Five Factor Model of Personality, Assessment of

Michael J Boudreaux and Daniel J Ozer, University of California Riverside, Riverside, CA, USA
Ó 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Abstract

The Five Factor Model (FFM) is a hierarchical taxonomy of personality traits. At the superordinate level are five factors labeled
Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Emotional Stability (vs Neuroticism), and Intellect (or Openness). Below
this level are several more specific personality traits that are summarized by these five higher-order dimensions. In this article,
we briefly describe the lexical and questionnaire approaches that led to the development of the FFM, and review measures
that derive from these two traditions, measuring both higher- and lower-order traits. In addition, we discuss abbreviated
instruments, measures that assess variants of the FFM, an open source personality item pool, and a structured interview.
Future research will improve upon FFM assessment by examining the five factor structure across languages and develop-
mental periods, and detailing the structure of personality traits at lower levels of the trait hierarchy.

The Five Factor Model (FFM) is a hierarchical taxonomy of Below, we describe various English language measures of
personality traits organized around five broad dimensions. the five factors that evolved out of these two traditions, as well
While the lower levels of this taxonomy are only partially as efforts to create abbreviated Big Five/FFM measures. While
explored, the highest order level is composed of the super- there has been considerable consensus surrounding the five
ordinate factors labeled Extraversion, Agreeableness, Consci- factors, there are close variants of six- and seven-factor
entiousness, Emotional Stability (vs Neuroticism), and measures that merit attention. Finally, we discuss an open
Intellect (or Openness). Given the comprehensiveness of the source personality item pool, a structured interview for an FFM
FFM, one could understand any assessment of personality assessment, and studies that have examined the comparative
traits as an assessment of at least a portion of the FFM. For validity of Big Five/FFM measures.
example, the Woodworth Personal Data Sheet, published in
1920, perhaps the first modern standardized self-report
measure of personality, is an assessment of Neuroticism. Goldberg and the Lexical Approach
However, our focus here is on more contemporary measures
of personality traits that explicitly embrace or are close vari- The lexical hypothesis asserts that the most salient and socially
ants of the FFM. relevant ways in which people differ from one another will
Evidence supporting the FFM is necessarily linked to eventually become encoded as words. Allport and Odbert’s
assessment efforts. The model arose out of the assessment catalog of English language trait descriptive terms, published in
tradition (see Wiggins, 1973, for a description of that tradition 1936, provided a starting point for studying the structure of
just as the FFM was beginning to emerge), and measures of the personality trait adjectives. In subsequent years, various investi-
five factors were developed to improve, elaborate, supplant, or gators examined the factor structure of these terms in both self-
shorten prior trait measures. The consensus that emerged and observer reports. As early as 1963, Warren Norman suggested
among personality trait assessors, that the FFM might indeed that the reappearance of the same factors across different studies
possess substantial generality, arose from two largely separate and samples suggested that five factors might provide an
but converging research programs: the lexical and question- adequate taxonomy of personality traits, though this solution
naire approaches. The goal of the lexical approach was to was not named the ‘Big Five’ until 1981, by Lewis Goldberg.
identify the structure of self- and observer-rated trait descriptive In the early 1980s, Goldberg initiated a series of studies
adjectives, whereas the questionnaire approach sought to designed to verify the five-factor structure. He returned to the
identify the common trait dimensions underlying extant mul- lexicon of personality and constructed an inventory of 1710
tiscale personality inventories. trait descriptive adjectives. He replicated the Big Five factor
The term ‘Five Factor Model’ derives from the questionnaire structure across a variety of samples and factor analytic
tradition and is exemplified by the work of Paul Costa methods, and subsequently developed several abbreviated
and Robert McCrae. Those working in the lexical tradition, marker scales for the Big Five. In one of these (Goldberg, 1990;
including Warren Norman and Lewis Goldberg, have preferred Study 2), he reduced the terms to 479, grouped into 133
the label ‘Big Five.’ One superficial difference between these clusters. Then, in study 3, he removed the least homogenous
traditions is in the naming of the fourth factor, ‘Emotional items from each cluster (i.e., those with the lowest item-total
Stability’ (Big Five) or ‘Neuroticism’ (FFM). A more telling correlations), as well as single-item categories, resulting in
difference is in the conceptualization of the fifth factor as a set of 100 clusters based on 339 trait adjectives. The 100
‘Intellect’ (Big Five) or the broader ‘Openness to Experience’ clusters and adjectives defining each cluster are available in
(FFM). There is some movement toward a preference for the Goldberg (1990; Table 3).
shorter label of ‘Openness,’ which suggests not only intellectual The 100 synonym clusters have several merits. Most notable
but also imaginative and affective components as well. is the balance between bandwidth and fidelity. The clusters

