Then, it was doubted that the taxonomy of the five factors was not quite reasonable. There might be closed relationship between openness and extraversion. According to the illustrative scales that offered by Costa & McCrae (1985), one interpreted both of them are people’s attitudes and behaviors towards outside. The extraversion was about the attitudes towards people and the openness was about the attitudes towards objective things or events. If the attitudes could be different for people and events, the other factors could be grouped differently as well. Meanwhile, if there was no distinguish for people and events for other items, the Extraversion and the Openness could be combined into one factor. In this sense, the structure of this approach was not precise.
Next, the application of the Big Five in the contemporary world would be discussed. Currently, many other subjective variables such as motivations, moods are taken account in the personality psychology. For example, Rogers (1951) proposed the concept of self-actualization motive. It was believed that to what extend the self-actualization presented in people’s behavior could show the one’s personality. White (1959) also proposed a process as competence motivation. It indicated that more of people’s behavior appeared to be involved with developing skills for the sake of mastery or for dealing effectively with the environment, and less of their behavior appears to be exclusively in the service of tension reduction. These showed that the motivations could be included in the personality theory.
Finally, one would talk about the cross situation behavior. Although studies of twins suggested that heredity plays a major part in accounting for differences between individuals in their personality dimensions, it was argued that the people’s behaviors varied across situations in part in the real world (Caspi & Bem, 1990; Scarr, 1992). Although research (Monson et al., 1982) in laboratory found that personality functions remained consistent, the laboratory situations restricted the emerging of situational or individual differences. Furthermore, Howard & Howard (2001a) suggested that “From age 20 to age 30, openness, extraversion, and negative emotionality tend to decrease, while conscientiousness, and agreeableness tend to increase.” This indicated that the personality might change by age. It was advised that the Big Five theory should set traits for different age group separately.
In conclusion, the Big Five model was appreciated widely nowadays. Nevertheless, there were limitations of it. The research method it adopted could be changed and the taxonomy and the structure could be defined more precisely. Moreover, the applying value of this approach for the current state should be explored further.
I do not think that the score for the five dimensions reflected my personality truly. The score are showing here: Openness, 39; Conscientiousness, 24; Extraversion, 28; agreeableness, 26; neuroticism, 20.
According to the illustrative scales of Big Five, moderately high scores on Openness indicated that I am fairly curious, broad interests, creative, original, and untraditional. And the moderately low score on Neuroticism meant that I am comparatively calm, relaxed, unemotional, hardy, and secure. They represented my personality relatively just. Nevertheless, there were some contraries of these factors. I scored highly on Openness but I am not surefooted and I am impractical. That is one disadvantage of my personality especially appeared in my study and working. I can bring lots of fresh ideas but I could I could not stick on a hard job till the end. I am calm and relaxed. But I am not passion and I am irresolute. That is not helpful for decision-making.
Moreover, the average scores for Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness showed that I am neither sociable nor aloof, neither soft-hearted, nor cynical & rude, neither organized nor aimless. However, I do not quite agree with the interpretation for the average scores.
In term of Extraversion, I think it is depends on the circumstance for me. If I was familiar with the circumstance, I will be very talkative and active to familiar friends and strangers, to extravert and introvert. But the questionnaire only shows an overall score which could not represent my trait. The dependence for a familiar environment might obstruct me to adapt to a new environment quickly. As the aspect of Agreeableness, the scores I circled in the scale showed that I scored moderately high in “kind”, “cooperative”, and “trustful”, but scored moderately low in “unselfish”, and “generous”. The previous three items reflected my attitudes but the later two items depends on the situation I am in which meant that in the later two items, I am not free to behave as what I really wish to be because of the objective condition. Therefore, the score could not reflect my personality. The last average score factor is conscientiousness. Although I am almost satisfied with the explanation of the score, I thought there would be some flows over time anyway. I will be working harder, and more organized during school time but lazier and more careless during holiday especially during long holiday. This unstable is not quite good because it make me mess my holiday and waste a lot of time. I should not be so passive and determined by the condition.
Also, the change of role might influence presentation of personality. When I was a student and I did no job at home, I was more imaginative and curious, I was lazy, disorganized, and irresponsible, I was very very talkative, assertive, and adventurous, I was generous, and I was relaxed and emotional. However, since I left home for doing the university course, I became an independent. I am living on my own and I have got a job. I became less imaginative and curious, I tune to be more organized and responsible, I became less talkative (although the score is still 9) and assertive, I am mot generous any more, and I was not as relaxed as before, my emotion was more stable than before. I am in the process of developing a child into an adult, the personality changed gradually.
In addition, lots of friends reported that I am very dependent and immature sometimes which should not appeared at my age. I think the trait of dependence will be the obstacle for my future career. This suggestion also remained me a few things. Firstly, my quality at this point did not be mentioned in the questionnaire. Secondly, people do expected differently for different age. In my case, I am not expected to be immature at age 19. Although the NEO FFM is widely used, it missed the above points.
Anyway, the Big Five questionnaire helps me to understand my personality. I should be more surefooted and determinate. Also, I should be more passive and stable on my traits. Moreover, some of the traits remained my adolescence should be kept for my future life.
Reference:
Caspi, A., & Bem, D. J. (1990). Personality continuity and change across the life course. In L. A. Pervin (Ed. ), Handbook of personality: Theory and research (pp.549-575). New York: Guilford Press.
Cattell, R. B. (1965). The scientific analysis of personality. Baltimore: Penguin.
Costa, P. T., Jr. & McCrae, R.R. (1976). Age differences in personality structure: A cluster analytic approach. Journal of Gerontology, 31, 564-570.
Costa, P. T., JR., & McCrae, R. R. (1985). The NEO Personality Inventory manual. Odessa, Fla.: Psychological Assessment Resources.
Eysenck, S. B. G., & Long, F. Y. (1986). A cross-cultural comparison of personality in adults and children: Singapore and England. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 50, 124-130.
Howard, A. (2001). Students from poverty: Helping them make it through college. About Campus, 6(5), 5–12.
McCrae, R. R. & John, O. P. (1992). An introduction to the Five Factor Model and its application. Journal of Personality, 60, 175-215.
Monson, T. C., Hesley, J. W., & Chernick, L. (1982). Specifying when personality traits can and cannot predict behavior: An alternative to abandoning the attempt to predict single-act criteria. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 43, 385-399.
Rogers, C. R. (1951). Client-centered therapy. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Scarr, S. (1992). Developmental theories for the 1990s: Development and individual differences. Child Development, 63, 1-19.
White, R. W. (1959). Motivation reconsidered: The concept of competence. Psychological Review, 66, 297-333.
