Professor OCEAN:

A Small Fable Of Personality's Big Five

Written by Jim Exley, Ph.D., Patrick Doyle, Ph.D., and W. Keith Campbell, Ph.D.

In the tradition of other great business fables, Professor OCEAN introduces readers to the Big Five personality traits in a simple, down-to-earth, and engaging format that anyone can understand. The main lessons of the book are:

  • Personality can be captured by five broad traits, the Big Five: openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, neuroticism. OCEAN!

  • Personality isn’t about good or bad, right or wrong, it’s about the way you are wired and how you approach your relationships and work.

  • Personality can change. If the personality traits you have aren’t working, you have options.

Quantitative research revealed that our unique individual personality provides clues to our money behavior. However, few outside of academia had heard of personality science’s Big Five model—often referred to as NEO-AC. We reorganized the letters to spell OCEAN and Professor Ocean arrived on the scene to help make this complex topic simple, fun, and understandable to all! Stay tuned for future installments.