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The five-factor model, often called the Big Five personality traits, is widely accepted in psychology as a comprehensive framework for understanding personality. These five traits — Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism — are often remembered using the acronym OCEAN.
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Updated: Sep 16, 2025

Assessment of Social Interaction Behaviors

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Published on: February 25, 2011

Four big problems of big five agreeableness.

Benjamin E Hilbig¹, Morten Moshagen²

¹RPTU University Kaiserslautern-Landau, Germany.

Current Opinion in Psychology

|July 4, 2025

Summary

The Big Five Agreeableness (B5A) trait inadequately measures pro-social behaviors. Alternative models like HEXACO and the dark factor of personality offer better predictions, addressing B5A

Area of Science:

Psychology
Personality Science
Behavioral Science

Background:

The Big Five Agreeableness (B5A) construct is widely used but has limitations.
Existing measures of B5A often fail to capture crucial pro-social and ethical behaviors.
There is a need for more comprehensive personality models that better explain behavioral variance.

Purpose of the Study:

To critically evaluate the limitations of the Big Five Agreeableness construct.
To explore alternative personality models that address the shortcomings of B5A.
To propose solutions for improving the measurement and utility of Agreeableness.

Main Methods:

Literature review and theoretical analysis of personality models.
Comparative analysis of Big Five Agreeableness with HEXACO and the dark factor of personality.

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Examination of measurement discrepancies and their implications (jingle-fallacies).

Main Results:

B5A insufficiently accounts for pro-sociality and ethicality-related behaviors and outcomes.
The HEXACO model, particularly Honesty-Humility, and the dark factor of personality better explain these gaps.
Significant discrepancies exist between different operationalizations of B5A, leading to measurement confusion.

Conclusions:

The current conceptualization and measurement of Big Five Agreeableness require substantial revision.
Alternative personality frameworks offer more robust explanations for key behavioral domains.
Revising B5A is crucial for advancing personality science and its applications.