The Big Five Personality Test

The Big Five Personality Test

The big 5 personality test is a behavioral continuum assessment of personality. The model is sometimes known as the OCEAN or CANOE model after the five scalar personality characteristics it is based on: Openness, Conscientiousness, Extroversion, Agreeableness and Neuroticism.

As it is a continuum model the Big 5 doesn’t consider Jungian dichotomies. Instead, it is based on the premise that individuals can be anywhere along the scales associated with the characteristics of the model. How far along each continuum individuals are is determined through a series of questions.

It’s worth noting that the OCEAN model is one of the most empirically tested and respected of the models that are popular at the moment.

The Big Five Personality Test Characteristics

The Big Five model looks at Openness, Conscientiousness, Extroversion, Agreeableness and Neuroticism. In some circles these are considered to be the core traits of personality. We’ve summarized the traits below, but other definitions are available on the internet.

Openness

Openness reflects curiosity, creativity and seeking novelty as opposed to routine. Open people appreciate the arts, adventures and unusual ideas and take more risks, but may lack focus or be unpredictable. They like careers in the arts and value self-actualization.

Less open people are fulfilled through perseverance and are pragmatic and data driven. They may be considered dogmatic or inflexible.

Conscientiousness

Conscientious people are dependable, dutiful, self-disciplined, structured and like to have a plan. They generally work towards a goal in a focused way. They can be perceived as stubborn.

Low conscientiousness individuals are flexible and spontaneous, but can also come across as sloppy and unreliable.

Extroversion

Extroverts seek stimulation and derive energy from others. They are energetic, talkative, sociable and assertive. They may be considered attention-seeking or domineering.

Low levels of extroversion, i.e. introverts, are reserved. They seek time alone to recharge and are less dominant in social settings. They may be considered aloof, distant or self-absorbed.

Agreeableness

Agreeable individuals value people, cooperation and compassion. They trust and see the best in people, like to help and are good-tempered. Highly agreeable people might be considered gullible, naïve or submissive.

Individuals with low agreeableness can be argumentative, untrustworthy, antagonistic, suspicious  of others, challenging and competitive.

Neuroticism

Neurotic people tend towards stress, worry, anxiety, perhaps anger and even depression. Highly neurotic people are less emotional stable than others. Low neuroticism results in stability and control, but might come across as unempathetic, uninspiring, undynamic of even boring.

High levels of neuroticism can create excitable people, but can also leads to worse psychological health.

Taking the Big Five Personality Test

The big five personality test is available for free on the internet. There is currently a fair bit of research being done in relation to it, so if you do find a place to do it and they ask if they can use your data / results, please say yes.

We recommend completing the test here as part of the open source psychometrics project.

We’re not experts in this area at all. We have, though, briefly covered a range of personality tests including Myers Briggs, Merrill-Reid and Birkman, as well as some other things like Type A and Type B personalities. Please consider our posts on these topics just a starting point from which to further your reading and understanding. On a side note, you might enjoy reading about the dark triad of personality types as well.

We have some doubts about personality tests in general and know that some people take a dim view of them, but this is the one which stands out as having a good level of credibility. It appears to be one of the more accepted of the tests currently being used, in terms of having evidence relating to its outcomes.

Our doubts in relation to personality tests are many and varied, but the key point for here is that we think many of them are over-relied upon. They can potentially be useful as a self-discovery tool or as team building activity, but we don’t think any serious decisions should be made based upon them.

We also think it’s important to point out that individuals don’t need to live within the definitions of their personality descriptions, and they shouldn’t use them as excuses for their behaviors.

For example saying “My OCEAN test said I’ve got low levels of agreeableness so that’s why I act the way I do” isn’t acceptable. Individuals need to own their own behaviors and grow and develop as people so that they manage themselves and work effectively with others.

This post has been informed primarily by our experiences over our careers and the various tests that we’ve undertaken. It’s also been influenced by general reading on the Big Five test from a series of articles as well from the Open Source Psychometrics Project.

We’re a small organization who know we make mistakes and want to improve them. Please contact us with any feedback you have on this post. We’ll usually reply within 72 hours.