Hierarchical structure of the Big Five

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Within personality psychology, it has become common practice to use factor analysis to derive personality traits. The Big Five model proposes that there are five basic personality traits. These traits were derived in accordance with the lexical hypothesis.^[1] These five personality traits: Extraversion, Neuroticism, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness and Openness to Experience have garnered widespread support ^{[dubious – discuss]}.

The Big Five personality characteristics represent one level in a hierarchy of traits. These traits can be subdivided into collections of aspects or facets which are related to each other but are not identical. As the sub-level of a hierarchy, these traits can be said to be made up of these aspects or facets. The Big Five traits can also be combined into higher order factors consisting of two or more traits. These superordinate factors and subcomponents and the approaches used to devise them are discussed below.