The 5 Personality traits Principal are extraversion / introversion, responsibility, openness to experience, kindness and neuroticism. There is also another model developed by Marvin Zuckerman called the"five alternative"model, formed by neuroticism-anxiety (N-Anx), aggression-hostility (Agg-Host), sociability (Sy) and activity (Act). The latter is the one we will explain in this article.
Personality is the concept that refers to the way of being, acting and seeing the world that we have people.
This concept is surely the construct that arouses a greater interest within the field of study of psychology, since the personality allows to predict the way people think, react and act.
The authors who have studied the personality traits are multiple, and the discoveries and the information that is possessed today on the"types"of personality are very abundant.
In this article we will explain the 5 main personality traits and their characteristics, which have been detailed by several authors and provide a lot of information about how people are.
What is personality?
The personality Is a concept that is used with great frequency and that serves to describe the characteristics of a person, that is, the way of being that an individual has.
However, delimiting correctly the concept of personality is not as simple as it seems, because many factors are involved in a person's way of being.
In this way, as in this article we will explain the 5 most important personality traits established today, it seems opportune that we pause for a moment to think what exactly we mean by personality.
According to him" Lexicon of psychiatric and mental healthterms" Personality are deeply rooted patterns of thought, feeling and behavior that characterize a person's unique lifestyle and mode of adaptation and which are a consequence of constitutional factors, development, and social experience."
Thus, personality can be understood as the set of (relatively stable and predictable) emotional and behavioral traits that characterize a person in his daily life.
It should be noted that personality is a scientific assumption (a construct) that is justified, mainly, by the types of acts that people do every day.
That is, it is based on the pattern of thoughts, feelings and behavior that a person presents and that persists throughout his life.
Likewise, the concept of personality requires psychological properties that can not be directly observed, but which clearly contribute to governing the individual's behavior (what he thinks, what he feels and what he does).
It is evident that not all people act and behave in the same way in the same situation. These differences in performance are explained not only by the situation itself, but by how they experience the same situation.
In this way, the dynamic pattern of thoughts, feelings and behaviors that persist over time in different situations, distinguishing one individual from any other and predicting their reactions to people and the environment.
With these four specifications, we realize that personality refers to a series of characteristics that define the person as an individual and characterize the way they behave and function.
Now, what defines a person is not only personality, since there are other concepts that are used to describe the characteristics of an individual.
In this sense, I would like to specify the three concepts that are very often used as synonyms of personality but which are actually more specific parts of what is understood as personality in the global sense.
Personality: Constitution - Temperament - Character
Very often words are used temperament or character As a synonym for personality, however, these two concepts are specific subdivisions of everything that represents the personality construct.
Thus, the constitution conforms the whole set of physical characteristics of a particular individual.
This aspect is based more on the physical component than on the psychological component, however you can not understand a person's way of being without taking into account his body, so the constitution forms an important part of the personality.
The word temperament usually causes some confusion since it can very often be used as a synonym for personality.
Nonetheless, temperament refers to the reactive conformation of the individual, the spontaneous aspect of the personality. This refers to the emotional reactions of the individual.
Thus, we can understand temperament as a part of personality, however, personality is a broader concept than simple temperament.
The same is true of the concept of character, which, because of the similarities it has with personality, is often used as a totally identical and synonymous word.
However, character refers to the set of habits or patterns of behavior that are acquired during life. It is, therefore, acquired and is a psychic basis of personality.
So when we talk about personality we are doing both character and temperament, constitution and, above all, we are talking about how all these characteristics interact in shaping a way of acting, feeling and interpreting the specific world.
Personality Models
As we see, there are many aspects that are involved in the definition of a person's personality.
Thus, in order to be able to study this construct and to be able to delimit the main personality traits that human beings have, different models have appeared in the psychological literature during the last years.
Theories of traits are based on the idea that people differentiate themselves through the localization of their traits, so that studying the main"types"of personality can provide a lot of information about the way of being of individuals.
In this article we will focus on talking about the 5 factors model, which delimits the 5 main personality traits.
However, it is interesting to briefly comment on the three-dimensional model of Eysenck , Which postulates only 3 main personality traits.
Eysenck three-dimensional model
According to Eysenck's theory, there are three main and independent dimensions of personality.
These are: extraversion vs. intraversion, neuroticism vs. emotional stability and mental toughness vs. mental weakness.
Each of these features specify a number of characteristics, so it depends on the point that a person is, it will have a specific personality.
Let's see how Eysenck specifies these three factors.
As regards the extraversion vs. intraversion trait, Eysenck shows how extroverted people are characterized by being sociable, vital, active, assertive, carefree, dominant, and ambitious.
In this way, a person with a high trait of extroversion will possess these characteristics in his personality, whereas a person with a high trait of introversion will be characterized by the opposite.
