The Big Five Personality Trait Factors

Abstract

The field of dispositional traits of personality is best summarized in terms of five fundamental dimensions: the Big Five personality trait factors, namely Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Emotional Stability, and Intellect. The Big Five find their origin in psycho-lexical work in which the lexicon of a language is scanned for all words that can inform about personality traits. The Big Five factors have emerged most articulately in Indo-European languages in Europe and the United States, and weaker versions have appeared in non-Indo-European languages. The model is most functional and detailed in a format that integrates simple structure and circular representations. Such a format gives the Big Five system great accommodative potential, meaning that many or most of the concepts developed in approaches other than the Big Five can be located in that system, thus enhancing the communication about personality traits in the field. The Big Five model has been applied in virtually all disciplines of psychology, including clinical, social, organizational, and developmental psychology. In particular, the Big Five have been found useful in the field of learning and education where the factor Conscientiousness has been identified as a strong predictor of academic performance, but where other factors of the Big Five also have been demonstrated to play important roles, often in moderating or mediating sense. The Big Five model has faced a number of critical issues, one of which concerns the criteria of inclusion of trait-descriptive words from the lexicon. With relaxed criteria, allowing more than just dispositional trait words (e.g., trait words that are predominantly evaluative in nature), additional dimensions may emerge beyond the Big Five, mostly conveying features of morality. An important issue regards the cross-cultural applicability of trait-descriptive dimensions. With a cross-cultural emphasis, possibly no more than three factors, expressive of traits of Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness, make the best chance for claims of universality. For a good understanding of traits representing the remaining Big Five dimensions, and also dimensions that have sometimes been identified beyond the Big Five, it is not only important to specify their regional applicability, but also to articulate differences in research methodology.

Impact of Authoritative and Laissez-Faire Leadership on Thriving at Work: The Moderating Role of Conscientiousness

“…This study is based on the big five personality factor model that provides the basis for the assessment of personality characteristics in terms of their scores on five personality domains: (i) extraversion, (ii) emotional stability, (iii) agreeableness, (iv) conscientiousness, and (v) openness to experience [ 24 ]. These five factors of personality model have been tested as determinants [ 27 ] and performance indicators of leadership styles [ 28 ].…”

“…Therefore, it is believed that the conscientious personality traits of an employee positively influence thriving at work. In addition, authoritative leadership motivates employees by enforcing discipline, which continuously sustains pressure on employees to keep on learning by executing the given task within defined timelines [ 24 ]. The presence of the conscientiousness personality trait further stimulates the desire of pursuing the goals that ease the authoritative leadership to achieve the organizational goals.…”

“…Personality traits that influence leadership style are important factors that ultimately affect thriving at work. Conscientiousness explains the desire for accomplishment and its pursuit [ 24 ]. This trait is achievement-oriented and is equated with a sense of responsibility.…”

“…Researchers are agreed that leaders are not born, they are shaped by the educational and training institutes [ 26 ]. From this perspective, schools are the training centers where the seeds of constructive or destructive personalities are germinated [ 24 ]. They are also convinced that that good leadership is developed through an unending process of self-analysis, training and educating, and by accumulating a variety of experiences [ 24 ].…”

“…From this perspective, schools are the training centers where the seeds of constructive or destructive personalities are germinated [ 24 ]. They are also convinced that that good leadership is developed through an unending process of self-analysis, training and educating, and by accumulating a variety of experiences [ 24 ]. This study adds to the academic literature on the role of leadership styles, in connection with the employee thriving at the workplace.…”