Five Factor Model

When it comes to describing your personality this can seem like a daunting task. There are SO many different characteristics out there. One way to make describing personalities easier is to take a closer look at characteristics and group them together to come up with general personalities. For example; angry, furious, outraged, etc., all are very similar and could be grouped together into one characteristic of aggressiveness. The Five factor model is a model that came up with five personalities that account and categorize all characteristics. They are: Openness to experiences (how curious a person is) , Conscientiousness (how responsible a person is) , Extraversion (how dominant a person is, do they take charge) , Agreeableness ( how pleasant a person is) , and Neuroticism (Hoe emotionally unpredictable a person is). To ensure that these traits are not just a part of the WEIRD society, psychologists have studies 50 different cultures, and from these studies it was concluded that they in fact did follow the five factor model. Interestingly enough, the big five factor has even been subjected to animals and can be used as a model in chimps.  However, one interesting argument that was made is that since the five factor model was derived from an English language, and tested across cultures by translating the English word, it only captures personalities that come from the English language. What about characteristics that are derived from a different language, these may not apply everywhere. This has been explored and what was revealed was that there was in fact many characteristics from indigenous people that English speakers could not relate to. So with this in mind it depreciates that value of the five factor model. In fact when a different model was developed using a different language for the origin of the model it (Chinese language) it came up with a four factor model consisting of the personalities Dependability, Interpersonal relatedness, Social potency, and individualism. Although there is some overlap between the Chinese and English models there seems to be no relation between openness to experience as described in the English model to any of the Chinese personalities. All of this suggests that there is some variability and also some similarities across cultures. Personalities is a hard thing to explore because of its subjectiveness. The studies seem to have left more questions than answers, and needs to be further explored.