Facet (psychology)

In psychology, a facet is a specific and unique aspect of a broader personality trait. Both the concept and the term "facet" were introduced by Paul Costa and Robert McCrae in the first edition of the NEO-Personality Inventory (NEO-PI) Manual. Facets were originally elaborated only for the neuroticism, openness to experience, and extraversion traits; Costa and McCrae introduced facet scales for the agreeableness and conscientiousness traits in the Revised NEO-PI (NEO PI-R). Each of the Big Five personality traits in the Five Factor Model contains six facets, each of which is measured with a separate scale. The use of facets and facet scales has since expanded beyond the NEO PI-R, with alternative facet and domain structures derived from other models of personality. Examples include the HEXACO model of personality structure,psycholexical studies, circumplex models (e.g., Goldberg's Abridged Big-Five Dimensional Circumplex), the Multidimensional Personality Questionnaire (MPQ), and the California Psychological Inventory.

Costa and McCrae originally developed facet scales for neuroticism, extraversion, and openness to experience to reflect the fact that each broader trait is composed of different aspects of personality. They admit their decisions were somewhat arbitrary and acknowledge that each trait may actually have more or less than six facets. However, they justify their choices with the need for a balance between comprehension and comprehensiveness and research supporting their six facet breakdown of each Big Five personality trait. The following table displays the labels used by Costa and McCrae for each personality domain and its constituent facets.

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