ABSTRACT

Over the next six sections, we are going to look in turn at general mental ability and each of the Big Five broad personality factors. The latter are:

Extraversion (E)

Agreeableness (A)

Conscientiousness (C)

Neuroticism (N) (Sometimes rendered as its opposite pole ‘Emotional Stability’)

Openness (O)

On each occasion, we shall look first at the definitions of the factor. Next, you should find sufficient information for you to estimate your own score, at least in terms of whether you see yourself as possessing not much, some or a lot of any personality trait. When referring to published data, the narrow categories, reflecting the following divisions of the general population will be used (see Table 3.1).