230 International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences, 2nd edition, Volume 9 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-08-097086-8.25061-7
 Five Factor Model of Personality, Assessment of 231

sample a broad range of personality characteristics, and each attitudes, and are responded to on a 5-point, Likert-type scale
provides specific information that can be used for predictive ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). The
purposes. However, the use of 100 synonym clusters is still NEO-PI-R comes in two forms: Form S, for self-reports, and
time-consuming, so Goldberg (1992) developed two shorter Form R, for observer ratings. Form R contains the same items as
measures: 50 bipolar rating scales (e.g., timid vs bold, rude vs Form S, but is written in the third person. A more recent version
polite, angry vs calm) and 100 unipolar markers (e.g., ener- of the NEO (NEO-PI-3, McCrae and Costa, 2010) was made to
getic, cooperative, relaxed). The rationale for using paired terms be applicable to a wider range of individuals, including school-
is that they can help clarify the ambiguity of some adjectives; aged children and respondents with lower levels of education.
however, Goldberg (1992) found that they are less robust The NEO-PI-3 is thus appropriate for individuals who are
across samples than factor markers presented in unipolar 12 years of age or older.
format. The bipolar rating scales are now less often used in The NEO-PI-R enjoys more than 30 years of research to
research, but have been used in educational settings to support its reliability and validity. The scales are internally
demonstrate the nature of the Big Five (see Goldberg, 1992; consistent, with alpha reliabilities for the domain scales in the
Table 1). range of 0.86–0.92 (Mdn. ¼ 0.89), and for the facet scales in
Goldberg’s (1992) 100 unipolar markers is an efficient and the range of 0.56–0.81 (Mdn. ¼ 0.76). Scores show long-term
widely used measure of the Big Five. It contains 20 items per stability, with retest values for the domain scales ranging
factor, with 10 items representing each pole of each factor (with 0.63–0.83 over 3–6 years. Six-year retest coefficients in spouse
the exception of Emotional Stability, which has 6 positive and ratings, using Form R, are similar to those found in self-reports.
14 negative terms). From an initial pool of 566 terms, items The scales have also shown evidence of convergent and
were selected with high loadings on targeted factors and low discriminant validity across instruments and observers. The
loadings on other factors. Then, those items that maximized NEO-PI-R has a clear internal structure, though some of the
internal consistency and had a replicable factor structure were facet scales have large secondary loadings (i.e., >0.40) which
selected into the final list. Goldberg showed each of the five contribute to modest correlations among the five NEO-PI-R
20-item scales to be highly reliable (alpha coefficients above domain scores. To obtain truly independent domain scores,
0.80) and to converge with larger and more representative sets factor score weights can be applied to each of the 30 facets
of trait adjectives, as well as with other inventories. The 100 (provided in the NEO-PI-R professional manual).
unipolar markers are available in Goldberg (1992; Appendix The Revised NEO Five-Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI-R;
