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Hi. I'm Jeff. And in this lesson, we'll learn about the Big Five personality traits and how this theory can be applied to business. So let's get started.
The Big Five personality traits is a theory on personality, which breaks up human personality into five different dimensions, openness, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism. Note that in the order we're reviewing these traits, they spell OCEAN, which is an easy acronym to remember.
When hiring or motivating employees, the Big Five can serve as another way to evaluate an individual. By categorizing people, materials, and processes can be optimized for the individual personality. While there are a number of personality theories, the Big Five is the most prominent of these methods. And it works to describe people as a whole in psychology.
Since everyone has a range of these traits and each trait can be evaluated based on a spectrum of very low to very high, a HR professional can use this personality evaluation to find those individuals who will fit well within the culture of a company. Let's go through each trait in the Big Five. First, openness. This is the ability and willingness to seek and accept new experiences.
Someone with low openness would be less receptive to new ideas and less willing to change their mind, while someone with high openness would be curious and willing to accept new ideas. For a company that relies upon a high level of creativity in the workplace, individuals with high openness would be a better fit. Conscientiousness is the ability to be organized, dependable, and achievement-driven. Low conscientiousness can result in more spontaneous behavior, but the person will be less organized and less self-disciplined.
High conscientiousness results in better organization and a person who is more persistent and very reliable. Anyone with greater responsibility in their role, especially a manager, should rate highly on the conscientiousness scale. Next extroversion, which is the ability to enjoy social settings and new interpersonal relationships.
Some characteristics of low extroversion is low assertiveness, but a greater independence and an ability to be task-oriented. High extroversion individuals are more likely to succeed in jobs that are based on relationships, such as sales, since they are more sociable and more assertive. Programmers that are required to focus upon single tasks for long periods of time with little interaction with others would likely score low on extroversion.
Agreeableness, the ability to get along with others. Low agreeableness means the person is less cooperative and more argumentative and suspicious. This type of person struggles with working relationships. High agreeableness, on the other hand, means the person would be good with working relationships, since they are more collaborative, more trusting, and more forgiving.
And finally, neuroticism. This is the tendency toward stress and emotional instability. A person with low neuroticism will be emotionally stable, more poised, and calm, and should be able to handle stress better than a high neuroticism individual, who will be emotionally unstable and more excitable.
Someone who often deals with the emotions of others, such as a HR representative, should have a low neuroticism rating. Otherwise, they would likely struggle in the position. OK, nicely done.
In this lesson, we learned what the Big Five personality traits are, how the Big Five personality traits are used in business, and how each individual trait of openness, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism can be used when hiring and evaluating employees. Thanks for your time, and have a great day.
