Big Five personality traits

There's sort of popular conversation and language, and then there's very specific scientific language.

So, for example, with personality, I'm a huge fan of the Big Five or the ocean.

All my neuroscience friends, like the guys that teach at the big universities and run the labs, are huge fans of it as well.

So we now know that We can measure five to six traits, whether it's the big five or the hexaco, which is the big five plus an H.

What are the big

five? First one is N, which measures our sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system that is tied to how sensitive we are to stress.

...

the Big Five.

Yeah.

Which is, yeah, why we don't have so much information on.

It's, it, it-

Yeah

... it's almost like things that don't fit into the other Big Five, they just chuck them into openness.

They...

What's fascinating here is that by analyzing that much data, they finally cracked the code.

The researchers identified 1,260 specific genetic variants associated with the classic Big Five personality traits.

Okay, so that's extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, and openness.

Right, the Big Five.

And out of those variants, 824 were completely novel discoveries.

I mean, science had never linked them to personality before.

Human behavior cannot be reduced to a single brain chemical.

So what is actually happening in the brain then?

We did some research on the big five, those big five personality traits, ocean, see if I can remember them off the top of my head, openness to experience, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism.

And we found that one of these is super predictive of the willingness to open up.

And it's not the one that I thought.

Right.

Yes.

So this is a question that I'm also obsessed with, which is, are there personalities, some more revealing personalities or less revealing? And we did some research on the big five, those big five personality traits, ocean, see if I can remember them off the top of my head, openness to experience, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism.

And we found that one of these is super predictive of the willingness to open up.

And it's not the one that I thought.

That, like, you kind of get up and you have, like, these, like, little patterns that you fall into, and that's sort of, like, your, quote-unquote, "natural personality."

So we have what people call the Big Five personality traits, neuroticism, extroversion, agreeableness, which you just mentioned, openness to experience, and conscientiousness.

Are these categories generally accepted in the field of psychology, and, and, and how useful do you find them?

They are generally accepted.

This is-- That's now, like, if you read a personality study, it will be most likely based on the Big Five, so things like Enneagram and Myers-Briggs are not generally accepted.

That said, they are imperfect.

Um, there are some cultures that have, uh, traits that are Very important in those cultures that the big five doesn't really pick up as much.

Meanwhile, things like openness, um, it's sort of a catch-all.

One of the things that our study underscores is that there's not just one gene for extroversion or one gene for neuroticism.

Our, our estimates are that it's probably closer to twenty thousand variants per each of the big five.

The big five refers to five broad dimensions psychologists use to describe personality: openness, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism.

Although personality can change, these traits tend to remain relatively stable during adulthood.

Katie Riddle, NPR News.