This week, I started to do a detailed research about personality and holiday preferences. According to academic research, to make connection between personality and holiday preferences, we should look at firstly a person’s personality aspects.
The Five Factor Model or The Big Five (Beş Faktör Kuramı) is used to analyze human personality by mean of five dimensions: Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Openness, Neuroticism. The Big Five is usually measured by the NEO-PI-R. Another way of measuring the Big Five is to use the items available at the International Personality Item Pool (IPIP) (http://ipip.ori.org). The IPIP items are free, and the authors allow to use them in any one wants. In my project, I will take my questionnaire questions from this web site to measure personality.
Now I want to explain briefly The Five Factor Model and how can it be measured. Each of the five dimensions in the Five Factor Model is measured by six specific parts.
Here you find find a summary of these dimensions and six parts of each of them.
- Extraversion (E) – (outgoing/energetic vs. solitary/reserved) measures the degree of sociability or withdrawal a person tends to exhibit.
– Warmth, Gregariousness, Assertiveness, Activity, Excitement Seeking and Positive Emotions.
- Agreeableness (A)- (friendly/compassionate vs. cold/unkind) relates to the quality of interpersonal orientation.
-Trust, Straightforwardness, Altruism, Compliance, Modesty and Tender-Mindedness.
- Conscientiousness (C) -(efficient/organized vs. easy-going/careless) measures the degree to which a person is organized, persevering and motivated in goal directed behaviours.
– Self-Efficacy, Orderliness, Dutifulness, Achievement-Striving, Self-Discipline and Cautiousness.
- Openness to Experiences (O)-(inventive/curious vs. consistent/cautious). It refers to breadth of experience to which a person is amenable.
– Fantasy, Aesthetics, Feelings (openness to feelings of self and others), Actions (willingness to try new experiences), Ideas (intellectual curiosity) and Values.
- Neuroticism (N)- (sensitive/nervous vs. secure/confident) scale is defined primarily by anxiety and depression.
–Anxiety, Anger, Depression, Self-Consciousness, Immoderation, and Vulnerability.
The items in the personality test are statements in the first person singular and scale ranging from ‘strongly agree’ to ‘strongly disagree’. According to results of this test, we can understand a person’s holiday preferences because there are correlations between personality and holiday preferences due to Eachus holiday preferences scale.
Eachus created a scale based on this model through which four types of tourist choices can be measured:
Adventurous preference: People who prefer adventurous holidays are likely to be independent travellers, like to be doing active things when on holiday, don’t mind roughing it, and prefer remote and unusual places to the more “touristy” destinations.
Beach preference: Beach people are looking for a holiday in which they spend a great deal of time lying in the sun not doing very much at all. They like to be part of a crowd, want a holiday with lots of action and nightlife.
Cultural Preference: People who express a cultural preference are likely to want to learn something new on there holiday. This might involve visits to museums or art galleries, but it might also be more “hands on”, like learning a new skill like painting or music. They see holiday as a cultural experience and for this reason they will always try to make the most of it, e.g. meeting locals, trying to speak the language, and trying local food.
Indulgent preferences: For some people holidays should be about being pampered. Those with Indulgent preferences want the best they can afford in every respect, hotels, food, resort. They almost certainly eat and drink too much while on holiday, but see that as an integral part of the holiday experience. While the person with Cultural preferences might want to spent time in a gallery or at the opera, the indulgent person is more likely to be found shopping!
Relation between Personality Test and Holiday Preferences:
1- Beach Preferences
People who gain high results in Neuroticism will be more open for Beach Holidays because there they are entertained by the rest of the group. Lying on the beach and not doing much at all seems to be negatively related to Conscientiousness but perhaps it is a welcome time-out for those kinds of people to lie on the beach, just doing nothing.
2 Adventurous Preferences
Neuroticism would be expected to correlate negative with Adventurous Preferences, especially on Anxiety, Self-Consciousness and Vulnerability. Because people who are anxious, not much self-conscious and vulnerable does not seem to be able to travel on their own, and to unusual places. Conscientiousness is expected to have a negative correlation with this Holiday Preference, because people who prefer travelling alone does not seem have a high need of Cautiousness and Dutifulness.
3 Cultural Preferences
People preferring Cultural Holidays are described to be interested in learning something new, being culturally interested, and to learn new skills. This seems to be positively related to the Big Five dimensions of Extraversion, Agreeableness and especially Openness. While Neuroticism and Conscientiousness does not seem to be related to this preference.
4 Indulgent Preferences
The description of people preferring Indulgent Holidays suggests a positive relation with Neuroticism, as people who are more anxious would prefer safer places and holidays.