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The Five Factor Model Of Personality

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Personality is a multifaceted concept that is difficult to explain but upon further inspection can be analyzed and broken down. Personality, when broken down, is really just a pattern of thoughts, emotions, and behaviors within an individual (Cervone & Pervin, 2013). These patterns of thought, emotion, and behavior can be broken down further into what personality theorists call traits. A personality trait is a particularly consistent manner of behavior or emotion that someone presents in a variety of circumstances. A popular model of personality found later on in the textbook is called the Five-Factor model of personality (Cervone & Pervin, 2013). These five factors are considered personality traits that differ from person to person. These factors are extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional stability, and openness. They are referred to as the Big Five in many research studies and textbooks. However, in order to analyze the patterns that determine personality, certain issues need to be addressed beyond simply discussing personality traits. These issues prove difficult to reconcile but are essential to the concept of personality; they are human universals, individual differences, and individual uniqueness (Cervone & Pervin, 2013). Human universals is the big picture issue, it begs the question what traits are common to all humans? Individual differences focus more on small groups and patterns. It asks the question what sets these people

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