Traits as tendencies
In everyday talk, personality means the style that makes a person recognizable: outgoing or reserved, careful or spontaneous, calm or easily worried. In psychology, personality usually refers to relatively consistent patterns of thinking, feeling and behaving. A personality trait is one such pattern, described as a dimension along which people vary. Most people fall somewhere in the middle of most dimensions instead of at an extreme.
Importantly, traits describe tendencies. Someone who scores high on sociability will not be talkative every minute, and someone low on it can still enjoy a party. Traits give a rough forecast of behavior over many situations, not a prediction for any one moment.
Where trait models came from
Researchers noticed that languages contain many words for describing people. By analyzing how those words cluster, and later how people’s responses to questionnaires cluster, they found that a small number of broad dimensions captured a good deal of the variation. This statistical approach, called factor analysis, led to the model most widely used in research today.
The Big Five
The Big Five, sometimes called the five-factor model, describes personality along five broad dimensions:
- Openness to experience: curiosity, imagination and interest in new ideas and experiences.
- Conscientiousness: organization, self-discipline and attention to duties.
- Extraversion: sociability, energy and comfort with attention.
- Agreeableness: cooperation, trust and concern for others.
- Neuroticism (sometimes framed as emotional stability in reverse): the tendency to experience negative emotions such as worry or irritability more readily.
Each dimension is a continuum, and each covers narrower facets. Conscientiousness, for example, includes both orderliness and persistence. None of the ends is simply good or bad. High conscientiousness is often linked with reliable work habits, but can also mean rigidity, and low agreeableness may be useful in negotiation but costly in close relationships.
Researchers have found versions of these dimensions in many countries, though how clearly they appear can vary by culture and by the way questions are translated. Other models exist, including ones that add a sixth dimension such as honesty and humility, so the Big Five is best seen as a leading framework, not a final answer.
How stable is personality?
Two findings tend to come together. First, personality is fairly stable in the sense that people keep their rank relative to others over many years. A relatively shy child often grows into a relatively reserved adult. Second, average levels shift over the lifespan. Many studies find that, on average, people become somewhat more conscientious, agreeable and emotionally steady as they move through adulthood. Individuals differ in how much they change, and big life events, health conditions and deliberate effort may all play a part.
Genes appear to contribute to personality differences, and so do environments, including experiences that are unique to each person. This is considered more fully in discussions of what makes individuals differ. Because the evidence is correlational in many cases, claims that a particular experience caused a particular change are usually tentative.
Personality also interacts with the situation. A person may act more outgoing among friends than at work. Researchers often view a trait as describing the average of a person’s behavior across settings, with a good deal of variation around it.
The limits of quizzes
Online personality quizzes are enormously popular, but they vary in quality. Some points to keep in mind:
- Type labels sort people into boxes. Many popular tests assign a person to one of a handful of categories. Most research finds that traits are spread continuously, with many people near the middle, so forcing them into two-way splits discards information. Scores can also change when the same person retakes the test.
- Self-report has limits. People may answer in ways they find flattering, or may not see themselves as others do. Mood on the day can also color responses.
- Vague descriptions feel accurate. General statements that apply to almost anyone tend to be accepted as personal insights, a tendency related to everyday bias in judgment.
- Quality varies. Established research measures are tested for reliability (consistent results) and validity (measuring what they claim). Many entertainment quizzes are not.
Even good tests give estimates with error, and group-level links between traits and outcomes, such as job performance, are usually modest. That is a reason to avoid using a single score to label, hire or exclude anyone. Concerns about fairness in using automated assessments are discussed under hiring bias.
Using personality ideas sensibly
Trait language can be a useful starting vocabulary for self-reflection and for understanding differences between people, such as why a friend needs more quiet time than you do. It works best when treated as a description, not a verdict. Traits can be shaped, behavior can be adjusted when it matters, and most people are more flexible than a four-letter type might suggest.