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The Big Five Categories of Personality

Rylee Steward
Oklahoma State University

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The Big Five categories that are designed to determine someones

personality are: Openness to Experience/Intellect, Conscientiousness, Extraversion,
Agreeableness, and Neuroticism. These five words that are used to describe personality came
from a long list of adjectives and descriptive words that have been narrowed down to just five
words to interpret someones personality based off of the way they answer a question about
themself. Even though, these five topics are meant to cover a broad spectrum there is some parts
to personality that are not summed up in the five categories. The big five theory in used in
clinical practices and known to be more useful in the viewing the learning and research done
psychotic individuals (Popkins, 1998). After the model has been put to use there is five things
that determine whether the model is reliable. Compatibility,originality,application,taxonomy,
anduniversalityarethecategoriesthatevaluatehowgreatthemodelisandhowjustifiedthe
personalitytheoryis(Popkins, 1998).Themodeldoesnotmeetthefullpotentialofbeing
boundlessandhassomedownfalltoit.Thefivetheorymodelisoneofthemostimportant
personalitytestsdoneinpersonology(Popkins, 1998).Thehistoryofthebigfiveorabbreviated
asOCEANisheldtobeawidespreaddepictionofpersonalityinthepsychologyfield(Acton,
2001).ThefoundingfatherofthetermBigFivecamefromLewGoldbergandtheideaofthe
fivefactortheoryoriginatedfromRobert(Jeff)McCraeandPaulCostain2008intheir
HandbookofPersonalitychapter(Srivastava, 2015).Thetheoryisusedinmanypsychological
researchways,exceptionallyininterpersonalperceptionbecauseithelpsorganizepeoplesviews
intotheirpersonality(Srivastava, 2015).
My results after taking the Big Five personality test were accordingly correct with how I
would describe my personality, but I do not agree on some sections. I also choose to use my
sisters personality to compare mine to because many family or friends consider us to have about

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the same personality. From the time we were little to now people tend to say that we act, look,
and do certain things the same way, other than I am a more social and outgoing individual. I
choose her to see what everyone tends to say was true and for three of the categories we scored
relatively close to each other. The three sections we scored relatively close to one another were
the conscientiousness category, the agreeableness category, and the neuroticism category. The
conscientiousness section shows the people that are dependable, well ordered, and cautious. The
agreeableness part shows the caring, considerate, and compassionate side to people. The third
category neuroticism shows how people are stressed, anxious, and vulnerable. In the
conscientiousness section I scored an 89 and my sister received an 86, which I agree with that
my sister and myself are well organized and we are both very reliable individuals. The second
section that we favored each other in was the agreeableness category, she scored a 97 and I
scored a 93. We both are very supportive to friends and family, were very forgiving people, and
we tending to be courteous to others. The third section we scored close to one another was
neuroticism category, we both scored very low. My sister scored a 2 and I received a 4. In these
three categories, I believe they are fairly accurate to my sisters and my selfs personality. Even
though, we share common characteristics the openness to experience/intellect and extraversion
sections we received different scores and to proves that our personality differs from one another.
My sister and I had relatively close scores in three categories that I already discussed, but
the last two sections we differed. The two categories we do not compare to each other is the
openness to experience/intellect and the extraversion. The openness to experience/intellect
section is show whether individuals are ingenious, unusual, and questioning; the higher you
score in the section shows that you attain these qualities. The extraversion section shows if
people are approachable, outgoing, and conversational. On the openness to experience/intellect

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section, I was considered to be somewhat conventional and scored lower than I expected myself
to. In this section, my score was a 24, while my sisters was a 59. I do not particularly agree with
the website saying that I am unoriginal or predictable because I like to be my own self and stand
out. I am a very independent individual and I find satisfaction in being different from the person
who next to me. I think the category fights to my sister because she does seek out new and out of
her usual experiences, but not too often. The next section was the extraversion category, I scored
exceptional high with a 93 and my sister scored a 53. For this section, I believe that I am a very
social person, I do not get shy in front of people I do not know and I am an extremely talkative
individual. I also believe that the score my sister received fits her personality because she gets
shy in certain situations and does not put herself out to new friendships or in any other
uncomfortable situations. The big five personality test gave me a better perspective on my
personality and that even though many people think that my sister and I are relatively close to
each other in personality it shows that we both have stronger aspects than the other one.

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References
Popkins, N.C. (1998). The Five-Factor Model: Emergence of a Taxonomic Model for Personality
Psychology. SAPA Project Test. Retrieved from
http://www.personalityresearch.org/papers/popkins.html

Acton, G.S. (2001). Five-Factor Model. SAPA Project Test. Retrieved from
http://www.personalityresearch.org/bigfive.html

Srivastava, S. (2015). Measuring the Big Five Personality Factors. Personality and Social
Dynamics Lab. Retrieved from http://pages.uoregon.edu/sanjay/bigfive.html