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Five Factor Theory of Personality Development

            One of the major goals of psychology has been to formulate a model that can conveniently explain human personality, as well as, the health conditions therein, with the aim of using such a model to deal with personality disorders and enhance the general understanding of personality. Presently, there are myriad of models that have stood out and have thus been approved by scholars and other psychologists. Intuitively, some models are widely accepted as compared to others. Sadly, support for certain models appear to come and disappear with time. One of the leading and famous models in the modern psychology is what is known as five factor model of personality development. Essentially, the theory integrates five variables into a conceptual model that describes personality development. Based on this background information, this paper explains five factor theory of personality development and how it has greatly influenced my personality. The paper also describes the components of theory, how it explains my personality and life choices, as well as, its limitations towards explaining people’s personality.

Personality entails a person’s unique way of behaving, thinking and feeling. It varies from one individual to another and can be determined by factors including those from the environment. Intuitively, personality types is dynamic in nature but at certain stages in life especially during adulthood, it can be permanent. Scholars such as De Clercq and De Fruyt (2012) grouped personality into five traits including neuroticism, agreeableness, extraversion, conscientiousness, as well as, openness. These grouping was done by comparing the traits from different people. Essentially, conscientiousness encompasses the ability of a person to exercise self-control over his/her impulses and act with high responsibility and productivity. On the contrary, extroversion entails the degree of interaction that a person engages in with his or his peers or colleagues (McCrae & Costa, 2021). Agreeableness as maintained by Mottus (2017) entails the level of positivity and gratitude that one has towards others. More importantly, neuroticism is a personality determinant that indicates a person’s degree of anxiety and depression while openness is a person’s reaction towards new ideas, as well as, his or her thinking capacity.

The Five Factor Theory and Its Key Components

Reportedly, the five factor theory determines a person’s personality using biological factors including genes, as well as, non-genetic developmental factors. Some of the developmental factors include traits that a person adopts from his or her parents. Principally, five factor theory was formulated to help describe the five traits that dictates a person’s personality. The five traits as described by the proponents of the theory entail extraversion, agreeableness, openness, conscientiousness and neuroticism. Essentially, these traits are examined comprehensively through this theory to describe a person’s personality. As a trait, extraversion depicts the level of a person’s socializing trends, readiness and willingness to perform a task, the amount of energy available for performing the stated task, as well as, the level of adventuring coupled with enthusiasm. According to this theory, a person with good personality prefers adventuring and socializing with others (Selden & Goodie, 2018). Moreover, such a person exercises high degree of self-control.

As mentioned by De Clercq and De Fruyt (2012) agreeableness shows a person’s level of cooperation, trust and responsibility. According to this theory, a person with good personality is highly trustworthy, and shows empathy to needy situations. Similarly, conscientiousness shows the level of competency in various areas including service provision, hard work, as well as, and individual discipline. Intuitively, a good conscientiousness in a person is noticed through his or her hard work, how he or she organizes his activities, as well as, how frequent individuals depend on the services or she renders (McCrae, & Costa, 2021). According to this theory, neuroticism describes the extent to which an individual is anxious and depressed. Neuroticism is also referred as unstable emotions. Intuitively, being able to control your temper and exercising restrain towards inflicting pain to friends or neighbors is regarded as good personality. On the same note, openness explains a person’s urge to engage in new activities. Precisely, it shows wide range of imaginations that an individual creates to solve a problem he or she experiences. According to this theory, being curious, creative, unconventional and adventurous depict good personality. As such, individuals who hate new trials and are carried away by primitivity and thus considered to have undesirable personality trait (McCrae & Costa, 2021).

Five Factor Theory and My Personality

 Openness is one of the major traits that has made me stood up among the many. Essentially, as already described in the theory, openness describes the extent to which one is curious, creative and imaginative. Mottus (2017) noted that to be of high level of openness, a person must learn to adventure and have an urge of trying new projects. As a fact, fearing to try new things and not being creative is considered as described as close mindedness. Personally, I am curious on ideas that I do not understand. In case there is an expert in that sector, I always put effort to consulting with him or her on the idea. For example, the previous month when my family visited the production industry where my father works, I noticed a unique way of operating machines. For a long time, my interest has been on designing an easy way of operating machines around me. As such, I approached a technician who willingly explained to me how the machine works. That explanation not only shaped my personality but has also assisted me to design various ways of operating lights in our living room. Moreover, it can contributed to my present personality of being creative and coming up with new ideas and concepts that make work easier and even creating solutions that my family and people continue to grapple with on their daily lives.

Similarly, openness shows the level are adventuring. Essentially, this personality trait has expanded my knowledge on field of participation. Precisely, I like adventuring into new places in order to acquire knowledge. As posited by Mottus (2017) that a person’s reaction to many situations determines his or her level of openness. With this in mind, I have developed a desirable personality that many people admire. In particular, when insulted by anyone, I always calm down and try restraining from engaging in fights or other undesired practices. Selden and Goodie (2018) noted that high intellect determines the level of openness. Essentially, good reasoning and understanding of objectives shows high intellectual. These factors have contributed significantly to my present trait or personality of being highly open to new ideas.

