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5 BIG TRAITS ESSAY

From the three available options, I decided to go for the personality test available on

www.outofservice.com. The test comprised of various questions related to 5 big traits i.e.

O.C.E.A.N. My test results are provided as under;

Regarding open-mindedness, I got 7 percentile which clearly indicates that I am the type of the

person who prefers traditional and familiar experiences instead of going for new ones.

Conscientiousness rating turned out to be 100 which shows that I am a very well-organized

person which can be relied upon. “Extraversion” assessment resulted in the high percentile of 82.

This much high score converges to the statement that I am extremely outgoing, social and

energetic. On the assessment of fourth big trait i.e. extraversion, my percentile came out to be 34.

This score is on the pretty low side and it is a clear indication of the fact that I find it easy to

express irritation with others. Also, in negative emotionality, I got an extremely high percentile

of 99 proving that I am an anxious person who tends to worry about things.

If I am to compare myself with social norms or traits of common people, then I would like to

discuss each trait stepwise. Regarding openness, I would like to say that I a bit different then rest

of the society considering the fact that majority of the people now a day are very open-minded

and casual about new things or experiences. However, in today’s, society, it is very hard to find

credibility and reliability among people and to my surprise, the test gave me 100 percentiles on
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conscientious trait declaring me to be an organized, methodic and thorough person. I was really

surprised at extraversion as in reality, I am not that much of a social person, in fact, I prefer to

stick to myself. Ignoring this fact and considering the results of the test, I would like to say that I

am in a pretty much good match with society when it comes to being energetic, talkative and

assertive. To be honest, I don’t have any clue where I stand in “agreeableness” with a low

percentile of 32. Last but not least, in Neuroticism, I would like to say that I belong to a pool of

youth of country since now a day, among people of various age groups, it is the youth who is

suffering from worst kind of depression. Regarding the test results, I was not surprised by all

traits except from the result of “extraversion” which is actually opposite of how I actually am.

When it comes to procrastination, I would like to agree with Mr. Ferrari that second trait out of

five big traits i.e. conscientiousness, is one of the main causes of procrastination among students.

I believe that students who get a low percentile on conscientiousness, waste their time and get

themselves engaged in useless activities. Their response rate in group assignments also

diminishes which contributes towards further delay of assignments. Another important trait

which plays an important role in the promotion of procrastination among students is Neuroticism

meaning that students how are emotionally unstable or afraid of being rejected or get failed, are

more aligned towards procrastination. It can be seen from my personality test results that I have a

high percentile score in both conscientiousness and neuroticism which means that I am more

vigilant and highly conscious regarding my assignments and studies. This actually aligns with

the reality since I really am very careful in completing my projects on time. That being said, it

must not be inferred that I do not procrastinate at all because, in some long-term projects, I tend

to intentionally delay the pending work.

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Regarding my tendency to procrastinate, in case of some lengthy or long-term assignments, I

would say that it might have become my long-term personality trait. Here I would refer to Erik

Erikson’s 4th stage of psychosocial development i.e. industry vs. inferiority. In childhood, I

believe that either my habit of timely completion of tasks was not encouraged or I wasn’t able to

show it to people around me due to which, inferiority became my fate. Here, I would like to add

that in case my habit of intentionally delaying things would have been severe, then operant

conditioning from my parents and teachers would have played an important role. How? If I

would have intentionally delayed certain things then my guides i.e. parents and teachers would

have punished me and in case of vice versa, rewarded me with something valuable. Also, the

surrounding environment has a great impact on procrastination among school students. Social

learning theory explains this phenomenon by stating that people learn from interacting with

other people. In a similar fashion, students tend to gain the habit of intentional delay in projects

or assignments by looking at other students practicing it. Obviously, if I spend my school days

with friends who do not worry about the timely submission of assigned tasks then I would

become like them and hence doing so will seed procrastination in my personality.

Avoidance coping is yet another phenomenon from which most of the students, including

myself, are suffering by trying to avoid thinking about or working on tasks proving challenging

to us. Now a day, as Mr. Ferrari said in his article, new comers in school tend to spend their time

in extracurricular activities till they realize by the end of term or semester that they have tons of

study material to cover. Extracurricular activities disturb the sleep cycle of students as well,

resulting in an imbalance of circadian rhythm which in turn promotes procrastination among

students.
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