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Agreeableness

Definition

Agreeableness is one of the five major dimensions of personality within the five-factor, structural approach to personality (also known as the Big Five). It is an abstract, higher-level summary term for a set of family relations among lower-level traits that describe individual differences in being likable, pleasant, and harmonious in interactions with others. Research shows that persons who are “kind” are also “considerate” and “warm,” implicating a larger, overarching dimension that is relatively stable over time and related to a wide range of thoughts, feelings, and social behaviors. Of the five major dimensions of personality in the Big Five, Agreeableness is most concerned with how individuals differ in their orientations toward interpersonal relationships.

Background

Agreeableness has a curious history, relative to many other recognized dimensions of personality. Unlike the supertraits of Extraversion and Neuroticism, Agreeableness was not widely researched because of top-down theorizing about its link to biology or to especially conspicuous social behaviors. Instead, systematic research on Agreeableness began as a result of reliable research findings arising in descriptions of the self and of others. Because of its bottom-up empirical origins, there is room for debate about a suitable label for this hypothetical construct. Not all theorists concur that Agreeableness is the best summary label for the interrelated lower-level traits, habits, and dispositions. Other labels used to describe the dimension are tendermindedness, friendly compliance versus hostile noncompliance, likeability, communion, and even love versus hate. To avoid problems of overlap with everyday meanings, some theorists proposed that the dimensions be given a number (the Roman numeral II has been used in the past) or a letter A (for agreeableness, altruism, or affection). Whatever the label picked, the empirical regularities with attraction, helping, and positive relations remain.

Relations to other Personality Traits

Big Five

As for the Big Five dimensions, one might intuitively expect Agreeableness to be related to Extraversion because both are concerned with social relations. Indeed some theorists have tried to force Agreeableness-related traits to fit under the Extraversion umbrella, placing traits like “warm” with Extraversion, not Agreeableness. Empirically, however, the two major dimensions are related to different social behaviors. Extraversion is linked to the excitement aspects of social relations and to dominance, whereas Agreeableness is related to motives for maintaining harmonious relationships with others. Extraversion is about having impact on others, whereas Agreeableness is about having harmony and pleasant relationships. Overall, empirical research suggests that Agreeableness is distinctive and is not highly correlated with the other dimensions of the Big Five, at least in young adults.

Empathy

Agreeableness may not be highly correlated with other Big Five dimensions of personality, but it is probably related to other traits, habits, and attitudes. Intuitively, one might expect empathy to be one component of Agreeableness. Studies show that Agreeableness is related to dispositional empathy. Persons high in Agreeableness report greater ease in seeing the world through others' eyes (perspective taking), in feeling the suffering of others (empathic concern), but not necessarily in experiencing self-focused negative emotions (personal distress) or in observing victims in sorrow. Past research showed that these cognitive and emotional processes are related to overt helping, so one might expect persons high in Agreeableness to offer more help and aid to others, even to strangers, than do their peers. Recent empirical research supports the claim that Agreeableness is related to both empathy and helping.

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