Conscientiousness

Conscientiousness is the personality trait of being careful, or diligent. Conscientiousness implies a desire to do a task well, and to take obligations to others seriously. Conscientious people tend to be efficient and organized as opposed to easy-going and disorderly. They exhibit a tendency to show self-discipline, act dutifully, and aim for achievement; they display planned rather than spontaneous behavior; and they are generally dependable. It is manifested in characteristic behaviors such as being neat, and systematic; also including such elements as carefulness, thoroughness, and deliberation (the tendency to think carefully before acting.) Conscientiousness is one of the five traits of both the Five Factor Model and the HEXACO model of personality and is an aspect of what has traditionally been referred to as having character. Conscientious individuals are generally hard-working, and reliable. They are also likely to be conformists. When taken to an extreme, they may also be 'workaholics', perfectionists, and compulsive in their behavior. People who score low on conscientiousness tend to be laid back, less goal-oriented, and less driven by success; they also are more likely to engage in antisocial and criminal behavior. Conscientiousness is the personality trait of being careful, or diligent. Conscientiousness implies a desire to do a task well, and to take obligations to others seriously. Conscientious people tend to be efficient and organized as opposed to easy-going and disorderly. They exhibit a tendency to show self-discipline, act dutifully, and aim for achievement; they display planned rather than spontaneous behavior; and they are generally dependable. It is manifested in characteristic behaviors such as being neat, and systematic; also including such elements as carefulness, thoroughness, and deliberation (the tendency to think carefully before acting.) Conscientiousness is one of the five traits of both the Five Factor Model and the HEXACO model of personality and is an aspect of what has traditionally been referred to as having character. Conscientious individuals are generally hard-working, and reliable. They are also likely to be conformists. When taken to an extreme, they may also be 'workaholics', perfectionists, and compulsive in their behavior. People who score low on conscientiousness tend to be laid back, less goal-oriented, and less driven by success; they also are more likely to engage in antisocial and criminal behavior. Conscientiousness is one of the five major dimensions in the Big Five model (also called Five Factor Model) of personality, which also consists of extraversion, neuroticism, openness to experience, and agreeableness (OCEAN acronym). Two of many personality tests that assess these traits are Costa and McCrae's NEO PI-R and Goldberg's NEO-IPIP. According to these models, conscientiousness is considered to be a continuous dimension of personality, rather than a categorical 'type' of person. In the NEO framework, Conscientiousness is seen as having six facets: Competence, Order, Dutifulness, Achievement Striving, Self-Discipline, and Deliberation. Other models suggest a smaller set of two 'aspects': orderliness and industriousness form an intermediate level of organization, with orderliness associated with the desire to keep things organized and tidy and industriousness being more associated with productivity and work ethic. Behaviorally, low conscientiousness is associated with an inability to motivate one's self to perform tasks that the individual desires to accomplish. Conscientiousness is related to impulse control. Other personality traits ((high) extraversion, (low) agreeableness, (high) openness and (high) neuroticism) are also linked to this complex behavior. Conscientiousness, along with (lower) openness, is also one of the trait markers of political conservatism. Conscientiousness also appears in other models of personality, such as Cloninger's Temperament and Character Inventory, in which it is related to both self-directedness and persistence. It also includes the specific traits of rule consciousness and perfectionism in Cattell's 16 PF model. It is negatively associated with impulsive sensation-seeking in Zuckerman's alternative five model. Traits associated with conscientiousness are frequently assessed by self-report integrity tests given by various corporations to prospective employees. Terms such as 'hard-working,' 'reliable,' and 'persevering' describe desirable aspects of character. Because it was once believed to be a moral evaluation, conscientiousness was overlooked as a real psychological attribute. The reality of individual differences in conscientiousness has now been clearly established by studies of cross-observer agreement. Peer and expert ratings confirm the self-reports that people make about their degrees of conscientiousness. Furthermore, both self-reports and observer ratings of conscientiousness predict real-life outcomes such as academic success. During most of the 20th century, psychologists believed that personality traits could be divided into two categories: temperament and character. Temperament traits were thought to be biologically based, whereas character traits were thought to be learned either during childhood or throughout life. With the advent of the FFM (Five-Factor Model), behavior geneticists began systematic studies of the full range of personality traits, and it soon became clear that all five factors are substantially heritable. Identical twins showed very similar personality traits even when they had been separated at birth and raised apart, and this was equally true for both character traits and temperament traits. Parents and communities influence the ways in which conscientiousness is expressed, but they apparently do not influence its level. A person's level of conscientiousness is generally assessed using self-report measures, although peer-reports and third-party observation can also be used. Self-report measures are either lexical or based on statements. Deciding which measure of either type to use in research is determined by an assessment of psychometric properties and the time and space constraints of the study being undertaken. Lexical measures use individual adjectives that reflect conscientiousness traits, such as efficient and systematic, and are very space and time efficient for research purposes. Goldberg (1992) developed a 20-word measure as part of his 100-word Big Five markers. Saucier (1994) developed a briefer 8-word measure as part of his 40-word mini-markers. Thompson (2008) systematically revised these measures to develop the International English Mini-Markers which has superior validity and reliability in populations both within and outside North America. Internal consistency reliability of the International English Mini-Markers for the Conscientiousness measure for native English-speakers is reported as .90, that for non-native English-speakers is .86. Statement measures tend to comprise more words than lexical measures, so hence consume more research instrument space and more respondent time to complete. Respondents are asked the extent to which they, for example, often forget to put things back in their proper place, or are careful to avoid making mistakes. Some statement-based measures of conscientiousness have similarly acceptable psychometric properties in North American populations to lexical measures, but their generally emic development makes them less suited to use in other populations. For instance, statements in colloquial North American English like Often forget to put things back in their proper place or Am careful to avoid making mistakes can be hard for non-native English-speakers to understand, suggesting internationally validated measures might be more appropriate for research conducted with non-North Americans.