The big five among male and female students of different faculties

Costa and McCrae’s (1992) NEO-PI-R (Big Five) questionnaire has become an accepted instrument for the measurement of occupational propensities and includes scales for evaluating levels of Neuroticism, Extraversion, Openness, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness. A Hebrew translation of its shortened version was administered to 320 Israeli male and female students of the natural sciences, law, the social sciences and art (mean age = 24.03 years). It was found that Neuroticism is negatively related to both Conscientiousness and to Agreeableness, which is positively related to both Openness and Conscientiousness; the latter are negatively related to one another. Women are significantly more agreeable and conscientious than men. Law students are significantly less agreeable and open to experience than students of all other faculties, and more neurotic than natural science students. Female students of the natural sciences are significantly more agreeable than both their male counterparts in the natural sciences and than law students. The results are discussed in light of the specific characteristics of the different fields of study and in context of traditional gender role expectations from men and women.