CHAPTER 10
A Five-Factor Theory
of Personality
In common speech, a theory is a guess with little or no supporting evi-
dence—as when a detective has a “theory” that the jilted lover is themurderer. When proof is found, the theory becomes a fact. In science,theory has a very different status. A scientific theory is a broad and ab-
stract account of the general principles that are thought to explain a setof phenomena, like the General Theory of Relativity or the Theory ofEvolution. Theories attempt to explain what is known in as simple away as possible; ideally , they also make predictions about what is cur -
rently unknown. When those predictions are verified by observation or
experiment, the credibility of the theory is strengthened.
In the natural sciences, theories are often stated as mathematical
laws and quite specific predictions can be made. In the social sciencessuch precision is rarely seen, and in personality psychology , in particu -
lar, theories serve a rather different function. A theory of personality is a
way of accounting for what people are like and how they act; a goodtheory explains a wide range of observations and points researchers inthe right direction for future research. Freudian theory pointed re -
searchers toward the study of dreams, but decades of research have
yielded very little by way of supportive evidence (Domhoff, 1999). Traittheory pointed researchers toward general styles of thinking, feeling,and acting, and has resulted in thousands of interesting and useful find -
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