 2. History, Measurement, and Conceptual Elaboration of the Big‑Five Trait Taxonomy  41
cation problems (e.g., Is happy  a trait or a 
state?). Chaplin, John, and Goldberg (1988) 
argued that these categories overlap and 
have fuzzy boundaries; they proposed a pro -
totype conception in which each category is 
defined in terms of its clear cases rather than 
its boundaries. In a series of rating studies, 
they showed that prototypical states  are de -
scribed as temporary, brief, and externally 
caused. Prototypical traits  are stable, long- 
lasting, and internally caused, and need to 
be observed more frequently and across a 
wider range of situations than states before 
they are attributed to an individual. These 
findings replicated the earlier classifications 
and confirmed that the lay conceptions of 
traits and states are widely shared and un -
derstood.
Identifying the  Major Dimensions 
of Personality  Description: 
Cattell’s  Reduction  Efforts
Allport and Odbert’s (1936) classifications 
provided some initial structure for the per -
sonality lexicon. However, to be of practical 
value, a taxonomy must provide a systematic 
framework for distinguishing, ordering, and 
naming individual differences in people’s 
behavior and experience (John, 1989). Aim -
ing for such a taxonomy, Cattell (1943) used 
both semantic and empirical clustering pro -
cedures (for details, see John et al., 1988; 
John, 1990) to reduce Allport and Odbert’s 
list of about 5,000 traits to a mere 35 vari -
ables, thus eliminating more than 99 percent 
of the initial terms. This drastic reduction 
was dictated primarily by the data-  analytic 
limitations of his time, which made factor 
analyses of large, variable sets prohibitively 
costly and complex. Using this small set of 35 
variables, Cattell conducted several oblique 
factor analyses (i.e., allowing for correlated 
factors) and concluded that he had identified 
12 factors, which became part of his 16 Per -
sonality Factors (16PF) Questionnaire (Cat -
tell, Eber, & Tatsuoka, 1970).
Reanalyses of Cattell’s own correlation 
matrices by others have not confirmed the 
number and nature of the factors he pro -
posed (e.g., Tupes & Christal, 1961/1992). 
Digman and Takemoto-  Chock (1981) con -
cluded that Cattell’s “original model, based 
on the unfortunate clerical errors noted here, cannot have been correct” (p. 168), although 
the second-  order factors of the 16PF show 
some correspondence between Cattell’s sys -
tem and the Big Five dimensions discovered 
later, as shown in Table 2.1.
The “Big Five” Factors in Personality 
Trait Ratings
Initial Discovery of the Big Five in Cattell’s 
Variable  List
Cattell’s pioneering work, and the avail -
ability of a relatively short list of variables, 
stimulated other researchers to examine 
the dimensional structure of trait ratings. 
Several investigators were involved in the 
initial discovery of the Big Five dimen -
sions. First, Fiske (1949) constructed much 
simplified descriptions from 22 of Cattell’s 
variables; the factor structures derived from 
self- ratings, ratings by peers, and ratings by 
psychological staff members were highly 
similar and resembled what would later be -
come known as the Big Five. To clarify these 
factors, Tupes and Christal (1961/1992) 
reanalyzed correlation matrices from eight 
samples and found “five relatively strong 
and recurrent factors and nothing more of 
any consequence” (1961, p. 14). Norman 
(1963) further replicated this five-  factor 
structure and labeled them in the order of 
emergence in the factor analysis: (I) Extra -
version or Surgency (talkative, assertive, en -
ergetic); (II) Agreeableness (good-  natured, 
cooperative, trustful); (III) Conscientious -
ness (orderly, responsible, dependable); (IV) 
Emotional Stability (calm, not neurotic, not 
easily upset); and (V) Culture (intellectual, 
polished, independent-  minded).
These factors (see Table 2.2 for more re -
cent labels, definitions, and examples) even -
tually became known as the “Big Five”—a 
name Goldberg (1981) chose not to reflect 
their intrinsic greatness but to empha -
size that each of these factors is extremely 
broad—after all, 5,000 trait terms were 
being represented by only five underlying 
dimensions. However, the Big Five structure 
does not imply that personality differences 
can be reduced to only five traits. Rather, 
these five dimensions represent personality 
at the broadest level of abstraction. Just like 
the biological categories of mammal and 