Abstract

COMMENTARIES Donald W. Fiske University of Chicago The degree of consensus on the Big Five is remark- selecting and attracting mates, and forming effective coalitions with other humans. (p. 485) able: When before in the history of personality has there been such substantive agreement? Pervin is concerned Although McDougall (1929) posited five great lest this consensus be overstated and overinterpreted as classes of factors of personality, his classes do not a major advance in personality as a whole rather than correspond well with the Big Five. Perhaps the Big just in a restricted part of the personality domain. He Five stand for different qualities of behavior. Here has reason to be concerned. These factors keep recur- are my speculations: ring in different sets of items and in different languages, and they seem fairly stable over time. The recurrence Factor I. Surgency is an index of manifested energy, and stability are important. They give us a bit of fairly the rate of discharge of energy. I don't know what the solid ground on which to stand as we explore the physiological equivalent would be, but this facet cer- wetlands of personality. tainly has a biophysical quality. But these are language-embedded