The O C E A N Of Personalities

Today, i.e., 8th June is celebrated as the World Oceans Day, to recognise the important role these largest carbon sinks play in nature. It's an annual observation to honor, help, protect, and conserve the world's oceans. Oceans are vast water bodies covering 70% of Earth's surface, life arose in their recesses. They have been and will always be important for many reasons, like for trade and commerce, adventure and discovery. They have kept people apart and brought them together.

Likewise, contemporary personality psychologists have identified the major personality domains that if developed in right proportions, or dealt with rationally, keep peoples' weaknesses apart from their way to success and bring their strengths together. These traits constitute the acronym OCEAN.

These Big Five Personality Traits are as follows:-

Openness (O)
Conscientiousness (C)
Extraversion (E)
Aggreableness (A)
Neuroticism (N)

Today, many researchers believe that they are five core personality traits, which essentially range from one extreme to another. Unlike the vastness of an ocean, this five-factor model of personality is enough to categorise all people; what these five traits suggest is that most people fall under one of these categories. An average person falls somewhere between the two polar ends of each dimension.

This theory's been supported by evidences provided by the research works of D. W. Fiske (1949) ,Norman (1967), Smith (1967), Goldberg (1981), and McCrae & Costa (1987).

Openness :

The two extremes here are openness to experience new things and closeness for the same. People high on this trait feature characteristics such as willingness to try new avenues, boundless imagination, high creativity, curiosity and eagerness to learn and enjoy new experiences. Such people have a broad range of interests.

While those who are less open might find themselves having the interest range of teaspoon and shy away from abstract thinking. They tend to resist changes and new ideas because of a dislike towards anything new. They are also averse to anything theoretical.

Conscientiousness :

A conscientious person is one who likes being organised, thinks and plans his things well ahead of time and values self-discipline. This shows that they care about how their behaviour affects others. Hence, they are highly thoughtful and exhibit a goal-directed behaviour. They are really organised and follow the deadlines successfully.

A person opposite to that side of the spectrum is a rather spontaneous being, averse to structures, schedules and planning. He might be a procrastinator and end up making a mess of things he's occupied with.

However, these are only the extreme behaviours, two poles of the same material. In life, people show a mixture of these characteristics, nothing is absolute.

Rest three traits are described in the next article. Stay tuned ;)