Lay Conceptions of the Five-Factor Model and its Indicators

Abstract

The five-factor model (FFM) of personality is implicit in lay conceptions of personality; this research sought to examine laypersons' explicit grasp of the model. In one study, undergraduates (N = 233) were given definitions of the five factors and asked to identify adjectives known to be associated with each. In a second study, the rated diagnosticity of behaviors in three contexts was compared with their actual correlation with self-reported and acquaintance-rated personality factors. In the final study, undergraduates (N= 76) grouped 30 adjectives into clusters of traits. Results suggest that most laypersons can easily grasp the nature of the factors and their behavioral manifestations and can spontaneously recognize their grouping when provided with clear exemplars.

Perspective on Personality: The Relative Accuracy of Self Versus Others for the Prediction of Emotion and Behavior

“…During a 3-to-4-month period, 182 (91 male and 91 female) targets completed numerous self-report measures, were videotaped interacting with acquaintances and strangers on several occasions, reported on their daily experiences, and recruited several knowledgeable informants who described their personalities. Although various aspects of these data have been reported elsewhere (e.g., Creed & Funder, 1998a;Creed & Funder, 1998b;Funder, Kolar, & Blackman, 1995;Furr & Funder, 1998;Sneed, McCrae, & Funder, 1998) the present analyses are new and the data pertaining to emotional experience have not been published previously. 2 It also can be noted that the earlier, relevant study by Kolar et al (1996) was based on an independent sample of participants at a different university.…”

“…Creed and Funder (1998b) focused on the construct of social anxiety, identifying both the personality characteristics and interaction styles of socially anxious individuals. Sneed, McCrae, and Funder (1998) …”

Do the Big-Five Personality Traits Predict Empathic Listening and Assertive Communication?

“…Openness measures the breadth, depth, originality, and complexity of thoughts and experiences (John & Srivastava, 1999) and it is the trait that correlates with IQ, especially verbal intelligence (De Young, Peterson, & Higgins, 2005) as well as artistic and scientific creativity (Carson, Peterson, & Higgins, 2005;De Young et al, 2007, Feist, 1998McCrae, 1987). However, there is also evidence linking this trait to social outcomes, including taking the lead and being influential in work teams (McCrae & Sutin, 2009), being seen as verbally fluent, expressive and funny (Sneed, McCrae & Funder, 1998), and experiencing good relationship satisfaction (McCrae & Sutin, 2009;DeYoung, 2014).…”

Constructing Personality Maps, Mapping Personality Constructs: Multidimensional Scaling Recovers the Big Five Factors from Internal and External Structure

“…The internal structure of 60 trait adjectives (i.e., their meanings) was compared against their Big-Five properties, in the form of their factor loadings in published FA results. To this end, we elicited ratings of the indicativeness of the items, as examples of the poles of all five factors (as in Sneed et al, 1998). For an unconstrained examination of the items' semantic structure, we elicited judgments of the similarities and dissimilarities among them.…”