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Hi, I'm Andreas and this is 2MinutePsychology.
I will give you a quick introduction to the Big Five personality model which is the world's
leading personality theory measured in number of published articles.
The Big Five personality model is practical as a quick and precise way of describing yourself
and others. You can recognize the five major personality factors in everyone. They are
numbered in the same way in all languages and are often called:
1: Extraversion , 2: Agreeableness, 3:Conscientiousness, 4: Emotional stability, 5: Intellect or Openness
to experience.
The five factors can also be called TRAITS. They are your habitual patterns of behavior,
thoughts and emotions. They are relatively stable over time and every individual has
her own variation of them.
The five factors are like HEADINGS -- each with many sub-chapters called FACETS. These
facets expand the meaning of each factor and give a more in-depth understanding of them.
Questionnaires are quick to administer and are often used to measure the facets and factors.
In a questionnaire there are a number of ITEMS. An item is often a personality description
-- and when answering, you have to estimate how accurately the description fits you.
There are many available questionnaires in the BigFive-world. The shortest ones only
measure the five BigFive factors. The longest ones can measure six or more facets for each
factor.
All traits are normally distributed: Most people are in the middle and fewer are in
the tails.
For an introverted person it costs a lot to socialize, but the extraverted person gets
her batteries charged by socializing. For people in the middle, it is often easier to
adjust to the situation. They have a larger COMFORT ZONE than people in the tails.
The premise for the BigFive model is that since mankind has developed language, anything
that matters to us is presumedly encoded in words.
Therefore, some early personality psychologists analyzed thousands of words describing personality
or behavior. When applying something called Factor Analysis to test results, a structure
with five factors appears.
It is possible to increase or decrease the number of factors both mathematically and
in theory,
but the general consensus is that the five-factor structure is a robust framework and also that
it is NOT intended to be a comprehensive description of what it means to be human.
When you complete a questionnaire, your results show how you compare to your relevant norm
group.
Of course you need to answer honestly and have some self-insight for the results to
be valid.
Knowing your own personality can help you solving conflicts with your colleagues or
loved ones using less energy.
It is hard to change personality, but quite possible to adapt your behavior.
Thanks for watching 2MinutePsychology