The ten Big Five aspects, explained

What is a Big Five aspect?

An aspect is a level of personality description between the broad dimension and the narrow facet. The idea came from a set of factor analyses: when 75 facet scales from two major Big Five inventories were analysed within each domain, each domain produced a two-factor solution rather than one general factor, indicating two distinct but correlated traits inside every one of the five (DeYoung et al., 2007). Those ten traits were then described at item level, producing the Big Five Aspect Scales, a 100-item measure validated in a second community sample.

The ten aspects also lined up closely with ten genetic factors that earlier work had identified in the facets of the NEO inventories, which suggests the split is not only a statistical convenience (DeYoung et al., 2007). It is worth being careful about what that does and does not establish. It shows that each domain has two coherent halves with some biological signature behind them. It does not show that aspect scores predict outcomes better than domain scores, which that study did not test.

What are the ten Big Five aspects?

Two names in that table cause confusion. The fifth dimension and one of its own aspects are both called openness, so writers usually give the domain a double name, Openness or Intellect, and reserve the lower-case word for the aspect that covers imagination and aesthetic feeling. The fourth dimension is written here as Neuroticism because that is the direction the aspects were named in; many reports flip that scale and call it Emotional Stability, so that higher means steadier, which is why the pages linked in that row describe the calm end.

The pairs are correlated, not independent. Someone high on the domain is usually somewhat high on both of its aspects. The point of the level is the cases where the two come apart, and those are common enough to matter.

How do aspects sit between domains and facets?

Think of three resolutions of the same picture. The domain is the broadest: five or six dimensions, each an average of everything beneath it. The facet is the narrowest level a questionnaire usually tries to measure: the NEO inventories divide each domain into six facets, thirty in all (Costa & McCrae, 1992), while the BFI-2 uses three per domain, fifteen in all (Soto & John, 2017), and a public-domain inventory built from the International Personality Item Pool (Goldberg et al., 2006) measures thirty facets with 120 items (Johnson, 2014).

The aspect is the middle. There are exactly two per domain, so ten across the Big Five, and each one gathers several facets that behave alike. Enthusiasm covers the warm and sociable facets of Extraversion; assertiveness covers the forceful and dominant ones. Industriousness covers the facets about effort and follow-through; orderliness covers the facets about tidiness and system. The Big Five facets sets out the narrower level in full.

• Domains answer how you differ from other people in general terms, and they are the most reliable level because they rest on the most items.
• Aspects answer which half of a domain you sit on when the two halves disagree, using two scores rather than six or ten.
• Facets answer what specifically is going on, and they are the level where a description turns into something you could practise (Soto & John, 2017).

No level is the true one. The levels exist because personality descriptions are organised hierarchically, a structure that emerged from decades of lexical work rather than from any single study (Goldberg, 1993), and because the same five factors keep appearing whether they are measured with adjectives or questionnaires, in self-reports and in ratings by people who know the person (McCrae & Costa, 1987).

Why does the level you work at matter?

Because averages hide their parts, and the parts are often what you came for. Two people can arrive at the same Agreeableness score by different routes: one high on compassion and low on politeness, warm to people in trouble and blunt with anyone who deserves it; the other polite to everyone and not especially moved. One Agreeableness number describes both of them, and describes neither of them well.

The same split does real work elsewhere. High enthusiasm with low assertiveness is a warm person who does not want the room; high assertiveness with low enthusiasm is someone who leads without much interest in company. Under Conscientiousness, industriousness without orderliness is the person who works hard in visible chaos, and orderliness without industriousness is the tidy desk with nothing finished on it. Under Neuroticism, volatility shows outward as irritation and quick upset, while withdrawal shows inward as worry and hanging back, and the advice that helps with one is not the advice that helps with the other.

Where the two halves agree, the domain score says everything the aspects would. Where they disagree, a domain score is the average of two different findings, and the description built on it reads as half right. A result that fits in places and misses in others is usually a sign to go down a level rather than to distrust the test.

