The five big personality types or dimensions, also known as five factor model is used to describe the human personality dimensions or traits which can be used to evaluate the personality profile of an individual. This classification is not targeted at pinpointing the intricate peculiarities of each personality, rather is used to evaluate the general personality elements which will help in understanding the social behavior of the individual and his interactions with the people around him . The five dimensions of personality are-
Extraversion- The individuals with the extraverted personality types are those with high levels of energy, courage to venture into the unknown, expressive, talkative, highly sociable, high on enthusiasm, highly assertive and generally expresses a positive point of view on the factors affecting them .
Agreeableness- People with agreeable personality dimension, choose to get along with others. They believe in social harmony, are friendly, helpful and cooperative and will compromise their personal interests over to that of others. Agreeable personalities are generally liked by others due to their helpful and cooperative nature.
Conscientiousness- These personality types prefers to stick to the rules and will be disciplined in all aspects of their life. They will be highly organized, focuses on achievement, shows perseverance and exhibits high sense of responsibility .
Emotional Stability- Determines a person’s ability to handle adverse situations. The ability to remain calm and keep anger, anxiety and depression under control determines the emotional stability of an individual. A person with low emotional stability gets disturbed easily by unfavorable events and exhibits traits like tension, moodiness and anxiety.
Openness to Experience- As the name indicates, individuals with this personality dimension will show willingness to hear newer ideas and explore information about the factors unknown to them. They show exemplary information absorption abilities, are highly focused, reads things quickly and will show keenness towards newer interests .
This section will focus on the assessment of my personality based on the scores achieved. In the extraversion dimension, I scored 7, indicating borderline of high level of personality factor. I am a team player and loves to interact with people, both known and unknown to me. I am good in taking initiatives and prefers doing different things on my job. My agreeableness dimension score is 6, which shows that I have a moderate level of personality factor. As I am more assertive in my group, I am able to guide my group on most occasions. However, as being a responsible team player, I sometimes sacrifice my preferences in the larger interest of the group. In conscientiousness, I scored a 6, again indicating a moderate level of personality factor. I normally takes things as it comes and am fully confident of dealing with surprises. But I am not too complacent either. I will get all the basics right and keep a minimum level of preparedness in various day to day activities, particularly related to my job. My emotional stability score is 9, showing a high level of personality factor. I rarely gets bogged down by any adversities and exhibits high level of emotional stability while at work, approaching matters in a rational manner. Finally I have scored a high 9 on the openness to experience dimension indicating a high level of personality. I easily gets bored by monotonous jobs and always look out for newer, innovating things, not just in jobs, but in the other areas of life as well. I love to listen to newer ideas and explore innovations.
Personality Type and Job Performance
The personality type of an individual will definitely have an impact on his job performance, both good as well as bad. Picking a job more suitable to one’s personality will help to gel well with the job, colleagues and the organization. I am working in the marketing department of my organization and I firmly believe that my personality is in sync with the nature of my job there. My job profile requires high levels of energy and constant interaction with people, both within as well as outside the organization. Also, the job demands innovation and reception to newer ideas. Having scored high on extraversion and openness to experience, my personality is a good fit for my job profile. Also, as the atmosphere in my department is highly charged with ideas flying around, a high level of emotional stability is a must, without which one will find the survival difficult. Things are not all rosy for my personality type, there are a few negatives as well. One of the criticisms that I had to face on the job was on the agreeableness dimension, with some members of my team feeling that I am not listening to them sufficiently and often impose my ideas on them. This is something which I am working on to correct, by encouraging democracy in my team. Also, my superiors have on a few occasions felt that I am not showing enough seriousness on the various projects which justifies my moderate conscientiousness score. Even though I am not complacent by any stretch of imagination, I have at least on some occasions failed to convince my superiors on the ongoing tasks.
Real World Example
In most of the modern day organizations, the big five personality type model is used both while selecting new resources as well as to evaluate the existing resources. Most often, this model along with the Abridged Big 5 Circumplex (AB5C) model , which is a blend of the big five model dimensions is used in the selection and evaluation process. The advantage of using the big five model is that it helps to gather the right results for the dimension in consideration. However, there are a few negative aspects to this. For example, a candidate might score low on extraversion, but might be exceptionally good in other areas. If the weightage for extraversion is high, the chances are more that the candidate will get rejected, even though he will be exceptionally good in other parameters. Conversely, an extrovert might get preference, even though his scores are low on other parameters. This is one of the drawbacks of the big five personality model, which is overcome by using alternate models like AB5C.
References
Clause, C. (2016). What Are Personality Traits? - Characteristics, Definition & Five Big Traits. Retrieved from Study.com: http://study.com/academy/lesson/what-are-personality-traits-characteristics-definition-five-big-traits.html
Rentfrow, J. (2009, November 10). The Big 5 Model of Personality. Retrieved from PsychCentral: http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2009/11/10/the-big-5-model-of-personality/
Srivastava, S. (2016). Measuring the Big Five Personality Domains. Retrieved from University of Oregon: http://pages.uoregon.edu/sanjay/bigfive.html
