Conscientiousness: Definition, Examples, & Facets

By Charlie Huntington, M. A., Ph. D. Candidate
​Reviewed by Tchiki Davis, M.A., Ph.D.
Conscientiousness is the trait of being responsible, organized, productive, and rule-following. This article describes what conscientiousness looks like in action and the different facets of conscientiousness.​
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I got very excited at the thought of getting to write about conscientiousness, but I am a little embarrassed to say why. Frankly, I wanted to better understand the science behind this topic because I often am not as conscientious as I would like to be. When I see that dinner plate of mine still on the dining table as I finish my evening bathroom routine and head back to my bedroom, or when I see a text come in that will require a lot of careful thought to respond to… well, sometimes I just don’t want to do the right thing. I’d rather leave that plate or that text until the next morning, the next day – whenever I feel more like getting it done.​
There is a saying among marathon runners: “Run the tangents.” It means, make the course as short as possible; don’t run one more step than you need to. I love to find the tangents in life, and sometimes this corner-cutting can get out of control. Maybe the reason I love jaywalking, or multitasking, is that I would rather be efficient than fastidious. I promise you there are many parts of my life where I am very conscientious, but as a therapist, I am fascinated by the places where my conscience fails me.
​
So why am I this conscientious, and not more or less? What are the different facets of conscientiousness? This article will help you (and me!) better understand what it is to be conscientious – and how we just might give ourselves a little more of this trait.​
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What Is Conscientiousness? (A Definition)

Conscientiousness is a personality trait – it is the tendency to follow rules, regulate oneself, and be responsible, organized, and productive (Roberts et al., 2017). Like almost every personality trait, conscientiousness exists on a spectrum: some people are very high in conscientiousness, while others demonstrate little of this trait. Most of us land somewhere in the middle in terms of how conscientious we are.
 
People who are high in conscientiousness tend to be very organized and meticulous in their daily activities (Power & Pluess, 2015). For example, I once worked with a very conscientious person. He completed nearly all his tasks on time and went out of his way to keep our collective work organized. He was very thorough in everything he did, which meant that he sometimes took longer than other people to get things done or double-checked his work at times when other people wouldn’t. If we needed something done with attention to detail, we asked this coworker to do it.​

Opposite of Conscientiousness

While there is technically no such thing as the opposite of conscientiousness, there is plenty of research about people who are extremely low in conscientiousness. In fact, this is a common trait in people who can be diagnosed as psychopaths (Paulhus & Williams, 2002). People low in conscientiousness will readily break the rules or avoid taking responsibility in order to get the things they want. They tend to be less organized and may show little self-control.
 
Sometimes people low in conscientiousness are called Machiavellians (Paulhus & Williams, 2002), after an Italian ruler from centuries past who was known for using whatever means necessary to get and keep his power. His cutthroat manner of ruling would be horrifying or even inconceivable to a person high in conscientiousness.​

Why Conscientiousness Is Important

Our levels of conscientiousness matter because they are closely related to our mental and physical health. Compared to people who are less conscientious, people high in conscientiousness are more likely to engage in healthy behaviors and have strong social bonds; they may even live longer and experience better health (Roberts et al., 2007). People high in conscientiousness are less likely to engage in risky behaviors that may cause them harm – this may in part explain why they live longer and healthier lives than other people (Bogg & Roberts, 2004).
 
Another reason that people high in conscientiousness may experience better outcomes in their lives is that they use more effective coping strategies (Bartley & Roesch, 2011). Conscientiousness is associated with using problem-focused coping strategies; in other words, people high in conscientiousness are more likely to use coping skills that resolve the stressful situations they are in. This may keep their stress levels lower overall.
 
I must say that as I read this research, I can relate to what the authors have found. When I do not make conscientious decisions – when I leave that dinner plate on the table overnight – I feel worse about myself, and I know there is a little part of my brain that won’t rest until that task has been resolved. And when I cope with a problem by trying to resolve it, instead of just dealing with the feelings around it, I tend to feel better, too.​

Is Conscientiousness Genetic?

Like all personality traits, how conscientious we are is determined somewhat by our genes. One study found that conscientiousness was 44% heritable, meaning that of all the variation in conscientiousness across people in the study, the authors concluded that 44% of it came from differences in their genes (Jang et al., 1996). This means that conscientiousness is less heritable than some other personality traits, such as neuroticism and openness (Power & Pluess, 2015).
 
