Home › Historical IQ Tests › Big Five Personality Model

Public Domain · 1981

Big Five Personality Model: OCEAN personality model

The dominant modern personality model. Developed independently in the 1980s by Lewis Goldberg, Paul Costa, and Robert McCrae through factor analysis of personality trait language, the Big Five identifies five broad dimensions: Openness to experience, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, Neuroticism (OCEAN). The Big Five has dominated personality research since 1990 and underlies essentially every modern personality assessment instrument.

Take the TestRead About the Test

About the Big Five Personality Model

The Big Five personality model was not invented by a single person at a single moment. It emerged gradually through factor-analytic studies starting in the 1930s (when Allport & Odbert collected 18,000 personality-related English words), through Cattell's 16-factor work in the 1940s (which over-resolved the structure), through Tupes & Christal's 1961 USAF reanalysis (which identified 5 factors), and finally through Lewis Goldberg's 1981 lexical studies and Paul Costa & Robert McCrae's 1985 NEO-PI work (which converged on the modern 5-factor consensus).

The five factors, conventionally remembered as OCEAN: Openness to Experience (curiosity, imagination, aesthetic sensitivity), Conscientiousness (organization, discipline, achievement striving), Extraversion (sociability, energy, positive emotion), Agreeableness (cooperation, trust, prosocial orientation), and Neuroticism (emotional volatility, anxiety, negative emotion).

The Big Five has dominated personality research since 1990. It has been cross-validated across cultures (mostly stable in WEIRD cultures, with some variation in others), shows strong heritability (about 50% per factor), predicts life outcomes meaningfully (Conscientiousness predicts job performance; Neuroticism predicts mental health), and has stable adult test-retest reliability. The IPIP (International Personality Item Pool) provides free public-domain Big Five items widely used in research; commercial instruments (NEO-PI-R, NEO-PI-3) are also available.

The 5 subtests

#1
Openness to Experience (O) Curiosity, imagination, aesthetic sensitivity, intellectual interests.
Trait Dimension
#2
Conscientiousness (C) Organization, discipline, achievement striving, dutifulness, self-control.
Trait Dimension
#3
Extraversion (E) Sociability, energy, positive emotion, assertiveness, warmth.
Trait Dimension
#4
Agreeableness (A) Cooperation, trust, prosocial orientation, compassion.
Trait Dimension
#5
Neuroticism (N) Emotional volatility, anxiety, negative emotion, self-consciousness.
Trait Dimension

Take the full 100-item test

Big Five Personality Inventory (1981): the OCEAN model (Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, Neuroticism). 100 items using public-domain IPIP-NEO format. Each item is a statement; subject indicates agreement on 5-point scale (here simplified to most-fits / least-fits among options).

No data leaves your browser.

About these items: These Big Five Personality Model items are originally-written reconstructions in the tradition of the original 1981 test, NOT verbatim copies of the historical items. Where the original is a 1-on-1 oral or physical-apparatus test (e.g., examiner shows a card, child draws a shape), we have adapted the format to self-administered multiple choice.

Sample Items (Illustrative)

Items in the Big Five Personality Model are typically presented as statements or questions about personal preferences and behaviors, often using a Likert scale for responses. Scores are calculated by summing the responses to items within each subtest, providing a measure of each personality dimension.

Sample 1 · Openness to Experience (O)
How often do you find yourself daydreaming about new possibilities or adventures?
Example response: Often
Sample 2 · Conscientiousness (C)
When you start a task, how likely are you to finish it without getting distracted?
Example response: Very likely
Sample 3 · Extraversion (E)
Do you enjoy being the center of attention at social gatherings?
Example response: Yes, very much
Sample 4 · Agreeableness (A)
How important is it for you to maintain harmony in your relationships?
Example response: Extremely important
Sample 5 · Neuroticism (N)
How often do you feel anxious or worried about things beyond your control?
Example response: Frequently

These are illustrative samples, not actual items from the protected test.

Source

All test materials and historical content on this page are transcribed from:

Lewis Goldberg & numerous contributors (1981). Big Five Personality Model.

The Big Five model itself is a theoretical framework; specific Big Five measurement instruments (NEO-PI-R, IPIP, BFI) have various copyright statuses. The IPIP (International Personality Item Pool) provides free public-domain Big Five items.

Cite this page

This page is part of the Historical IQ Tests Archive. Editorial content, transcription notes, and curation are released under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0). Public-domain primary sources retain their public-domain status. BibTeX · RIS

Historical test materials are obsolete and are not valid modern IQ assessments. This page is preserved for educational, research, and historiographic purposes.

Looking for a contemporary IQ test?

The instrument documented above is a historical document. Modern IQ scoring uses contemporary norms (mean 100, SD 15). Our free full IQ test is available separately.