The Big Five Model: Grandiose Ideas About Surface Traits as the Foundation of a General Theory of Personality

Several years ago I commented in Psychological Inquiry on Pervin’s (1994) critique of Big Five trait theory. I have reread the article I wrote then and find that my ideas have changed little. Accordingly, the present article incorporates much of what I said at that time, but it is modified to take into account the differences between Block’s and Pervin’s critique, and it includes some of my more recent thinking and research findings. Block’s critique is in Block’s usual manner of being highly perceptive, incisive, and logical. He is not one you would want critiquing any of your articles if they had any logical flaws or empirical gaps in them. His discerning eye and sharp intellect would surely not miss any of them. Although Block is critical of the Five Factor Model (FFM) as a general theory of personality, he in all fairness credits it with very important contributions in the more limited domain of the nomothetic psychology of individual differences. As for negative criticisms, Block lists as serious limitations in the FFM the following problems with it as a general theory of personality: (a) an atheoretical approach to understanding personality; (b) reliance on factor analysis as a sufficient procedure for elucidating the nature of personality; (c) failure to include some important variables that do not conveniently fit into the FFM structure; (d) failure to consider new, important developments in personality-assessment procedures; and (e) a reluctance to accept evidence that there are more fundamental factors than the Big Five factors. My views about the FFM generally concur with Block’s list but differ in emphasis. I would cut up the personality pie in different size pieces than Block does, but it would include the same kinds of pieces with one exception. Block has taught me about new procedures and new findings about factors more fundamental than the Big Five about which I had previously been uninformed. The limitations in the FFM that I discuss from my own perspective are as follows: a reliance on descriptive attributes of personality and units of measurement rather than on dynamic, processoriented constructs; an exclusive reliance on a nomothetic, individual-differences approach to personality; a consideration only of surface variables; and an atheoretical approach to personality research. To use an analogy from The Lord of the Rings in which the rings represent limitations, each of the other limitations are very important in their own right, but there is one ring that controls all the others. It is an atheoretical approach, which is the most powerful ring of all as it is the common source from which all the others derive their significance. To save the most important for last, I discuss it after I discuss all the others limitations.