Chapter 3: Essay Questions

1.Name and describe each of the Big Five traits.

 The Big Five Traits Are Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness

and Neuroticism.
 Openness to experience is about being interested in trying new activities and playing
with new ideas, beliefs, and value systems; its opposite is being conventional and less
comfortable with change. Conscientiousness means organized, ambitious, and self-
controlled; its opposite is messy, unmotivated, and impulsive. Extraversion means being
outgoing and experiencing positive emotions; its opposite is introversion or shyness.
Agreeableness means caring for others and getting along with other people; its opposite
is argumentative, combative, and self-centered. Neuroticism covers negative emotions
such as worry and anger; its opposite is calmness and emotional stability. And lastly,
2. For each of the Big Five traits, provide an example of how someone high in that trait would
behave.

 Extraversion includes enjoying and preferring the company of others (as opposed to
being alone), aspiring to leadership roles, being more physically active, and feeling more
happiness and joy. Extraverts are more likely to learn while listening to music. Extraverts
are more likely to be leaders who inspire, challenge, and motivate others.
 Agreeable people trust others and are sympathetic to the needs and feelings of others.
They prefer cooperation to competition and tend to be honest, open, modest, reserved,
and yielding. Princess Diana is known for her compassion for the sick and as a warm-
hearted mother.
 Conscientious people are organized and diligent and usually manage to get their work
done despite distractions, frustration, or boredom. Jerry Seinfeld has a high degree of
conscientiousness. He is very particular and keeps his home clean and organized.
 Neuroticism is the tendency to experience negative emotions such as anger, depression,
anxiety, shame, and self-consciousness. For example, the TV show Girls exhibits high
neuroticism because they tend to worry about something-especially Hannah, who
worries when she has a job and when she does not, and who worries about her
relationship with her boyfriend even when it is going well.
 People with high openness are more likely to indicate that travel is an important personal
goal, and they like to try new things, such as eating unusual foods, traveling to exotic
places, or taking on new challenges at work. They love to play with complex ideas, and
they consider alternative perspectives and value systems.

3.Explain what facets are and how they are important to understanding the Big Five.

 A facet is a specific and unique aspect of a broader personality trait. Extraversion helps
people connect with others, which is mutually beneficial. Facets of extraversion include
activity, assertiveness, excitement, sociability, positive emotions, and warmth.
Agreeableness is useful for getting along with others, which was even more necessary in
our evolutionary past when people lived very close together in caves, mud huts, and
 other small dwellings. Facets of agreeableness include trust, straightforwardness,
altruism, compliance, modesty, and tenderness. Conscientiousness helps people survive
through careful planning and hard work, although too much conscientiousness can be a
disadvantage if it results in too much rigidity. Facets of conscientiousness include self-
control, orderliness, diligence, traditionalism, virtue, and responsibility. Neuroticism can
help people survive by making them suspicious of danger. Facets of neuroticism include
anxiety, anger, hostility, depression, self-consciousness, impulsivity, and susceptibility to
stress. Finally, openness is associated with creativity, which can be useful for survival in
new situations as well as for attracting mates and reproducing. Facets of openness
include active imagination (fantasy), aesthetic sensitivity, attention to inner feelings,
preference for variety (adventurousness), intellectual curiosity, and questioning authority
(psychological liberalism).

4.Provide a brief explanation of how the Big Five traits were derived by researchers.

 The Big Five was developed based on the lexical hypothesis, in which personality words
were taken from a dictionary, respondents were asked to assess themselves, and then
tested to see which words correlated with each other. The Big Five capture traits
important for survival and reproduction, can be used to understand other personality
systems, and can be applied in other cultures and even in other species. There are two
other important points to note. First, although the lexical hypothesis focused on trait
adjectives, not all modern Big Five measures use adjectives. Most, including the test you
conducted, use statements instead. The original researchers focused on adjectives to
pick out the most important features, but these are often not the best tools for creating
scales. Second, the decision to use five factors instead of four or six is not set in stone.
A "Big Six" model adds a factor that measures honesty (Lee & Ashton, 2004). Some
even advocate a "Big One" personality scale consisting of high extraversion, high
agreeableness, high conscientiousness, low neuroticism, and high openness (Musek,
2007).