Correlations between big five personality traits

I just read the wikipedia article on these personality traits. It seems like just another weird attempt to quantify human beings.

I would be interested in hearing someone explain to me why this isn't hogwash.

It is hogwash from a scientific point of view, but correlation per se has a functional place, for example, as a possible "logical basis" in a staff recruitment process. In theory, if "personality test scores" for "good current staff" correlate with those of applicants, this is one method of justifying particular selections. However, there are multiple nebulous lines of argument about the construction of such tests, and what, if anything, they are testing...a point which would be of course be contested by those running the lucrative testing business !

So . . . what are you, some kinda commie ? ! ? ! ?

I don't think my scores would correlate with one !

That's even worse fresco.

A non-scientific process is a bad thing especially in something important like hiring people. In this case pseudo-science can actually hurt someone by keeping her from a job she is qualified for.

I had to take a "personality" test in a recent job interview. They gave me all of the standard bullcrap about "there are no wrong answers blah blah blah". During the interview I was emphasizing the fact that I like working with people and collaborating with a team. The idiot personality test came back (they were considerate enough to email the results) saying that I was anti-social and did my best work in isolation.

I don't know if this had anything to do with the fact I wasn't offered the job.

I will have to be very hungry to work for an employer who gives these stupid tests. (The one I took was after a few months of unemployment during the last recession).

If I ever start my own company (which is a dream of mine) I am going to give one of these personality tests. Any person who refuses to take the stupid test will be offered a job on the spot.

Good point. But what normally happens with a company which needs to invest in training recruits is that they compare "test results" with independent "interview results". If the two match up, then there is considered to be less risk in terms of investment. Economically, its all about money rather than people.

The personality trait tests are no more effective at predicting the success of human beings than Tarot cards (even though they are considerably more expensive).

Hiring people is difficult. It involves human interaction and risk and asking questions. Companies pay for these tests because it offers a magical way to make these difficulties disappear....

Companies should be focusing on networking, employee development and interviewing skills rather than these magic people divination beans.

I think temperaments ARE important in the workplace. Don't send the sanguine person to the bank. They may not make it. Let the choleric plan the party.

Read the book, Personality Plus.

Of course temperaments are important in the workplace.

But you learn someone's temperament by sitting down and talking with them. You don't learn someone's temperament by having them select words from a screen or fill in little ovals with a pencil any more than you do by reading goat entrails.

I am not against the goal of finding employees that fit in an organization. I am just against the use of non-scientific tricks to try to divine their future.

What is wrong with good old fashioned face to face interaction? When I interview people I ask them about what makes them tick, and I ask for specific examples of how they handled situations in the past. I am looking for passion and interest and an expression of how see themselves in an organization (in addition to the technical skills we need). This works when it is a conversation because it is a conversation. That is how we learn about who someone is.

Sticking people in a box based on how they chose answers to meaningless questions or word associations is worse than useless. It shows a lack of respect for the human beings involved.

If commentators on "psychological testing" understood the crude mathematical processes involved in test construction, compared with the extensive range of probabilities of human behavior in complex contexts, they would be more cautious about labelling of "personality types". For example, "correlation" reduces to a measurement of an angle between two data sets (represented as vectors in n-space), and "types" reduces to the labelling of the approximate minimum number of "dimensions" calculated to express those data sets. Those labels could be as arbitrary as "x,y,z axes".

Thanks for your replies. However no one answered the original question - what the correlations are. I am aware that there are lots of methodological problems here but let's leave them aside: I just want to see the statistics. Anyone who has them?

The methodological problems are the reason no one can give you "the statistics." In fact, there are no reliable correlations to which anyone can point with assurance.

I am sure people have collected statistics on this . Whether they track anything in the real world is another matter.

That's just goofy bullshit. Statistics only exist in the real world. Anything else falls under the rubric of fantasy.

This is pseudoscience. The term for statistics that don't track to anything in the real world is "made up statistics". You can make them up as well as anyone else.

Since I am a nice guy, if you tell me what correlation you want to see, I can put it into scientific sounding language for you. But you have to tell me what answer you want.

As everyone knows, 87.5% of statistics are made up on the spot.