A), and a 40-item, abbreviated version, the Big Five Mini- McCrae and Costa, 2004) is an abbreviated version of the
Markers, is available in Saucier (1994; Appendix). More NEO-PI-R. It consists of 60 items to measure the five global
recently, Saucier (2002) developed three sets of marker scales dimensions of the FFM, with 12 items per scale. In the original
designed to reduce the interscale correlations often observed version of the instrument, items were selected based on their
within Big Five measures, called the Ortho-Markers (Ortho- correlations with factor scores from the NEO-PI. The revised
40), Modular Markers, and Mini-Modular Markers-40 (3M40). version replaced 14 of the original items, thus improving its
factor structure, reliability, and validity. In an even more recent
version, the NEO Five-Factor Inventory-3 (NEO-FFI-3; McCrae
Costa and McCrae and the Questionnaire Tradition and Costa, 2010), one additional item was replaced. All items
correspond with the NEO-PI-3. McCrae and Costa (2007)
Numerous structured questionnaires to assess personality reported excellent psychometric characteristics of the
have been developed, with highly varied content and scales. NEO-FFI-3 in adolescent, adult, and middle-school samples.
Among these instruments was the NEO, developed by Paul McCrae and Costa (2007) also developed a brief measure of
Costa and Robert McCrae in 1980, which measured the three all 30 facet scales, corresponding to the first 120 items of the
domains of Neuroticism, Extraversion, and Openness to NEO-PI-3, the NEO-PI-3 First Half (NEO-PI-3FH). For those
Experience, and included 18 facet scales (6 per domain). who desire a differentiated yet brief measure of the FFM, the
Observing the findings reported by studies of the lexical NEO-PI-3FH provides a flexible alternative to both global and
structure noted above, they added (in 1985) scales to assess longer multitrait inventories.
Agreeableness and Conscientious, and later developed (in The NEO Inventories have been used extensively in research
1992) facet scales to assess these domains. In a series of and applied contexts as diverse as counseling and clinical
studies, Costa and McCrae found that the scales of some of the psychology, behavioral medicine, industrial-organizational
most widely known and frequently used personality measures psychology, and educational psychology (Costa and McCrae,
could be placed within a five-factor framework. To be clear, 1992), and are commercially available through their
their claim was not that all inventories measured all five publisher, Personality Assessment Resources.
factors (this was clearly not the case), but rather that inventory
scales were largely related to the five (or a subset of the five);
and scales that were outside the five-factor space were largely Brief Measures of the Big Five
idiosyncratic to each inventory.
The Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI-R; Costa As personality assessors increasingly regarded the five super-
and McCrae, 1992) is a 240-item questionnaire designed to ordinate factors as an adequate summary view of personality
measure the five major personality trait domains. Within each traits, there arose an interest to include measures of these traits
domain are six facet scales, with eight items per facet. The items in various research contexts – contexts where the inclusion of
are simple sentences that describe behaviors, preferences, and a number of other measures led to a desire for a brief measure
232 Five Factor Model of Personality, Assessment of

