What is the Big Five (OCEAN) personality model?
The Big Five is a model of personality built around five broad traits:
openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and emotional
stability (sometimes called neuroticism, scored in reverse). Together
they spell OCEAN, which is why you will often see the model called by
either name.
Rather than sorting people into fixed types, the Big Five describes
where you sit on a spectrum for each trait. Most people land somewhere
in the middle of most traits, with a handful of stronger leanings that
make up their overall profile. That profile is not a label. It is a
snapshot of tendencies that can shift a little over time and across
situations.
Why is the Big Five considered the most scientifically credible personality test?
Psychologists favour the Big Five because it was built differently to
most personality tests. Rather than starting from a theory and writing
questions to fit it, researchers analysed the words people actually use
to describe personality across many languages and cultures, then used
statistics to see which traits kept showing up independently of each
other. Five consistently did, which is where the model gets its name.
That evidence base is why the Big Five holds up better than popular
alternatives under repeat testing and independent research, and why it
underpins so much of the academic and occupational psychology literature
on personality at work. It is also why many employer personality
questionnaires, even ones with their own branding, are built on the same
five underlying dimensions.
What does each of the five traits measure?
Each trait is a spectrum, and there is no better or worse end. Where you
sit simply describes a tendency.
- Openness is about how much you enjoy new ideas, variety and
creative or abstract thinking, versus preferring the practical and
familiar.
- Conscientiousness is about how organised, dependable and
planful you are, versus how flexible and spontaneous.
- Extraversion is about whether you gain energy from people and
activity, versus from quieter, more independent focus.
- Agreeableness is about how warm and cooperative you tend to be,
versus how direct and analytical.
- Emotional stability is about how calm and even you stay under
pressure, versus how keenly you feel and respond to stress.
Your results below explain what a higher or lower score on each trait
tends to mean in practice.
How do you read your Big Five results?
Your results place you somewhere on a spectrum for each of the five
traits, not a single score to beat. A result near the middle simply
means your answers were fairly balanced on that trait, not that you did
anything wrong. There is no total score, no overall grade and nothing to
pass.
It helps to read each trait on its own rather than looking for an
overall “type”. Most real profiles are a mix, for example someone quite
high in conscientiousness and quite average in extraversion, and that
combination is exactly as normal as any other. The value is in what each
individual trait tells you about how you tend to work and relate to
others, which you can read alongside the explanation for each trait
further down this page.
Is there a right or wrong answer, and do you need to prepare?
No. Unlike a numerical, verbal or logical reasoning test, a personality
questionnaire has no correct answers and nothing to calculate. It simply
reflects how you described yourself, so there is no benefit to
revising, timing yourself or looking up “correct” responses beforehand.
The one thing worth doing is answering honestly and consistently.
Personality questionnaires used by employers often include similar
statements phrased in different ways to check that your answers hold
together, so trying to guess the “ideal” profile for a role tends to
produce a less coherent, less useful result than simply answering as
yourself.
How do employers use Big Five results?
Employers use personality results to understand fit and working style,
not to sift candidates the way they do with scored aptitude tests. A
hiring team might use your profile to see how you are likely to
approach a role, work in a team or handle a fast-changing environment,
then explore that further at interview.
It is also common for employers to pair a personality questionnaire with
one or more scored aptitude tests, since the two measure different
things: personality describes your natural style, while aptitude tests
measure how accurately and quickly you can reason under time pressure.
If you have an assessment coming up, it is worth knowing what those
aptitude tests look like too.
