Personality Theory Blog

Samantha Craig

Psy/450

09/09/2016

Introduction

When a person hears the word personality they think of what describes them or another individual's characteristics. This would include friendliness, isolated, angry. According to (Matsumoto & Juang, 2013) Personality is the individuals contrast in their behaviors, feelings and thoughts. This blog with identify a personality theory and how its assessment is used. Along with what makes it stand out from the other ones.

Personality theory & how it is used to conduct assessment

There are several different personality theories that float around and are knowledgable to those who study psychology. One of the most popular and well-known theories is called The Big Five Factor Model (FFM) or the OCEAN Theory. This particular theory looks into the five distinct and basic personality traits which are known as Openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism. When the test is taking place it is seen as fair and valid because instead of looking at the individual in question and basing information on their culture, race, gender or anything else instead it focuses on their personality. There are actually many companies that do this type of test before they hire an individual and even afterwards when they are looking to promote someone to a manger position.

This particular test does a breakdown on these personality traits and rank the individual either on high, moderate or low ratings. Openness, on a high scale means that the individual is outgoing and loves to learn new things. The low score is the opposite and hates having to learn and experience new things. The second Conscientiousness, means that the person is copantent, and organized. If on the low score they tend to be late, disorganized and lazy. The third is extroversion. This particular part is focused on how the person perceives being around others. If they are a low score than they prefer to be alone and don't get along well with others. Agreeableness is the fourth personality trait and is the persons trust and compliances with others. The last is neuroticism and is when a person shows high levels of anxiety and impulsiveness. Low scores mean that they have a high self-esteem and reliable.

What stood out to you about personality assessment practice

What stood out the most about the five factor model than all of the other personality theories is the fact that this particular one had a take on both biological and evolutionary approaches on the human personality. When it comes to other theories they have perspectives that can have different interpretations based on the fact that it is observed behaviors. While this one has hard science that is structured to view the changes on the psychological mechanism such as problem solving and environmental adaptions to the structure of personality.

Current research trends

When it comes to other cultures, there are several that believe the research supports modles defines personality. According to Hofstede and McCrae (2004) These general studies are focused on eliminating elemates of cultures so that the five factor model can focus on personality. This is done so that the testing and assessment are able to be used in a more universal and broader basis without controvercy. The only problem with this assisment is the fact that the individuals are not expressing themselve in person because this test is done either by paper or interenet.

Three insightful questions

After reading and learning about this personality theory there could be some questions that were left unanswered. I have taken the time to provide three questions that could possibly leave you wondering along with answers provided to them.

· Is there really only five common universal traits?

Based off of the reading of (Matsumoto & Juang, 2013) There are five big factors but these are then broken down into sub categories such as moody, assertive, imaginative, helpful and self-disciplined. Each one of these sub categories falls under one of the big five which is why in universal traits there is none others in common.

· Is it important to consider culture when assessing personality?

Yes, it is very important to consider culture when it comes to assessing personality. Culture is a part of that individual and it influences their personality.

· What is the benefit of this assessment?

There are many benefits to this assessment based off of this theory. The biggest is that employors can use this in order to see if the applicant is good for the job at hand and if an employee would fit for a raise. It provides a huge variety of information based on how the person is on reliability, emoitionally, and the efficiency they bring to the table.

Conclusion

In conclusion, there are multiple choices a person can look into when wanting to know more about personality theories. These assessments should be seen as a tool to help understand those what drives a person and why. The big five provides five common traits that are broken down into sub categories of the human persona.

References

Geert Hofstede, Robert R. McCrae, (2004) Cross-Cultural Research vol. 38 no. 1 52-88 DOI: 10.1177/1069397103259443

Matsumoto, D., & Juang, L. (2013). Culture and psychology (5th ed.) Retrieved from The University of Phoenix eBook Collection database.

http://www.outofservice.com/bigfive/