Personality psychology

Personality psychology is a branch of psychology which studies personality. A large part of the work of personality psychologists has been defining what is, and what is not, personality and a complete consensus has not been achieved however a number of researchers have expressed models that incorporate five broad dimensions: extraversion (outgoing and people-oriented vs. shy and task-oriented), emotional stability (calm, unperturbable, optimistic vs. emotionally reactive, prone to negative emotions), agreeableness (affable, friendly, conciliatory vs. aggressive, dominant, disagreeable), conscientiousness (dutiful, planful, and orderly vs. spontaneous, flexible, and unreliable), and openness (open to new ideas and change vs. traditional and staid). These models have been called five-factor models and the Big Five model. Some critics have argued for more or fewer dimensions while others have proposed entirely different theories (often assuming different definitions of "personality").