Five-Factor Model of Personality PDF

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Junhan An February 24, 2019 Five-Factor Model of Personality The factor analysis is widely used today to identify the personality and traits of individuals. The mass number of personalities are condensed into a smaller set of traits in order to associate the individual with a known trait. The study of the traits was first begun by All port and Odbert. It was later continued by McCrae and Costa. According to McCrae and Costa, neither the model itself (Five Factor Model) nor the body of research findings with which it is associated constitutes a theory of personality. A theory organizes findings to tell a coherent story, to bring into focus those issues and phenomena that can and should be explained. (Feist, 2013) McCrae and Costa were able to turn the Five Factor Model into a Five-Factor Theory. The Five Factor Model will be used to identify each factor through a character from a television show. Dwight Schrute from The Office will be used as an example. The office is a television series that was aired for 9 years. Throughout the show, Dwight’s personality and characteristics gradually changed. However, with this example, Dwight’s personality from the last episode will be used. Dwight is a passionate paper salesman with a dream of becoming the next regional manager for his paper company. He was born and raised in a beet farm environment and that is his only other passion besides making sales. He has the tendency to find others unpleasant and often portrays a grandiose behavior. Unlike what he thinks of himself, he is frequently pranked by others because of his serious attitude towards all situations. He is a bit annoying, but a great person to have as a resource if he decides that you are worthy. The extraversion is the first factor in Costa and McCrae’s Five Factor Model of Personality. Dwight scored extremely high in this factor as he is affectionate, joiner, active, and passionate. Dwight loves being involved with situations around him as long as he is having a positive time from it. He screamed “aye” with his co-workers simply because they were doing it and it seemed fun. Even though the reason behind this silly act had a different intent, Dwight joined in without any questions. As I described above, Dwight is affectionate and passionate about his sales job. He once tranquilized his co-worker in order to land a paper sale. Neuroticism is the second factor in the model and Dwight scored low in this category. He is calm, comfortable, unemotional, and self-satisfied with himself. Dwight is always calm when a situation happens at the office. For example, when the office had issues with lice, he put on a chemical suit and brought a solution to the office instead of staying emotional. His co-workers often question his morals and values to his behaviors, but he is very comfortable with who he is. His self-belief can be one of his best traits until it gets the best of him. Openness is the next factor in the model. There were some confusions to his score in this factor because of his “different kind” of behaviors. In the factor creativity and variety is considered high scoring. Conventional and routine based behavior will score him low scores. The issue with Dwight is that his behaviors are creative, original, and something you never see. For example, he invented a way to obtain 6 hamburgers from a horse without killing it. This is an extremely original idea, but this is a standard way of thinking for Dwight. He is always on the search for efficiency and economic way of doing things. In this factor, I am uncertain whether his behaviors can be scored extremely high or very low in the openness factor. Agreeableness is forth factor in the model. Dwight scored relatively low presenting behaviors such a suspicious, stingy, and critical. Dwight’s self-belief causes him to suspect

everything and everyone around him even though he lacks situational awareness. He believes that an act of kindness entails a payback and often discourages others from being nice. He is stingy with his money and came up with a way to sell 6 hamburgers without actually killing a horse. In relation to his high suspicion level, he is critical of others. The office had an intern for 2 months and there was no way for them to please Dwight in any way. Dwight would order the interns around explaining that it will help them with landing a job, but he was never pleased with the results. The last factor is the conscientiousness of the five-factor model of personality. Dwight easily scored high because he is ordered, controlled, organized, ambitious, and achievement focused. He simultaneously runs a beet farm, a farm stay, and works as a paper salesman. He works hard to grow the best beet and will do anything to make sales. He is ambitious to become the next regional manager which is evidenced by him staying as a salesman. It took him 15 plus years to achieve his dream of becoming the manager. He focused on one goal and he never gave up. The Five Factors Models of Personality helped us identify the structure of Dwight Schrute’s personality. He either scored extremely high or low in each factor even including openness where the nature of his behaviors was uncertain. Dwight is a television character who is portrayed so that his personalities are black and white for the eyes of the viewers. It was simple to identify the scores for each factor of the model. The Model allowed for a different point of view on Dwight by supporting and recognizing the association between his behaviors and personalities.

Reference Feist, J., Feist, G., Roberts, T. (2013). Theories of Personality. 8th edition. Retrieved from https://online.vitalsource.com/#/books/1260666379/...