of the Big Five. These short measures are now widely used in 1 min to complete, and is provided in Gosling et al. (2003; see
a number of research settings. Appendix A).

Big Five Inventory – 44-Item Version

Alternative Representations of Trait Structure
The Big Five Inventory (BFI; John et al., 1991) is a brief, 44-item
self-report inventory designed to measure the Big Five person- The questionnaires discussed to this point are widely under-
ality trait dimensions. The items are in the form of short stood to be different measures of the same five broad traits. The
phrases, written in the third person, and based on prototypical measures discussed below each embrace several features of the
trait markers of the Big Five with elaborative or clarifying Big Five/FFM framework, while at the same time introduce
information added (e.g., “is original, comes up with new important variations.
ideas,” “is relaxed, handles stress well”). Each statement uses
the stem, “I see myself as someone who .” Respondents
Abridged Big Five Dimensional Circumplex
indicate the extent to which they agree or disagree with each
statement on a 5-point, Likert-type scale ranging from 1 The Abridged Big Five Dimensional Circumplex (AB5C;
(disagree strongly) to 5 (agree strongly). Hofstee et al., 1992) represents an integration of Big Five and
The BFI scales include 8 to 10 items, and have very good Circumplex approaches to trait structure. The model recognizes
psychometric properties: The scales are highly reliable (alpha that trait descriptors rarely show simple structure, but tend to
coefficients range from 0.75 to 0.90, with an average above show cross-loadings on two or more factors. It ‘abridges’ a full
0.80), stable over time (3-month retest coefficients range from five-dimensional model, where each trait would load on all five
0.80 to 0.90, with a mean of 0.85), and possess convergent and factors, to a two-dimensional model, where each trait loads on
discriminant validity with respect to other Big Five instruments two factors. Consisting of 10 two-dimensional circumplexes,
(John et al., 2008). The BFI is widely used, and is reprinted in with two of the five factors serving as the axes of each circle, the
John et al. (2008; see Appendix 4.1). AB5C model has 45 facet scales (based on 540 trait terms)
representing ‘blends’ of the two underlying factors (e.g., sociable
(IþIIþ) corresponds to high Extraversion and high Agreeable-
Big Five Inventory – 10-Item Version
ness, and dominant (IþII) corresponds to high Extraversion
The Big Five Inventory-10 (BFI-10; Rammstedt and John, 2007) and low Agreeableness).
is an abbreviated version of the BFI-44. It consists of two items
per scale, representing both the high and low poles of each
Big Seven Factor Model
factor. The response format is identical to the full BFI, although
the instructions have been shortened. Items were selected based The Big Seven Factor Model, and its associated measure, the
on their item-total correlations with the full BFI scales, as well Inventory of Personal Characteristics (IPC-7; Tellegen et al.,
as their factor loadings in analyses of all 44 items. Given the 1991), specify seven higher-order factors: Positive Valence,
brevity of this measure, it holds up remarkably well across US Negative Valence, Positive Emotionality, Negative Emotion-
and German samples: The two-item scales have an average ality, Conscientiousness, Agreeableness, and Conventionality.
correlation of 0.83 with the full scales, are stable over This model departs from the traditional Big Five in two
6–8 weeks (average retest stability coefficient is 0.75), and have important ways: First, by including in its item pool evaluative
an average self-peer convergent validity correlation of 0.44. The and state descriptors of personality, two primary dimensions of
BFI-10 scales possess substantial convergent and discriminant self-evaluation, Positive Valence (e.g., excellent, special,
validity with the domain and facet scales of the NEO-PI-R, and impressive) and Negative Valence (e.g., evil, wicked, awful),
the items show a clear five-factor structure. The BFI-10 takes emerge in factor analyses in addition to the Big Five. Second,
about 1 min to complete. The items and instructions are the factors labeled Positive Emotionality (Extraversion) and
provided in Rammstedt and John (2007; see Appendix A). Negative Emotionality (Neuroticism) emphasize the
emotional aspects of their Big Five counterparts, and Openness
is reinterpreted as (low) Conventionality.
Ten-Item Personality Inventory
Waller (1999) reviewed Big Five and Big Seven models,
The Ten-Item Personality Inventory (TIPI; Gosling et al., 2003) and described the psychometric properties of the IPC-7. Benet
is another short measure of the Big Five. Each item consists of and Waller (1995) demonstrated the cross-cultural general-
paired descriptors (e.g., extraverted, enthusiastic) that use the izability of the IPC-7 in a Spanish sample using an abbrevi-
common stem, “I see myself as:” Respondents indicate the ated 70-item version. American and Spanish versions of the
extent to which they agree or disagree with each item on abbreviated IPC-7 are available in Benet and Waller (1995;
a 7-point, Likert-type scale ranging from 1 (disagree strongly) to Appendix).
7 (agree strongly). In a large student sample, the psychometric
properties of the TIPI reached satisfactory levels across three
HEXACO Personality Inventory – Revised
criteria: Scores converged with widely used Big Five measures,
evinced substantial 60 week test–retest correlations (mean The Revised HEXACO Personality Inventory (HEXACO-PI-R;
r ¼ 0.72), and exhibited patterns of correlations with a broad Lee and Ashton, 2004) is a 200-item questionnaire designed
range of other constructs that were comparable in size to those to measure six factors found in lexical studies of personality
exhibited by the BFI in the same sample. The TIPI takes about trait structure: Honesty-Humility (H), Emotionality (E),
 Five Factor Model of Personality, Assessment of 233

