big five personality traits

n. The five factor model (FFM) of personality traits, popularly called the “big five,” refers to an organization of individual differences into five broad factors or traits that subsume most specific personality traits. The term was first applied to dimensions discovered in analyses of trait terms in laypeople’s vocabularies; the same factors were subsequently discovered in psychological questionnaires. The FFM has become the dominant model of trait structure and the object of extensive research, which has established that all five factors can be consensually validated by different observers, have a strong genetic basis, are stable in adults, and are found around the world. The FFM factors and the traits that define them have been shown to be important in understanding and predicting a wide variety of outcomes, such as vocational interests, health risk factors, political ideology, job performance, and mental disorders.

- RRM