold back. So as you can see, the different, let’s see the descriptor in more detail :
some of the assertiveness descriptors are :
1. take charge
2. have a strong personality
3. talent for influencing people
4. know how to captivate people
5. see myself as a good leader
6. can talk others into doing things
7. The first to act
some of the enthusiasm descriptors are :
1. make friends easily
2. reveal everything about myself
3. warm-up quickly to others
4. show my feelings when I’m happy
5. have a lot of fun
6. laugh often
Agreeableness
Agreeable people can be described as kind, warm, polite, and accommodating, while disagreeable people can be described as selfish, ruthless, vengeful. Agreeableness is a tendency to weight other’s interest against your own. The trait is composed of two aspects: compassion and politeness. Being agreeable means that you are too caring for others which is good in some situation and bad for another situation. Although being agreeable is much better in many situations but you will need some disagreeable too like in when being a negotiator and in competition. If you need negotiator than don’t give a try to place people with high agreeableness because it will fail hard. Okay so let see what the descriptor of agreeableness.
some of the compassion trait descriptors are:
1. interested in other people problems
2. feel other people emotions
3. inquire about others well-being
4. sympathize with others feelings
5. not indifferent to the feelings of others
6. take time for others
7. take an interest in other people’s life
8. have a soft side
9. like to do things for others
some of the politeness trait descriptors are:
1. respect authority
2. don’t believe I am better than others
3. hate to seem pushy
4. don’t take advantage of others
5. avoid imposing my will on others
6. rarely put people under pressure
7. avoid insulting people
8. avoid conflict
9. not out for personal gain
Neuroticism
Neuroticism is the personality trait associated with negative emotion. Negative emotion covers a wide range of traits, including frustration, disappointment, grief, pain, threat, uncertainty and anxiety. This trait is composed of two aspects: withdrawal and volatility. The distribution of people with high neuroticism is bigger than people with low neuroticism. In related to neuroticism, women have more people in high neuroticism because it related to maternal care. This trait if not in control often make people in depression, anxiety disorder, and other bad condition. So let see what the trait descriptor are in detail.
some of the withdrawal trait descriptors are :
1. often feel blue
2. filled with doubts about things
3. feel threatened easily
4. feel depressed
5. worry about things
6. easily discouraged
7. become overwhelmed by events
8. afraid of many things
some of the volatility trait descriptors are :
1. associated with defensive or predatory aggression
2. get angry easily
3. get upset easily
4. cant keep emotion under control
5. change mood frequently
6. moods up and down easily
7. easily annoyed
8. getting easily agitated
9. can be stirred up easily
10. hyper-reactive to frustration, disappointment and pain
Okay, after explaining about the big five aspects that I got from discovering personality lecture notes by Jordan Peterson, you may ask a question “where I can get the online test for this?”. There are several free sites to test your personality in the big five models, one of the free tests is in truity the big five. But if you want to get directly from Jordan Peterson the big five test, you can find on this link “Personality Assessment”. Okay, I think this is the last paragraph that I write, I hope you can take the benefit from this article and you can understand yourself more. One last suggestion, before you can say I know myself and I will do what I want, make sure you know yourself before you said that, because often people don’t understand themself and just act as they do. So, find yourself, test it with some tools that available and I hope you will fulfil good thing in your life.