Extraversion (X), Agreeableness (A), Conscientiousness (C), validity when compared with the NEO and Hogan personality
and Openness to Experience (O). The HEXACO factors are inventories.
alternative rotations of the Big Five, and are defined by 24 facets
(four per factor) within the HEXACO-PI-R. The major differ- Measures Derived from the International Personality
ence between the models is the separate dimension of Honesty- Item Pool
Humility within the HEXACO model, defined by sincerity,
fairness, lack of greed, and modesty. Additionally, Emotion- The International Personality Item Pool (IPIP; Goldberg, 1999)
ality (i.e., Emotional Stability) and Agreeableness (as well as is a repository of over 2000 personality items that have been
Extraversion to a slight degree) have been reinterpreted. The used to develop a number of personality inventories, including
HEXACO-PI-R (100- and 60-item versions) and a list of measures of the FFM. Freely available in the public domain
references are available on the HEXACO web site (http:// (http://ipip.ori.org), many of these measures serve as proxies
hexaco.org). for constructs measured by commercially available inventories,
such as the NEO-PI-R and HPI, as well as nonproprietary
Hogan Personality Inventory instruments, such as the HEXACO-PI, the AB5C, and 100
unipolar markers. Tables comparing the psychometric charac-
The Hogan Personality Inventory (HPI; Hogan and Hogan, teristics of the original scales with the IPIP proxies can be found
1995) was designed to assess the FFM from the perspective of on the IPIP web site. As Goldberg et al. (2006) noted, alpha
socioanalytic theory. According to socioanalytic theory, the reliabilities of these scales generally match or exceed those of
FFM represents personality from the view of the observer in the original scales, and the IPIP scales correlate highly with
terms of a person’s ability to ‘get along’ with other group their parent scales.
members and to ‘get ahead’ to earn social status. The HPI A noteworthy measure derived from the IPIP item pool is
assesses individual differences in a person’s ability to attain the Big Five Aspect Scales (BFAS; DeYoung et al., 2007),
these goals. It contains seven primary scales called, along with a 100-item inventory designed to assess two distinct (but
their FFM counterpart, Adjustment (Emotional Stability), correlated) ‘aspects’ of each factor (i.e., trait variables that
Ambition and Sociability (Extraversion), Likeability (Agree- occupy an intermediate level of personality structure between
ableness), Prudence (Conscientiousness), and Intellectance facets and domains). Item selection was based on correlating
and School Success (Openness). all of the IPIP items with scores derived from factor analyses of
The HPI consists of 206 true-false items, grouped into 41 all 75 NEO-PI-R and AB5C-IPIP (Goldberg, 1999) facet scales.
‘homogenous item clusters’ that define the seven primary Then, in an independent sample, the 20 items showing the
scales. Hogan and Hogan (1995) reported the scales to be clearest two-factor solution within each domain were selected.
internally consistent (alpha reliabilities for the primary scales The ten 10-item aspect scales demonstrated good psychometric
range from 0.71 to 0.86), to converge with other established characteristics, and were associated with factors derived from
Big Five measures, and to predict a variety of job performance studies in behavioral genetics.
criteria. The HPI has been used primarily in occupational
settings, and is commercially available through Hogan Assess-
ment Systems. Structured Interview

Self-reports are the predominant source of personality data.

