ABSTRACT
Personality traits are among the most familiar of individual difference variables, both to laypersons, who use them incessantly in daily life, and to psychologists, who have studied them throughout the history of their discipline. Major advances in trait psychology have occurred in recent years, chiefly fostered by an emerging consensus that personality traits can be described in terms of five basic dimensions. In this chapter we will summarize what is known about the Five-Factor Model (FFM) at the individual level and, more tentatively, at the culture level; report new data on the culture-level correlates of factors and their facets; address some issues in data analysis and interpretation at two levels; and discuss some implications for public policy.
