Big Five Personality Traits Essay
Research Question
What is the relationship between gender and the Big Five Personality Traits?
Claim
In our world today there still exists questions regarding the differences between men and women. One of the many ways to evaluate this is through personality, with a focus on the Big Five Personality Model. This has been going on through the years, including famous studies such as Feingold in 1994, Hall in 1984, and Maccoby and Jacklin in 1974 (as cited in Samuel, South, and Griffin, 2015). With these in mind, upon using the Big Five Personality Model, women tend to test higher in extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism than men.
Supportive Evidence
Lehmann, R., Denissen, J. J., Mathias, A., & Penke, L. (2013, February). Age and gender …show more content…
differences in motivational manifestations of the Big Five from age 16 to 60. Developmental Psychology, 49.2, 365-383. Retrieved from PsycINFO.
In Germany, an online version of the Five Individual Reaction Norms Inventory was completed by 19,022 Germans between the ages of 16 to 60. This test is based off of the Big Five personality traits and was administered to determine the correlation between gender and the Big Five personality traits. The researchers findings, which agree with the claim, were that women were more likely to test higher in the categories of neuroticism, extraversion, and agreeableness among their German participants.
Since the results were completely received through an online self-report method, a possible limitation exists. As someone who has taken the test, even if I knew that the results did not matter, I felt a pressure to get results that match the image I have of myself. My experience is an example of the self-fulfilling prophecy, which could have occurred among other participants during this study as well. This is a possibility, therefore it should be investigated further.
Marsh, H. W., Nagengast, B., & Morin, A. J. S. (2013). Measurement invariance of big-five factors over the life span: ESEM tests of gender, age, plasticity, maturity, and la dolce vita effects. Developmental Psychology, 49(6), 1194-1218. Retrieved from PsycINFO.
14,021 participants in England, ranging from the ages of 15 to 99, completed a 15 item Five Factor Model questionnaire. The results, that are consistent with the claim, showed that women scored higher on neuroticism, extraversion, and agreeableness. Men scored higher on openness. There were almost no differences in the category of conscientiousness between the genders. This was shown through a large age range in a single country.
The main limitation of this study was not with the gender aspect, but of comparing age differences. Due to the amount of participants it is not extremely likely that they could do a longitudinal study, where information is gathered from the same participant over time. The experimenters noted this in their report with adding the comment, “Reliance on cross-sectional data thus limits the issues that we were able to address”(Marsh, Nagengast, and Morin, 2013). This does affect the gender argument though, as this study would suggest that across a substantial age range the gender differences remain evident. If a longitudinal study were to be used, you could conclude that these gendered personality differences are stable.
Counterevidence
Samuel, D.
B., South, S. C., & Griffin, S. A. (2015). Factorial invariance of the five-factor model rating form across gender. Assessment, 22(1), 65-75. Retrieved from PsycINFO.
Upon surveying 699 first and second year college students with the Five Factor Model Rating Form, a shortened version with 30 items for participants to respond to, gender differences were found. Men tested lower than women on neuroticism, extraversion, agreeableness, and conscientiousness but slightly higher on openness. This challenges the idea that conscientiousness is about the same between genders. Sometimes there is a slightly higher score for women, but in their study they found the difference to be one of the biggest with a difference of .44.
Having nearly 700 participants would usually be a decent experiment size, but seeing that it has only half the amount of people than the other two studies mentioned, the sample size can be limiting. It is also worth mentioning that since it was done at a university, involving only university students, who are young adults, the test results that were collected may also be limited. The experimenters themselves noticed this limit when they stated, “Our student sample, not surprisingly, was more restricted in terms of age and educational attainment than the general population, which might limit the generalizability of our findings” in their report”(Samuel, South, and Griffin, 2015). The results may be similar to adults, but the study would need to be replicated …show more content…
to determine this.
Discussion
Past research could not be generalized as much due to its age and cultural limitations. Do people’s ages or cultural backgrounds affect personality as well as gender? Even in newer studies, such as the Samuel, South, and Griffin study done in 2015 in the United States, these factors were not taken into account. Only college students were participants, which creates the question if this a difference is only consistent among young adults (Samuel, South, and Griffin, 2015). While these studies may seem limiting because they continue to use small portions of the populations to prove the same point, these new installments of the original quasi-experiment can allow the results to be more generalized than before when multiple are all taken into consideration. Some studies have even broadened their participant range in order to prevent conclusions coming from many different sources.
With the study of Lehmann, Denissen, Mathias, and Penke, done in 2013 in Germany, they incorporated a large range of age among their participants to question the original gender difference claim.
Their 19,022 participants ranged from the age of 16 to 60. Even more impressively, in England the 2013 Marsh, Nagengast, and Morin study featured an age range from 15 to 99 with 14,021 participants. Both found slight differences as you age, such as an increase in conscientiousness, however the distinct gender differences remained consistent no matter the age; conscientiousness has no gender difference, men have a tendency to score higher in openness, and women tend to score higher in the remaining three categories (Lehmann, Denissen, Mathias, & Penke, 2013; Marsh, Nagengast, & Morin, 2013). The difference in nationality also adds to the argument, as these were done in Germany and England. This would suggest that the gender personality differences are similar across the world, although they do not take into account many countries, so this is something that may need to be looked into further.
.
Conclusion
Using these findings, men and women do differ when being tested using the Big Five Personality Model. Among extraversion, neuroticism, conscientiousness, openness, and agreeableness, men only tend to test higher than women in the category of openness. Women tend to have higher scores in extraversion, neuroticism, and agreeableness. Conscientiousness is the only of the five categories that remains androgynous, not having any gender preference at all. Among different populations, including age and country, these findings still ring true.
