Big Five Personality Traits [OCEAN Model]
The Definitive Guide

Is the OCEAN Model universally applicable?

Since culture plays a big role in shaping your personality, it is important to understand whether or not the OCEAN Model is applicable across all cultures.

It may also help in understanding how different genders exhibit the Big Five traits. 

Let’s look at gender and cultural differences in this section.

Gender Differences

There are small but significant differences in how men and women exhibit each of the Big Five traits. 

For instance, women tend to report higher levels of Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism scores than men. 

Men, in contrast, tend to score higher than women on the measure of emotional stability, which means they generally score lower on Neuroticism.

​​Interestingly, bigger gender differences were reported in Western, industrialized countries. 

Researchers argue that women from individualistic countries are more likely to attribute their actions to their personalities, whereas the actions of women in collectivistic countries are more likely to be attributed to their compliance with gender norms.

This goes to show that gender can impact your personality significantly. 

Cultural Differences

There is no shortage of research about the Big Five personality traits, even across cultures. 

Most cross-cultural studies about the Big Five model suggest that the five traits identified in Costa and McCrae’s Five-Factor Model (FFM) are applicable across the globe.

In a 2001 study, Costa gathered data from over 23,000 men and women in 26 countries, and found that “gender differences are modest in magnitude, consistent with gender stereotypes, and replicable across cultures”.

However, there are exceptions to this rule.

This study argues that most of the research about the BFM has been restricted to literate, urban populations in WEIRD countries, an acronym that stands for ’Western Educated Industrialized Rich Developed.’

The study, when conducted in a largely illiterate and indigenous society, found little to no support for the FFM. This suggests a lack of cross-cultural validity of the model.

I will tell you more about this and other limitations of the model in Chapter 7. 

Before that, though — let’s talk about its reliability and validity of the model.