The 'Big Five' Factors Personality Model - OCEAN

'The Big Five' is the commonly used term for the model of personality which describes the five fundamental factors of our personality. For reasons explained below the model is commonly referred to as OCEAN, being an acronym for names often used for the five traits. The alternative acronym CANOE is less commonly used. This summary and explanation has been provided by psychologist and psychometrics expert Paul Sinclair (see Paul's biography below), which is greatly appreciated.
The Big Five 'super traits' have been researched and validated by many different psychologists (WT Norman 1963, McCrae & Costa 1987, Brand & Egan 1989, LR Goldman 1990 and P Sinclair 1992) and are at the core of many other personality questionnaires.
While Raymond Cattell 'uncovered' 16 traits from his factor analysis (a statistical way of reducing a variety of things down to a smaller number of related clusters) in the development of the 16PF; no one else was able to replicate his work.
On the other hand, the Big Five Factors have been replicated in studies across the world and give us a confident summary of our mental building blocks, according to trait theory.
This had led to a number of slightly different 'translations' of the Big Five model, although each version essentially deals with the same theory and content. The words describing the characteristics change, but the basic characteristics do not. The 'translations' between the different interpretations are explained later.
Trait theory, on which many of our occupational questionnaires are based (for example, Cattell's 16PF and Saville & Holdsworth's 'OPQ' Occupational Personality Questionnaire), states that by the time we are in our early 20s and start work, our personality traits become more stable and reliable. This does not necessarily mean we become more stable or reliable, but that our individual personality traits become more fixed and are thus capable of being reliably measured.
For example, loud, confident, creative people tend to remain loud, confident and creative people throughout their careers. Quiet, unassuming, dependable people tend to remain so also.
When the first Big Five questionnaire was launched the UK in 1990, people were surprised and a little sceptical about the speed of the personality profiler; it took under 10 minutes to complete.
This was because it was only measuring five factors and not sixteen or thirty-two personality factors.
Suffice it to say, validation studies were published and presented to the British Psychology Society by the end of the 1990s the Big Five was established as a significant and fundamental personality testing model.

N.B. The pink colour in the tables is used for the Big Five terminology recommended by Paul Sinclair. Aside from this, colour is used (hopefully) to improve presentation only, and does not relate to other personality models on this webpage.

the big five model - five 'bipolar' scales

The bold names in the left column are the recommended names (by Paul Sinclair) for these factors. Other names are used for each of the factors, which might equate to names in the left or right columns. See the OCEAN names below.

Extraversion	vs	Introversion
Confidence	vs	Sensitive
Detail-conscious	vs	Unstructured
Tough-minded	vs	Agreeable
Conforming	vs	Creative

These scales are commonly alternatively represented by the OCEAN acronym and descriptions:

• Openness to experience (equates to Creative, opposite Conforming above)
• Conscientiousness (equates to Detail-conscious above)

overview history of the four temperaments - or four humours

 From various sources and references, including Keirsey and Montgomery, here is a history of the Four Temperaments and other models and concepts related to the Four Temperaments or Four Humours. The words in this framework (from Hippocrates onwards) can be seen as possible describing words for each of the temperaments concerned, although do not attach precise significance to any of the words - they are guide only and not definitive or scientifically reliable. The correlations prior to Hippocrates are far less reliable and included here more for interest than for scientific relevance.    N.B. the colours in these charts do not signify anything - they merely assist (hopefully) with continuity between the different tables. The initials K and M denote interpretations according to Keirsey and Montgomery. Ancient dates are approximate. Some cautionary notes relating to the inclusion of some of these theorists and interpretations is shown below the grid. For believers in astrology and star-signs please resist the temptation to categorise yourself according to where your star-sign sits in the grid - these associations are not scientific and not reliable, and are included merely for historical context and information.

Keirsey/MBTI® reference	artisan/SP sensing-perceiving	guardian/SJ sensing-judging	idealist/NF intuitive-feeling	rationalist/NT intuitive-thinking
Ezekiel 590BC	lion	ox	man	eagle
Empedocles 450BC	Goea (air)	Hera (earth)	Zeus (fire)	Poseidon (water)
The Seasons	Spring	Autumn	Summer	Winter
Signs of Zodiac	Libra, Aquarius, Gemini	Capricorn, Taurus, Virgo	Aries, Leo, Sagittarius	Cancer, Scorpio, Pisces
Hippocrates 370BC	blood	black bile	yellow bile	phlegm
Hippocrates 370BC 'Four Qualities'	hot and moist	cold and dry	hot and dry	cold and moist
Plato 340BC (M)	artistic	sensible	intuitive	reasoning
Aristotle 325BC 'contribution to social order' (K)	'iconic'- artistic and art-making	'pistic' - common-sense and care-taking	'noetic' - intuitive sensibility and morality	'dianoetic' - reasoning and logical investigator
Aristotle 325BC Four Sources of Happiness (K)	'hedone' - sensual pleasure	'propraieteri' - acquiring assets	'ethikos' - moral virtue	'dialogike' - logical investigation
Galen 190AD Four Temperaments or Four Humours	sanguine	melancholic	choleric	phlegmatic
Paracelsus 1550 'Four Totem Spirits' (K)	Salamanders - impulsive and changeable	Gnomes - industrious and guarded	Nymph - inspiring and passionate	Sylphs - curious and calm
Eric Adickes 1905 Four World Views (K)	innovative	traditional	doctrinaire	sceptical
Eduard Spranger 1914 Four Value Attitudes (K)	artistic	economic	religious	theoretic
Ernst Kretschmer 1920 (M)	manic	depressive	oversensitive	insensitive
Eric Fromm 1947 (K)	exploitative	hoarding	receptive	marketing
Hans Eysenck 1950s (trait examples from his inventory)	lively, talkative, carefree, outgoing	sober, reserved, quiet, rigid	restless, excitable, optimistic, impulsive	careful, controlled, thoughtful, reliable
Myers 1958 (M)	perceiving	judging	feeling	thinking
Myers 1958 (K)	probing	scheduling	friendly	tough-minded
Montgomery 2002 on Jung/Myers	SP - spontaneous and playful	SJ - sensible and judicious	NF - intuitive and fervent	NT - ingenious and theoretical
Montgomery 2002 on Keirsey's Four Temperaments	says what is, does what works	says what is, does what's right	says what's possible, does what's right	says what's possible, does what works

Empedocles (c.450BC), the Sicilian-born Greek philosopher and poet was probably first to publish the concept of 'the elements' (Fire, Earth, Water, Air) being 'scientifically' linked to human behaviour: in his long