What is the relationship between gender and the Big Five Personality Traits?
Claim
In our world today there still exists questions regarding the differences between men and women. One of the many ways to evaluate this is through personality, with a focus on the Big Five Personality Model. This has been going on through the years, including famous studies such as Feingold in 1994, Hall in 1984, and Maccoby and Jacklin in 1974 (as cited in Samuel, South, and Griffin, 2015). With these in mind, upon using the Big Five Personality Model, women tend to test higher in extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism than men.
Supportive Evidence
Lehmann, R., Denissen, J. J., Mathias, A., & Penke, L. (2013, February). Age and gender …show more content…
differences in motivational manifestations of the Big Five from age 16 to 60. Developmental Psychology, 49.2, 365-383. Retrieved from PsycINFO.
In Germany, an online version of the Five Individual Reaction Norms Inventory was completed by 19,022 Germans between the ages of 16 to 60. This test is based off of the Big Five personality traits and was administered to determine the correlation between gender and the Big Five personality traits. The researchers findings, which agree with the claim, were that women were more likely to test higher in the categories of neuroticism, extraversion, and agreeableness among their German participants.
Since the results were completely received through an online self-report method, a possible limitation exists. As someone who has taken the test, even if I knew that the results did not matter, I felt a pressure to get results that match the image I have of myself. My experience is an example of the self-fulfilling prophecy, which could have occurred among other participants during this study as well. This is a possibility, therefore it should be investigated further.
Marsh, H. W., Nagengast, B., & Morin, A. J. S. (2013). Measurement invariance of big-five factors over the life span: ESEM tests of gender, age, plasticity, maturity, and la dolce vita effects. Developmental Psychology, 49(6), 1194-1218. Retrieved from PsycINFO.
14,021 participants in England, ranging from the ages of 15 to 99, completed a 15 item Five Factor Model questionnaire. The results, that are consistent with the claim, showed that women scored higher on neuroticism, extraversion, and agreeableness. Men scored higher on openness. There were almost no differences in the category of conscientiousness between the genders. This was shown through a large age range in a single country.
The main limitation of this study was not with the gender aspect, but of comparing age differences. Due to the amount of participants it is not extremely likely that they could do a longitudinal study, where information is gathered from the same participant over time. The experimenters noted this in their report with adding the comment, “Reliance on cross-sectional data thus limits the issues that we were able to address”(Marsh, Nagengast, and Morin, 2013). This does affect the gender argument though, as this study would suggest that across a substantial age range the gender differences remain evident. If a longitudinal study were to be used, you could conclude that these gendered personality differences are stable.
Counterevidence
Samuel, D.
B., South, S. C., & Griffin, S. A. (2015). Factorial invariance of the five-factor model rating form across gender. Assessment, 22(1), 65-75. Retrieved from PsycINFO.
Upon surveying 699 first and second year college students with the Five Factor Model Rating Form, a shortened version with 30 items for participants to respond to, gender differences were found. Men tested lower than women on neuroticism, extraversion, agreeableness, and conscientiousness but slightly higher on openness. This challenges the idea that conscientiousness is about the same between genders. Sometimes there is a slightly higher score for women, but in their study they found the difference to be one of the biggest with a difference of .44.
Having nearly 700 participants would usually be a decent experiment size, but seeing that it has only half the amount of people than the other two studies mentioned, the sample size can be limiting. It is also worth mentioning that since it was done at a university, involving only university students, who are young adults, the test results that were collected may also be limited. The experimenters themselves noticed this limit when they stated, “Our student sample, not surprisingly, was more restricted in terms of age and educational attainment than the general population, which might limit the generalizability of our findings” in their report”(Samuel, South, and Griffin, 2015). The results may be similar to adults, but the study would need to be replicated …show more content…
to determine this.
Discussion
Past research could not be generalized as much due to its age and cultural limitations. Do people’s ages or cultural backgrounds affect personality as well as gender? Even in newer studies, such as the Samuel, South, and Griffin study done in 2015 in the United States, these factors were not taken into account. Only college students were participants, which creates the question if this a difference is only consistent among young adults (Samuel, South, and Griffin, 2015). While these studies may seem limiting because they continue to use small portions of the populations to prove the same point, these new installments of the original quasi-experiment can allow the results to be more generalized than before when multiple are all taken into consideration. Some studies have even broadened their participant range in order to prevent conclusions coming from many different sources.
With the study of Lehmann, Denissen, Mathias, and Penke, done in 2013 in Germany, they incorporated a large range of age among their participants to question the original gender difference claim.
Their 19,022 participants ranged from the age of 16 to 60. Even more impressively, in England the 2013 Marsh, Nagengast, and Morin study featured an age range from 15 to 99 with 14,021 participants. Both found slight differences as you age, such as an increase in conscientiousness, however the distinct gender differences remained consistent no matter the age; conscientiousness has no gender difference, men have a tendency to score higher in openness, and women tend to score higher in the remaining three categories (Lehmann, Denissen, Mathias, & Penke, 2013; Marsh, Nagengast, & Morin, 2013). The difference in nationality also adds to the argument, as these were done in Germany and England. This would suggest that the gender personality differences are similar across the world, although they do not take into account many countries, so this is something that may need to be looked into further.
.
Conclusion
Using these findings, men and women do differ when being tested using the Big Five Personality Model. Among extraversion, neuroticism, conscientiousness, openness, and agreeableness, men only tend to test higher than women in the category of openness. Women tend to have higher scores in extraversion, neuroticism, and agreeableness. Conscientiousness is the only of the five categories that remains androgynous, not having any gender preference at all. Among different populations, including age and country, these findings still ring true.