Final answer:
The Big Five theory maps personality according to five core traits: Openness, Conscientiousness, Extroversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism, which are relatively stable throughout one's life and consistent across cultures.
Step-by-step explanation:
The "Big Five" theory is an approach to personality that maps personalities according to five core traits. The five factors, often remembered using the mnemonic OCEAN, stand for Openness to experience, Conscientiousness, Extroversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism. Each of these factors occurs along a continuum and represents a range between two extremes, with most individuals lying somewhere in between these extremes on each trait. These factors have been demonstrated to be relatively stable over the lifespan and are observed across different cultures and ethnicities, indicating a strong biological and genetic component.
Personality assessment tools, like the Big Five, help in understanding how individual differences in these traits affect behavior and interactions. It's important to note that different cultures might emphasize different aspects of these traits, reflecting variations in cultural values between individualist and collectivist societies.