FFM and big 5

main difference between big 5 and FFM

Big 5 - lexical/language based, FFM - biologically informed personality theory

lexical hypothesis

important personality differences become encoded in natural language

who is strongly associated with the lexical big 5 appraoch

Goldberg

what does the lexical approach use to measure personality

adjectives

who developed the FFM

Costa and McCrae

what does the FFM assume about traits

they are biologically based causes of behaviour

structural difference between Big 5 and FFM

FFM has hierarchical structure of domains and facets, big 5 does not

how are traits mesaured in the Big 5

bipolar adjective ratings

how are traits mesaured in the FFM

questionnaire items

does the Big 5 make casual claims

no but the FFM says traits cause behaviour

how heritable are big 5 traits

50-60%

why do GWAS studies need huge samples

massive multiple comparisons increase risk of false positives

what gene linked Terracciano et al (2010)

SNAP25

gene linekd to openness

CNTNAP2

brain regions linked to neuroticism

amygdala, mPFC, mid cingulate

brain regions linked to extraversion

amygdala and OFC

brain region linked to conscientiousness

lateral PFC

Canli et al - fMRI

extraverts showed greater amygdala response to happy faces

is FFM cross cultural evidence

universal personality structure supports biological theories

McCrae & Terracciano (2005) - cross cultural evidence

FFM structure was broadly stable across 50 cultures

rank order stability

people maintain their relative standing on traits over time

Gurven et al (2013) - WEIRD

weak evidence for the standard Big 5 structure

Block (1995) - criticism of factor analysis

researchers may obtain the factors they expect based on selected items, important traits may be excluded if they dont fit the model

Allen et al (2022)

neuroimaging studies are often descriptive rather than mechanistic

what is meant by “the map is not the territory”

brain correlations alone do not explain casual mechanisms of personality

similarity between PEN and FFM

both include extraversion and neuroticism and assume biological foundations