What Are the Big 5 Personality Traits

Understanding what each personality trait is and what it means to score high or low in that trait can give you insight into your own personality—without taking a personality traits test. It can also help you better understand others, based on where they fall on the continuum for each of the personality traits listed.

Some use the acronym OCEAN (openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism) to remember the Big 5 personality traits. CANOE (for conscientiousness, agreeableness, neuroticism, openness, and extraversion) is another option.

The Big 5 Personality Traits :
It is important to note that each of the five primary personality traits represents a range between two extremes. For example, extraversion represents a continuum between extreme extraversion and extreme introversion. In the real world, most people lie somewhere in between.

While there is a significant body of literature supporting these primary personality traits, researchers don't always agree on the exact labels for each dimension. That said, these five traits are usually described as follows.

Always remember that behavior involves an interaction between a person's underlying personality and situational variables. The situation that someone finds themselves in plays a role in how they might react. However, in most cases, people offer responses that are consistent with their underlying personality traits.

These dimensions represent broad areas of personality. But personality is also complex and varied. So, a person may display behaviors across several of these personality traits.