Description of the Five Factors

• McCrae and Costa agreed with Eysenck that personality traits are bipolar and follow a bell-shaped distribution.
• Neuroticism (N) and extraversion (E) are the two strongest and most ubiquitous personality traits, and Costa and McCrae conceptualize in much the same way as Eysenck defined them.
• People who score high on neuroticism tend to be anxious, temperamental, self-pitying, self-conscious, emotional, and vulnerable to stress-related disorders. Those who score low on N are usually calm, even-tempered, self-satisfied, and unemotional.
• People who score high on extraversion tend to be affectionate, jovial, talkative, joiners, and fun-loving. In contrast, low E scorers are likely to be reserved, quiet, loners, passive, and lacking the ability to express strong emotion.
• • distinguishes people who prefer variety from those who have a need for closure and who gain comfort in their association with familiar people and things. People who consistently seek out different and varied experiences would score high on openness to experience
  • In summary, people high on this are generally creative, imaginative, curious, and liberal and have a preference for variety. By contrast, those who score low on this to experience are typically conventional, down-to-earth, conservative, and lacking in curiosity.

  Openness
• • distinguishes soft hearted people from ruthless ones.
  • People who score in the direction of this tend to be trusting, generous, yielding, acceptant, and good-natured. Those who score in the other direction are generally suspicious, stingy, unfriendly, irritable, and critical of other people

  agreeableness
• • describes people who are ordered, controlled, organized, ambitious, achievement focused, and self-disciplined. In general, people who score high on this are hardworking, conscientious, punctual, and persevering. In contrast, people who score low on conscientiousness tend to be disorganized, negligent, lazy, and aimless and are likely to give up when a project becomes difficult.

  conscientiousness