The Five-Factor Model (OCEAN)
Abstract
The Big Five personality traits, also called the OCEAN model or the Five-Factor Model, is a framework used in psychology as well as in personality tests in companies in order to establish ones personality according to a standardized framework. This tool was first proposed by Lewis Goldberg [1] in the early 1980’s and later developed between 1987-92 by Mr Costa and McCrae [2].
The objective of the five-factor model is to establish a psychological profile based on five character traits: Openness to experience, moral Conscience, Extroversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism [3]. For each of these five personality factors, the individual's score is calculated as follows: two opposing aspects of the predicted personality trait are placed in the form of a scale and a series of questions allows you to change to which of these two aspects and to what degree tends the personality of the candidate. For example, for the trait "Extraversion", the two aspects correlated with this trait are Enthusiasm on the one hand, and Assertiveness on the other. The test should determine towards which of these two aspects of a candidate's personality leans more [3].
The advantage of the five-factor model over other models commonly used in companies for profiling (eg MBTI, Enneagrams) [4][5] is that the diagnosis is individual and specific to each person. This allows for a personalized and unique profile for each person, instead of putting people in boxes.
The five factor model is especially useful in project management and team formation because they make it possible to establish complementarities of profiles and to foresee the strengths and weaknesses (productivity, commitment, creativity) of an employee. Tests like the NEO-PI-R (Costa & McCrae, 1992) make it possible to establish the psychological profile of a person according to the OCEAN scheme [2].
Big Idea
Time of development
The need for the FFM came at a time where description of personality traits was becoming messy and non-understandable. The number of traits required to establish a personality could become overwhelming, and scientists as well as psychologists did not agree on the terms and their meaning, so that no proper framework could be popularized [6]. A simpler tool was therefore needed.
The first pioneering works began as soon as the late 1920’s, with the willingness for some researchers to use taxonomy to classify human personalities [7]
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