Revised Interpersonal Adjective Scales: Big Five
However, alternative modes of assessment are sometimes
The Revised Interpersonal Adjective Scales: Big Five (IASR-B5; desired. Although several observer rating forms are available for
Trapnell and Wiggins, 1990) is an extension of the Revised FFM measures, the instruments are largely the same as those
Interpersonal Adjective Scales, a measure of the interpersonal used in the self-report versions with minor changes in wording
circumplex. In addition to the interpersonal dimensions of and instructions to reflect the stance of the observer. One novel
Dominance (or Agency) and Nurturance (or Communion), the procedure for assessing the five factors utilizes a structured
IASR-B5 includes marker scales for Neuroticism, Conscien- interview approach using a standard set of questions and
tiousness, and Openness to Experience. Although Dominance scoring procedure. Mental health practitioners often prefer
and Nurturance generally correspond to Extraversion and interview methods because they allow for open-ended, follow-
Agreeableness, the latter two dimensions are broader in content up questions and an opportunity to observe the respondent’s
to include non-interpersonal aspects of personality. behavior during an assessment.
The IASR-B5 consists of 124 adjectives rated on an 8-point, The Structured Interview for the Five-Factor Model of
Likert-type scale ranging from 1 (extremely inaccurate) to 8 Personality (SIFFM; Trull and Widiger, 1997) is a 120-item
(extremely accurate). The first 64 items measure the Domi- semistructured interview that assesses both adaptive and mal-
nance and Nurturance dimensions of the interpersonal circle, adaptive aspects of the FFM. It assesses the five higher-order
and can be used to score the eight octants of the Interpersonal dimensions (with 24 items per dimension) and 30 lower-
Adjective Scales. The remaining 60 items measure Neuroti- order facet traits (with 4 items per facet), corresponding to
cism, Conscientiousness, and Openness to Experience (i.e., 20 the NEO-PI-R. The SIFFM places relatively greater emphasis on
items per factor, with 10 items marking the positive and 10 potentially maladaptive aspects of personality, and was
items marking the negative poles). Trapnell and Wiggins explicitly designed to be used in clinical settings. The SIFFM
(1990) reported the IASR-B5 to have a clear internal struc- items (i.e., interview questions) are scored as either 0 (absent),
ture at the item level, and discriminant and convergent 1 (present and does not result in significant dysfunction), or 2
234 Five Factor Model of Personality, Assessment of

(present and may result in significant dysfunction). Follow-up several of which are reviewed in De Raad and Perugini (2002).
questions may or may not be asked depending on the Furthermore, measures designed to assess the Big Five/FFM in
response to the initial question. The SIFFM takes about 1 h to children have been developed. The adequacy of the five-factor
administer. framework to account for personality trait differences across
In samples of undergraduates and outpatients receiving languages and developmental periods remains to be fully
treatment at a community clinic, Trull et al. (1998) showed explored, as does a taxonomy of trait structure that fully
scores on the SIFFM to be internally consistent, stable across describes more specific personality traits. Research that extends
2 weeks, and to converge with scores on the NEO-PI-R domain the limits and explores the details of this hierarchical taxonomy
and facet scales and peer-ratings on the NEO-FFI. Trull et al. will inevitably lead to new and presumably improved person-
also demonstrated incremental validity of the SIFFM over the ality measures.
NEO-PI-R in predicting 10 of 13 personality disorders. Given
its relative emphasis on maladaptive aspects of traits associated See also: Agreeableness; Big Five Factor Model, Theory and
with the FFM, the SIFFM is primarily used by clinical Structure; Conscientiousness; Extraversion; Factor Analysis
researchers and practitioners to assess personality and person- and Latent Variable Models in Personality Psychology; Five
ality dysfunction. The SIFFM is commercially available through Factor Model of Personality, Facets of; Five Factor Model of
its publisher, Personality Assessment Resources. Personality, Personality Disorder; Five Factor Model of
Personality, Universality of; Honesty and Humility; Neuroticism;
Openness to Experience; Personality Assessment: Overview;
Comparative Validity of FFM Personality Inventories Personality Assessment; Personality, Trait Models of;
Personality: Historical and Conceptual Perspectives.
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