PERSONALITY

*UNDERSTANDING US*
By Brahmi Chhalani
 1. Personality
2. Big Five Factors
3. Brief descriptions of the factors
4. Component
5. Activity

WHY ARE WE HERE

 PERSONALITY

Different colours
Varied roles
Why??
The five broad personality traits described by the theory
are extraversion (also often spelled extroversion),
agreeableness, openness, conscientiousness, and
neuroticism.
The five basic personality traits is a theory developed in
1949 by D. W. Fiske (1949) and later expanded upon by
other researchers including Norman (1967), Smith (1967),
Goldberg (1981), and McCrae & Costa (1987).
Researchers had spent years before trying to pin down
character traits as a way of analysing people’s behaviour. At
one point, Gordon Allport found over 4000 traits. Even
when this was reduced to 16 it was seen as too
complicated. This is where the five big personality traits
began. 
These broad categories have been researched and
developed over the years and, whilst there is extensive
study into each area, researchers don’t always agree on the
definition of each characteristic. 
What factors influence the big 5 traits? 
From nature and nurture to age and maturation, the big 5
traits have been widely studied where we can see what
influences their impact on a person’s behaviour and
character. 
Personality has often been hypothesised as a question of
nurture or nature. One particular study looked at 123 pairs
of identical twins and 127 pairs of fraternal twins. “The
findings suggested that the heritability of each trait was 53
percent for extraversion, 41 percent for agreeableness, 44
percent for conscientiousness, 41 percent for neuroticism,
and 61 percent for openness.”
It has also been widely recognised that the older we get,
the more our behaviour traits will change. We become less
extraverted, less neurotic, and less open to
new experiences whilst our agreeableness and
conscientiousness will grow as we get older.
Big 5 personality traits tests
We can successfully measure personality traits with
different tools and techniques. All in all, these tests are
trying to discover how much your behaviour varies from
high to low in the five traits which include; Openness,
Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness and
Neuroticism.
How do the big five personality traits predict behaviour at work?
When hiring employees (or testing current ones), the big 5 personality traits help us understand behaviour in the workplace and accurately
predict, in many cases, future performance. Each personality type will have an impact within the working environment and amongst other staff.
Being able to identify where there could be a positive or negative impact can help influence decisions around hiring or retaining staff.
A candidate with a high openness score would be willing to learn new skills and tools. Presented with more abstract problems, they are more
likely to think of abstract solutions and would be focused on tackling new problems that were perhaps previously overlooked. 
Candidates with a high conscientiousness score wouldn’t necessarily be sat at their desk until midnight every evening! They would however be
keen to get their work done, meet deadlines and be a self-starter; requiring little hand-holding to get the task done. Someone scoring low on
the other hand, would need a lot more focus, time and attention to the task at hand. 
The ideal extraversion scores would depend on the role you’re hiring for. Seen by many to be leaders in a team, a high extraversion score
would do well in environments where they thrive off interaction with others:; sales, marketing & PR all require a level of people- facing skills.
More technical job setups where specific focus or a degree of isolation is needed would, however, not be a good fit. 
A candidate who shows high agreeableness would suit a role where personal skills and an ability to be at the service of others are needed. Of
course, the opposite would be bad in a strong team environment and cause significant issues in order to work towards a common goal or task.
Finally, a candidate who exhibits high neuroticism will not be suited to a role where there are consistent changes, tasks that require strong self-
starter tendencies or high stress levels. Those with low neuroticism scores will, however, thrive in these kinds of workplace scenarios.
These traits help us to understand how we may behave in the future, in our workplace and under certain circumstances as. For businesses, they
can identify future talent, derailers and even potential for success.