Regarding the neuroticism vs. emotional stability trait, Eysenck proposes that people with a high neuroticism trait will be anxious, depressed, guilty, low self-esteem, constant tension, irrationality, labile, and timid.
On the other hand, the people who in this trait have the opposite characteristics, will be defined by having a high emotional stability.
Finally, the third feature postulates that people with high psychoticism tend to be aggressive, cold, egocentric, impersonal, impulsive, antisocial, unencrypted and with closed minds.
Thus, Eysenck groups the characteristics of personality into three broad features, which can define the way people are.
Subsequent to this theory, Zuckerman's theory is born, which postulates 5 main personality traits instead of three.
Model of the 5 alternative factors
Psychobiological research provided a series of factorial analyzes of scales that measure the basic dimensions of personality, which led to the emergence of the 5 factor model.
This theoretical model is postulated as an alternative to the previous Eysenck, so it is strongly influenced by the three-dimensional model that we have discussed previously,
Thus, Zuckerman studied the 5 main traits, which are nowadays considered as those that best delimit the personality traits of human beings.
These are: neuroticism, activity, sociability, impulsivity and aggressiveness.
Neuroticism
This trait names him as Neuroticism - Anxiety, with the abbreviation (N-anx) and refers to intense emotional states.
Typically, high scores on this trait denote emotional worry, generalized tension, recurrent fears, indecision, tendency to obsession, sensitivity to criticism, and lack of self-confidence.
Thus, low N-anx scores delimit a personality characterized by tranquility and not usually experiencing negative connotations such as anxiety or depression.
As we see, the main aspect that delimits this factor is the anxiety and the tendency to worry and to get nervous in situations not very stressful.
Likewise, high scores on this scale denote a high tendency to rumination and often in the development of anxiety disorders, while scores.
Activity
This feature does not appear in the three-dimensional model of Eysenck and is characterized by an approximation in the behavioral styles of people.
Thus, as the name suggests, people with high scores in this trait are often characterized by high behavioral activity.
Individuals with a high activity trait often hate inactivity and are constantly looking for things to do in their day to day lives.
They like to carry out activities on a constant basis and are always with a high level of activation and occupation.
They are people who do not stop doing things, who rest little, who like the challenges and who need an activity to do to feel good.
On the other hand, the people who score low on this trait are characterized by the opposite, they usually have difficulties to start any activity that implies some mobility and are often lazy individuals who do not feel at ease with activities too intense or lasting.
Sociability
This trait of Zuckerman bears many similarities to Eysenck's extroversion trait, in fact, in the model of the 5 factors this factor is named as Extroversion (E) - Sociability (SOC).
Extroverted people are characterized by being sociable, having many friends, needing people around them and engaging in activities that involve some kind of contact with other people.
Likewise, they love jokes, they long for excitement, they enjoy relationships with other people, they usually live in a carefree way and they do not usually find satisfaction in solitary or quiet activities such as studying or reading.
In this way, introverted people are characterized by the opposite, they are usually withdrawn, introspective, do not usually have numerous friends, are usually foreseeing and accustom to enjoy a more orderly.
Impulsiveness
Zuckerman also names this trait as"Search Sensations"so people with high scores on the trait of impulsivity are characterized by having a clear preference in the search for intense, new, varied and complex experiences.
Likewise, impulsive people are often willing to experiment and participate in experiences that involve physical, social or legal risk.
A person with a high degree of impulsivity tends to act without planning actions and without thinking about the consequences of their behaviors, since the excitement of the search for experience usually guides behavior completely.
On the other hand, people with low impulsivity scores are often reflexive individuals, with greater appreciation for risk situations, reduced need for stimulation and high tolerance for boredom.
Aggressiveness
This last trait postulated by Zuckerman defines the tendency to express itself in a hostile, rude and antisocial way.
Likewise, people with high scores on the trait of hostility are usually vindictive, inconsiderate and with some malice.
Individuals who tend to argue, use insults, use shouts in their usual communication are defined by having high scores on this trait.
Also, aggressive people often say what they think regardless of consequences, feel resentment and are hostile and critical of others.
On the other hand, people with low aggression scores are characterized by being friendly, cordial and lovingly interacting with other people.
References
- Andrés, A. (1996). Manual of differential psychology. San Francisco: McGraw-Hill. (Temes 9 i 10)
- Carver, C. S. & Scheier, M. F. (1998). Theories of personality. Mexico: Prentice-Hall Hispanoamericana.
- Colom, R. (1998). Psychology of individual differences. Madrid: Pyramid. (Item 19)
- Larsen, R.J. & Buss, D.M. (2005). Psychology of Personality. Mexico: McGraw-Hill.
- Zuckerman, M. (1991). Psychobiology of Personality. Cambridge University Press.