Big Five factors and facets and the prediction of behavior.

TLDR

The authors aimed to compare the predictive power of the Big 5 personality factors with that of their constituent facets on 40 behavioral criteria. They conducted a comparative analysis of the factors and facets to assess their ability to predict these criteria. Both broad factors and narrow facets predicted many criteria, but facets performed noticeably better, explaining additional variance not captured by factors and substantially increasing the maximum prediction achieved by the broad factors.

Abstract

The authors compared the Big 5 factors of personality with the facets or traits of personality that constitute those factors on their ability to predict 40 behavior criteria. Both the broad factors and the narrow facets predicted substantial numbers of criteria, but the latter did noticeably better in that regard, even when the number of facet predictors was limited to the number of factor predictors. Moreover, the criterion variance accounted for by the personality facets often included large portions not predicted by the personality factors. The narrow facets, therefore, were able to substantially increase the maximum prediction achieved by the broad factors. The results of this study are interpreted as supporting a more detailed approach to personality assessment, one that goes beyond the measurement of the Big 5 factors alone.