How can you measure the aspects?

The instrument written for the purpose is the Big Five Aspect Scales, the 100-item measure developed alongside the analyses that identified the ten aspects and validated in a second sample (DeYoung et al., 2007). It is a research instrument, so what you will usually meet is a website that has implemented the items, with its own scoring and its own reference sample.

Most consumer reports do not label the aspect level at all. They report five or six domains, and the better ones report facets. If you have facet scores from a longer inventory, you can read the aspect level off them by grouping the facets as the table above groups them: the warm and sociable facets against the forceful ones, the effort facets against the tidiness facets. It is rough, since the real groupings were derived statistically rather than by sorting names, but it answers the question that sends most people looking for aspects, which is why one half of a domain description fit and the other did not.

How does Wellington report this level?

Wellington is a science-based personality assessment from Therabot Labs LLC. It measures personality as continuous traits, built on the Big Five and HEXACO models, and writes the results back as a personal report rather than a type.

Wellington does not report the ten aspects by name. It reports two of the three levels: 6 broad dimensions and, beneath them, the facets. The free Snapshot is 60 questions and about 7 minutes, ten statements for each of Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Emotional Stability, Openness to Experience and Honesty-Humility, and returns a percentile and a band for each. The first ten questions are answered before anything is asked of you; after question ten you sign in with an email address so answers are saved and results can be shown, and no card is needed. The Wellington Membership, $4.99 a month, adds the Portrait, 336 further questions across 4 chapters and about 36 minutes, to reach 90 traits, including all 51 facets and all 24 character strengths. It then continues with a short weekly module toward all 255 traits across eight domains.

Every trait is scored the same way. Several statements rated from "Very inaccurate" to "Very accurate", reverse-keyed items flipped, averaged, then placed against a reference sample as a percentile and reported in one of three bands: Quiet below the 30th percentile, Balanced to the 70th, High above. The bands exist to make the result easier to talk about; the percentile is the measurement, and it is always shown alongside. Our norms are provisional while the norming sample is completed, and the report says so. Once you unlock the written report, every trait has three pages, one per band, written in advance by our writing and psychology team, and your answers choose which one you read. Wellington is a wellness tool for reflection, not a medical or psychological diagnosis, and it does not replace care from a qualified professional. It is not designed for hiring, and you can export or delete your data from your dashboard at any time.

If the aspect level is what you are after, the facet pages linked in the table above cover the traits that make up each aspect. The methodology shows how a facet is written up and has the scoring in full.

Questions people ask

How many Big Five aspects are there?

Ten, two beneath each of the five dimensions. They were identified by factor analyses of 75 facet scales within each domain, which produced a two-factor solution in every case rather than one general factor (DeYoung et al., 2007). The ten are enthusiasm, assertiveness, compassion, politeness, industriousness, orderliness, volatility, withdrawal, intellect and openness.

What is the difference between an aspect and a facet?

Breadth. There are exactly two aspects per domain, ten in all, each gathering several facets that behave alike. Facets are narrower and there are more of them: thirty in the NEO inventories (Costa & McCrae, 1992), fifteen in the BFI-2 (Soto & John, 2017). Aspects appear mostly in research; facets are what most detailed reports show you.

Do aspect scores predict outcomes better than the five domains?

That has not been established by the study that identified them, which analysed structure rather than prediction (DeYoung et al., 2007). What is established is that the two halves of a domain are distinct, so a single domain score can average over a real difference. Facet scores, separately, do add predictive power beyond domain scores (Soto & John, 2017).

Which test measures the ten aspects?

The Big Five Aspect Scales, a 100-item inventory developed with the analyses that identified the aspects and validated in a second community sample (DeYoung et al., 2007). Most consumer tests do not report the level. If you have facet scores from a longer inventory such as the IPIP-NEO (Johnson, 2014), you can group them by aspect yourself and read the pattern.