Note that I am NOT a psychological researcher. Instead, I like to take lists of items from theories and turn them into games. Then, I play with them and see what happens. Usually, this involves turning the list into cards and dealing them out to see how they interact. Sometimes nothing happens; other times, the items react like I’ve discovered alchemy.
The Big Five psychological traits, also known as the five-factor model, is a widely used framework for understanding and measuring personality. It identifies five broad dimensions of personality: openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism. These traits are thought to be relatively stable across a person’s lifetime and are believed to be influenced by genetic and environmental factors.
On the other hand, Steven Reiss’s 16 basic desires are a specific theory of human motivation. Reiss believed that all human behavior could be explained in terms of the fulfillment of 16 basic desires, which are power, independence, curiosity, acceptance, order, saving, honor, idealism, social contact, family, status, vengeance, romance, eating, physical exercise, and tranquility.
Unlike the Big Five traits, which are broad dimensions of personality, Reiss’s 16 desires are more specific and focus on the underlying motivations for different behaviors. Additionally, while the Big Five traits are thought to be relatively stable over time, Reiss’s 16 desires may vary in intensity for a given individual depending on their experiences and circumstances.
Or do they? How connected are the Big Five traits to the 16 Desires? Are they measuring the same things under different names?
The Big 5 personality traits have two sides, presented as a dichotomy with high and low values. I am going to combine them with the potential 16 desirable traits.
Openness to Experience
- High: Imaginative, creative, curious, original
- Low: Down-to-earth, conventional, uncreative, uncurious
Potential Desires:
- Curiosity (Explore, Analyze, Discuss)
- Romance (Beauty, Art, Attraction)
- Honor (Integrity, Loyalty, Trust, Tradition)
High Openness to Experience fits with Curiosity and Romance. Low Openness might map well to Honor, which can focus on tradition.
Conscientiousness
- High: Hardworking, Punctual, Conscientious
- Low: Negligent, lazy, late, Messy, Disorganized
Potential Desires:
- Honor (Integrity, Loyalty, Trust, Tradition)
- Order (Organize, Plan, Clean)
- Saving (Collecting, Preserving, Valuing)
Honor’s focus on integrity and loyalty seems to fit well with hard work, while Order’s organization and planning fits well not being messy. Saving focuses on collecting things, which may push towards being disorganized and messy.
Extraversion
- High: Center of attention, Talkative, Social, comfortable around people
- Low: Loner, Quiet, Reserved, enjoys smaller groups
Potential Desires:
- Social Contact (Friendship, Companions, Group play)
- Social Status (Exclusivity, Connection, Reputation)
- Acceptance (Attention, Approval, Inclusion)
- Independence (Freedom, Self Reliance, Determination)
- Tranquility (Preparation, Comfort, Calm)
Extraversion fits well with the social desires of social contact which wants to play with a group of friends, social status, which requires a group to climb, and acceptance where people want to be with a group. Independence, which focuses on self reliance away from a group, fits more with the loner trait of low extraversion Tranquility could fit being quiet and reserved.
Agreeableness
- High: Sympathetic, Soft-Hearted, Good-Natured, Caring, Interested in people
- Low: Insulting, Critical, Ruthless, Irritable
Potential Desires:
- Social Contact (Friendship, Companions, Group play)
- Family (Nurturing, raising offspring)
- Power (Domination, Control, Authority)
- Vengeance (Compete, Retaliate, Defeat, come from behind)
For high agreeableness, social contact, family, and idealism seem like the best fit. Social contact is an interest in friends and companions. Family is an interest in nurturing or raising others. For low agreeableness, power and vengeance seem the most likely desires to create conflict and disagreeable situations.
Neuroticism
- High: Worried, Temperamental, Self Conscious, Emotional
- Low: Calm, Even-Tempered, Comfortable, Un-emotional
Potential Desires: Tranquility (Preparation, Comfort, Calm)
Tranquility is the only desire that seems to focus on mental state and it may span both high and low neuroticism.
Which desires don’t fit with the Big 5 Traits?
- Idealism (Belief, sacrifice, Justice, and making things right)
- Eating (Food, thinking about food and planning meals)
- Physical Activity (exercising body)
For sure Eating and Physical Activity do not have a place in the Big 5 Traits. Idealism might fit into conscientiousness in being aware of problems and working on them, but I wasn’t sure.
So what did I learn from this exercise? I think both tools have their uses. What I like about the 16 Desires is that it puts each desire on its own scale, not in a dichotomy of opposites that may be hard to reconcile. In the 16 Desire model, you can be curious and honorable, open to new experiences yet interested in traditions. You could also want social contact and vengeance, so someone who likes to play with friends but also loves competition.
The 16 desires give many more options to describe someone’s personality; each desire is independent and unaffected by another desire. As a result, they do not contradict one another but can build a surprising amount of complexity. And, of course, some of the 16 desires, like eating or physical activity, are not described at all by the Big Five Personality Traits.
What I like about the Big Five is that its more limited scope puts a greater focus on what kind of person you are. For example, are you, overall, interested in new experiences? Are you neurotic, and do you like people? How often do you confront others?
It also highlights many of the weaknesses of the desires. For example, are you an organized hard worker or tardy and negligent? I think the Big 5 helps describe how you interact in society. It is a fantastic tool to quickly get a general idea of someone’s personality.
I have learned much from the 16 desires because it pins down motivations. Of course, none of the desires are wrong. We can just have different desires. But those desires have strengths and weaknesses highlighted by the Big 5 traits. For example, if you only like talking to people to explore your curiosity, many social gatherings may seem like a waste of time. And if your main interests are food and working out, the Big 5 may not have anything for you!
But if I had to take a pick, identifying your desires from the 16 desire list will tell you a shocking amount about yourself. So I have pinned comments on the 16 desires if you haven’t seen them yet.
Daniel N. Blair 