Big Five · OCEAN model · BFI
Five traits describe how people think, feel and decide. Here you will find the OCEAN model, the BFI and BFI-2 tests at a glance, a scoring aid to download and the path from model to marketing.
Personality psychology spent a long time looking for the right number of basic traits. Gordon Allport collected thousands of terms, Raymond Cattell arrived at 16 factors, Hans Eysenck at three. The model that prevailed has five dimensions and has been confirmed again and again, from Fiske (1949) through Norman and Goldberg to McCrae and Costa: the Big Five.
The initials of openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism form the acronym OCEAN. Each trait is a spectrum between two poles; most people sit somewhere in between.
Curiosity, imagination and enjoyment of the new. People high in openness seek ideas, art and unusual paths; people low in openness value the familiar and the clear.
In marketing: Responds to innovation, background and new perspectives.
Order, reliability and determination. High conscientiousness shows in planning and care, low conscientiousness in spontaneity and flexibility.
In marketing: Wants facts, comparisons, guarantees and a clear process.
Sociability, energy and assertiveness. Extraverts recharge in company, introverts rather on their own.
In marketing: Responds to community, events and visible status.
Compassion, trust and willingness to cooperate. High agreeableness seeks harmony, low agreeableness leans towards competition and scepticism.
In marketing: Pays attention to values, fairness and impact on others.
Emotional sensitivity: how strongly someone reacts to stress, worry and uncertainty. Its counterpart is emotional stability.
In marketing: Needs security, guidance and the feeling of not getting it wrong.
The BFI is a short questionnaire for measuring the five traits. It was published in 1991 by Oliver P. John and colleagues and consists of 44 statements rated on a five-point scale from “disagree strongly” to “agree strongly”.
Because it is quick to complete and has good psychometric properties, the BFI is used in research, work and organisational psychology, consulting and education, for example in team development or career guidance.
In 2017 Christopher J. Soto and Oliver P. John introduced the BFI-2. With 60 statements it measures not only the five main traits but three facets of each, 15 in total. This allows finer distinctions between profiles than the original BFI.
| Trait | Facets in the BFI-2 |
|---|---|
| Extraversion | Sociability, assertiveness, energy level |
| Agreeableness | Compassion, respectfulness, trust |
| Conscientiousness | Organisation, productiveness, responsibility |
| Negative emotionality (neuroticism) | Anxiety, depression, emotional volatility |
| Open-mindedness | Aesthetic sensitivity, intellectual curiosity, creative imagination |
The scoring aid for the BFI-2 as a PDF (in German). Free for non-commercial use, for example in studies, teaching or personal reflection.
Classic target groups describe who someone is: age, industry, position. The Big Five describe how someone decides. Combining both lets you build buyer personas on psychological traits and address people the way they actually take in information.
In the book “Datengetriebenes Marketing” I show how this works in practice: from segmentation and personalised content to marketing automation and integration into business software, with an eye on data protection.
