Five-Factor Model of Personality and Sexual Behavior

Sexual Narcissism - Dr. Todd Grande

What is the relationship between the five-factor model of personality theory and sexual behavior?

The five-factor model of personality comprises five big personality traits that can be remembered through the acronym OCEAN:
Openness to experience, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism.

Each of the big traits has several characteristics that are associated with it. With openness to experience,we see characteristics like creativity, appreciating the arts, experiencing emotions intensely, being intellectually curious and adventurous.

With conscientiousness, we see achievement-striving, cautiousness, being competent, following the rules, hardworking, and responsible behavior.

Extraversion has traits like being gregarious, friendly, having positive emotions, excitement-seeking, being assertive, and being talkative.

Agreeableness has trust, cooperation, modesty, being altruistic, being sympathetic, good-natured, and compliant.

Neuroticism has traits like being anxious, depressed, hostile, feeling vulnerable, impulsivity, and the tendency to experience negative emotions.

Some of the sexual behavior related to personality includes frequency of sexual activity, sexual infidelity, hypersexual behavior, and risky sexual behavior.
Frequency of sexual intercourse is associated with extraversion positively, so higher frequency is associated with higher extraversion, and this includes casual and non-committed sex.
We also see that sexual activity has a negative relationship with conscientiousness and agreeableness.
A higher number of sexual partners over the lifetime was associated with higher extraversion and higher openness to experience.
There is a negative relationship between sexual infidelity and conscientiousness and agreeableness.
Hypersexual behavior was associated with higher levels of neuroticism and lower levels of agreeableness.
Risky sexual behavior and this had a positive association with extraversion
and a negative relationship with conscientiousness and agreeableness.