Related Experiment Video
Updated: Oct 13, 2026

Boldness, Aggression, and Shoaling Assays for Zebrafish Behavioral Syndromes
Published on: August 29, 2016
What is beyond the big five? Plenty!
1Department of Psychology, University of Western Ontario, London, Canada.
Abstract:
In a recent analysis of personality data, Saucier and Goldberg (1998) sought to answer the question, What is beyond the Big Five? Those authors evaluated numerous clusters of English person-descriptive adjectives that have been suspected of referring to non-Big Five dimensions of personality. Their results led them to conclude that most, if not all, traits of personality can be adequately subsumed within the Big Five factor space. In contrast, our reanalysis of Saucier and Goldberg's own data, using a more realistic criterion for deciding on whether a variable does or does not fall within a particular factor space, contradicts their claim. We are led to the conclusion that there are plenty of dimensions of behavior beyond the Big Five.
Related Concept Videos
Five-Factor Theory of Personality
Openness reflects creativity, curiosity, and openness to new experiences. Individuals scoring high in openness are imaginative, have a wide range of interests, and are independent thinkers. Low...
Cattell's 16 Personality Factors
In contrast, source traits are the fundamental,...
The Behavioral Perspective on Personality
Implicit Personality Theories
Psychodynamic Perspectives on Personality
Psychodynamic theorists argue that unconscious...
Personality Theory by Eysenck and Eysenck
In the extroversion/introversion dimension, highly extroverted people are sociable, outgoing, and easily connect with others. In contrast,...
