Ocean – the Five Basic Personality Traits all People Share

The acronym OCEAN stands for the 5 basic personality traits. After all the years of psychological research and in distilling down all the attributes the most robust of the concepts for understanding people’s personalities are: Openness to experience, Conscientiousness, Extraversion/ Introversion, Agreeableness and Neuroticism.

The Big Five factors and their constituent traits can be summarized as follows:
• Openness - (inventive / curious vs. cautious / conservative) indicates appreciation for art, emotion, adventure, novel ideas and variety of experiences.
• Conscientiousness - (efficient / organized vs. easy-going / careless). A tendency to show self-discipline, act dutifully, and aim for high achievement with a preference for planned rather than spontaneous behaviour.
• Extraversion - (outgoing / energetic vs. shy / withdrawn). Energy, positive emotions, urgency and the tendency to seek stimulation in the company of others.
• Agreeableness - (friendly / compassionate vs. competitive / outspoken). A tendency to be compassionate and cooperative than suspicious and antagonistic toward others.
• Neuroticism - (sensitive / nervous vs. secure /confident). A tendency to experience unpleasant emotions easily, such as anger, anxiety, depression or vulnerability.

When scored for individual feedback, these traits are usually presented as percentile scores. For example, an Extroversion rating in the 5th percentile indicates an exceptional need for solitude and quiet. Although these trait clusters are statistical aggregates, exceptions may exist on individual personality profiles. On average, people who register high in Openness intellectually curious, open to emotion, interested in art, and willing to try new things. A particular individual, however, may have a high overall Openness score and be interested in learning and exploring new cultures but have no great interest in art or poetry. Situational influences also exist, as even extroverts may occasionally need time away from people.

If you are curious about where you stand on these dimensions you can take a test online at: http://www.outofservice.com/bigfive/

There you will get test results of your own like the ones below that will show you were you stand on the dimensions and what that might mean.

I'm a O90-C46-E59-A87-N22 Big Five!!