 As already discussed, conscientiousness is determined by a person’s level of responsibility and hard work. Essentially, it is biological since the prefrontal cortex gives room for processes that control one’s behavior. A person who works with the aim of achieving the objectives is considered of high level conscientiousness (Selden & Goodie, 2018). Such a person adheres to rules of operation in his or her workplace. It is not anything to doubt that in a workplace, rules and regulations such as reporting and leaving time, quantity and quality of work to be done, as well as, appropriate should be adhered for one to remain a conscientious person.  Moreover, a conscientious person is required to fulfil his or her promises and caring for himself or herself by maintaining proper diet and engaging in frequent exercises. This act has contributed to my present personality of hard work. Precisely, during holidays, I often join my father at his workplace in performing some tasks. As a fact, his employer together with his colleagues are often amazed by my punctuality, dedication towards work, and enthusiasm to learn. Moreover, when a task is delegated to me, I often ensure that it is completed before the stipulated deadline. Similarly, keeping my body fit by engaging in physical exercise over the weekends and adhering to proper diet. At times, I often show responsibility by assisting my parents with the little funds I have saved especially at time when they are financial strained. Essentially, this personality has shown that I am conscientiousness person. My dedication towards work has indeed proved that I am conscientiousness individual.

Essentially, neuroticism shows level of one’s emotional stability. Mottus (2017) maintained that emotional stability depicts the extent to which one is anxious, depressed and aggressive. A neurotic person is often exposed to stress that unfortunately is detrimental to his or her health. Neuroticism is often used to determine whether a person can work with others or not. A fearful and highly tempered individual cannot work along with others because he or she gets irritated first, is always sad, guilty, vulnerable and worried. McCrae and Costa (2021) noted that individuals are often anxious when they are not sure of what is about to happen. Essentially, in various situations, I have been a victim of anxiety. In particular, when the academic results were about to released, I feared a lot since I made some errors during the exams. Selden and Goodie (2018) posited that extreme levels of anxiety often lead to depression. Precisely, it interferes with one’s professional, social and relationship lives (Selden, & Goodie, 2018). At times, I often experience little anxiety especially when I have not completed of a certain task assigned at workplace and the deadline for such works is nearing. To help in saving such situations, I usually start working on the task earlier enough to avoid doing shoddy job when the deadline is nearing. Similarly, Mottus (2017) stated that extent neurotic personality may make a person to abuse drugs, experience eating disorders and problems in relationship. Essentially, my neurotic personality is of a medium level since I am always anxious about experiencing poor results but have not been affected to the level of abusing drugs or causing problems to my relationship. Mottus (2017) noted that a person can only do away with the neurotic behaviors by controlling his/her anxiety and depression.

Similarly, agreeableness shows a person perception on the human nature. Further, it shows the kind of socialization one engages with his or her colleagues. As already discussed, a person who socializes well with others and is tactful in his or her operations is regarded as highly agreeableness. On the contrary, those who recognizes themselves as better than others and fail to socialize well with their colleagues are considered low agreeableness. Selden and Goodie (2018) noted that to be highly agreeableness, an individual must show gratitude to friends, sacrifice for the sake of others comfort, be empathetic and generous to those in need. Further, agreeableness is determined by a person’s trust, unity with others, moral behavior, level of sympathy, as well as, modesty. Personally, I like working in groups. This has been experienced mostly in class discussions and assignments. I always form groups to help bring understanding among my classmates. Engaging in groups makes me learn new ideas from others. Apart from class work, I always participate in activities such as football that enhances peace and good cooperation amongst us. I hardly isolate myself from others. In choosing group members, I do not choose only those of the same academic level but involve those from all levels of performance. Those who are slow learners may find themselves in the same group as the fast learners. These traits show that I am a person of high level agreeableness. It has created peace for me in all areas I visit. In contrary, people with low level agreeableness have mostly occupied the high occupational positions like being scientists or even officers.

Extraversion explains the extent of socialization one engages with his or her colleagues. A person who mostly keeps to himself is called an introvert whereas one who socializes freely with others without fear is called an extrovert. An extrovert likes to participate in several social gatherings and shows a lot of effort while at work because of morale from others. They always record poor productivity at workplace.  An introvert hardly moves out but prefers working by himself or herself. They are mostly motivated by groups. In such groups, they tend to seek attention of the whole group members. Some of its sub straits include seeking of attention, level of friendship with colleagues, activity performance, and happiness. Essentially, in most of my engagements, people have always recommended me to lead in discussions. According to them, I am extrovert and that I have communication skills that can draw the masses to.

Limitations of the Five Factor Theory in Determining Personality

              A major limitation of five factor theory is that it creates a risk of inaccuracy. Although the theory is broad enough that makes it easy to use and create generalization, reports have shown that it is inaccurate. Essentially, most individuals prefer depending on theories that have already been created instead of mentioning their real personalities. Secondly, the theory is regarded superficial since many people have used it to determine the traits of strangers that unfortunately are not done correctly. This according to Selden and Goodie (2018) makes individuals to get inaccurate results leading to lack of transparency.  Another major limitation of this theory is that it is static. Essentially, personalities are often determined through procedures. However, in case a person changes environment, then it would be difficult to explain his or her personality Five Factor theory.

In conclusion, five Factor theory is one of the models formulated by psychologists to determine personality determinant. Essentially, it explains factors related to human beings and can help determine a person’s personality. Though this model, I have developed desirable personalities including being high openness, an extrovert, a less neurotic with high conscience and agreeableness.  While five factor theory is appropriate in determining people’s personality, it is not dynamic and can yield inaccurate results. Therefore, the most appropriate way to determine a person’s personality is by checking his or her social life, as well as, their emotion towards several situations. Though this method, it would be easy and accurate to determine people’s real personalities.