Paul Costa Jr. (born September 16, 1942) is an American psychologist associated with the

Five Factor Model In personality psychology and psychometrics, the Big 5 or five-factor model (FFM) is a widely-used scientific model for describing how personality traits differ across people using five distinct factors: * ''openness'' (''O'') measures creat ...

. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 1970. Author of over 300 academic articles, several books, he is perhaps best known for the Revised NEO Personality Inventory, or NEO PI-R, a

psychological Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Its subject matter includes the behavior of humans and nonhumans, both consciousness, conscious and Unconscious mind, unconscious phenomena, and mental processes such as thoughts, feel ...

personality inventory; a 240-item measure of the Five Factor Model:

Extraversion Extraversion and introversion are a central trait dimension in human personality theory. The terms were introduced into psychology by Carl Jung, though both the popular understanding and current psychological usage are not the same as Jung's ...

Agreeableness Agreeableness is the trait theory, personality trait of being kind, Sympathy, sympathetic, cooperative, warm, honest, straightforward, and considerate. In personality psychology, agreeableness is one of the Big Five personality traits, five major ...

Conscientiousness Conscientiousness is the personality trait of being responsible, :wikt:careful, careful, or :wikt:diligent, diligent. Conscientiousness implies a desire to do a task well, and to take obligations to others seriously. Conscientious people tend to ...

Neuroticism Neuroticism is a personality trait associated with negative emotions. It is one of the Big Five traits. Individuals with high scores on neuroticism are more likely than average to experience such feelings as anxiety, worry, fear, anger, shame ...

, and

Openness to Experience Openness to experience is one of the domains which are used to describe personality psychology, human personality in the Big Five personality traits, Five Factor Model. Openness involves six Facet (psychology), facets, or dimensions: active imagina ...

. Additionally, the test measures six subordinate dimensions (known as 'facets') of each of the "FFM" personality factors, developed together with Robert McCrae. Work on this model has made Costa one of the most cited living psychologists,Thomson Reuters Research Analytics, (2012)
highlycited.com-psychology_psychiatry
with an H index of over 135.Google Scholar, (2017)
link
. Alongside this inventory, he and McCrae have argued that personality is stable, especially after age 30, that it is universal (present in the same structure across ethnicities, cultures and times), that the core structure consists of five major domains, and that these in turn reflect a facet-based structure. He has argued that personality is an important influence on behavior (as opposed to

situational Situational ethics or situation ethics takes into account ''only'' the particular context of an act when evaluating it ethically, rather than judging it only according to absolute moral standards. With the intent to have a fair basis for judgme ...

models where individual behavior reflects no lasting individual differences), including longevity and health.

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* {{DEFAULTSORT:Costa, Paul, Jr Living people University of Chicago alumni 21st-century American psychologists Year of birth missing (living people) Personality psychologists 20th-century American psychologists