The Big Five Personality Traits and What They Mean to Psychologists
April 12, 2017
At the topmost level, there are two types of people in the world: Those who think personality types can be categorized and those who can't.
Among those in the first group are psychologists who began developing a system for classifying personality traits based on an analysis of language way back in the 1880s. With the advent of larger data sets, in 1978 Paul Costa and Robert McRae published their Neuroticism-Extraversion-Openness Inventory (NEO-I) that grouped personalities according to three principal traits. In 1985 after further research, they added two more, and published the NEO Personality Inventory (NEO PI). The groupings constitute the five personality traits psychologists use today, known as “The Big Five.” Together, they form the acronym OCEAN.
http://bigthink.com/robby-berman/the-5-personality-types-and-why-you-care