In other words, the experiences we have growing up, and in our daily lives even as adults, exert a stronger influence on how conscientious we are than our genes do (Jang et al., 1996). (And there is an interaction between our genes and our environments, too; remember, it’s almost always nature and nurture, not nature versus nurture.) We know this because many studies of how heritable traits are compared twins to each other to see how their unique experiences influence their personalities (Luciano et al., 2006). So how conscientious we are as adults is strongly influenced by our friend groups at school, the conscientious behaviors we did or didn’t see our parents and siblings engaging in, and the norms of the workplaces we have inhabited in adulthood.

Conscientiousness & The Big 5 Personality Traits

Conscientiousness is one of the Big 5 Personality Traits. Although there are many ways to break down our personalities into different components, this is the model that has received the most statistical support (Power & Pluess, 2015). The other four personality traits are Extraversion, Agreeableness, Neuroticism, and Openness to Experience. While each of these traits can change somewhat over time – our personalities aren’t fixed, and we can even tweak them a bit ourselves – they are also considered relatively stable and enduring (Roberts et al., 2007).
 
For example, a trait like conscientiousness is thought to be fairly consistent across different life situations (Roberts et al., 2017). So a person who scores high on conscientiousness on a personality test can be expected to respond in a pretty conscientious way across most situations, while somebody low in conscientiousness can be expected to show relatively little conscientiousness across a wide variety of situations.​

Conscientiousness Examples

Now I get to redeem myself in your eyes by providing examples of conscientiousness from my own daily life! Phew, it was hard waiting so long to do this. Two of the most fundamental domains of conscientiousness are being industrious and being orderly (Eisenberg et al., 2014). I know that my consistency in locking my car, bringing in the mail, and following the exact same bedroom routine every night – including flossing – reflect my desire for order. Some other examples might include keeping a record of all my professional and personal activities in my Google Calendar and sometimes packing my backpack just before bed so I can hit the ground running the next morning. My filled-up Google Calendar might also reflect my industrious side – I have a hard time being at leisure. I like to know I’ve accomplished something each day, even on the weekends.​

Conscientiousness Facets

Lots of psychology research has tried to break down conscientiousness into different facets, or sub-characteristics that go together to make up the trait of being conscientious. For example, MacCann and colleagues (2009) described conscientiousness as having eight facets:

  1. Industriousness. As I noted above, people high in conscientiousness tend to get lots of things done.
  2. Perfectionism. Conscientiousness is associated with a tendency to strive for perfection. As you can imagine, this facet has both upsides and downsides.
  3. Tidiness. The more conscientiousness you are, the more likely you are to want to keep things clean and organized. This reminds me of all my friends who say they feel better after “stress-cleaning” their apartments.
  4. Procrastination Refrainment. Those examples I gave earlier, of how I leave the dish unwashed and wait to respond to texts? A person higher in conscientiousness would be more likely to promptly wash the dish and write the text.
  5. Control. Another facet of conscientiousness is the ability to control one’s impulses – to stop yourself from having just one more brownie, calling an ex when you miss them, or shouting at your boss when they make an unreasonable request.
  6. Cautiousness. People high in conscientiousness are very wary of breaking rules, so they tend to be more cautious.
  7. Task Planning. Think of me with my Google Calendar – conscientiousness is associated with proactively figuring out what you’re going to do when, and how you’re going to do it.
  8. Perseverance. When people high in conscientiousness start a project or try to develop a habit, they tend to follow through on it.

Conscientiousness and Intelligence

Believe it or not, conscientiousness and intelligence are negatively correlated, meaning that as people go up in conscientiousness scores, their intelligence scores go down (Furnham et al., 2005; Moutafi et al., 2004). While it is not clear why this is, this does not mean that people high in conscientiousness necessarily perform worse at school or at work. In fact, they tend to achieve more in both domains because conscientiousness is associated with persistent, hard effort, as well as following the rules (Luciano et al., 2006).

Why Is Conscientiousness Important in the Workplace?

On a related note, conscientiousness is important in the workplace because it positively predicts job performance across almost all jobs (Mount & Barrick, 1995). People high in conscientiousness perform better at their jobs because, among other reasons, they:
  • take responsibility for the goals of the organization, even goals that weren’t necessarily assigned to them
  • are motivated to reach goals
  • demonstrate perseverance
  • like to work in predictable environments – so they tend to organize their workplaces 
  • are good at self-regulating themselves in order to stay on task and procrastinate less (Wilmot & Ones, 2019).

Can You Increase Conscientiousness?

Roberts and colleagues (2017) provided a model for how to increase one’s conscientiousness. They describe how our innate tendency to be conscientiousness is influenced by the environments we are in. In other words, although we each have a baseline level of conscientiousness, we can put ourselves in environments that help us strengthen and develop our conscientiousness. For example, sometimes simply being around my more conscientious friends inspires me to stay on task – this is why, in the right circumstances, studying with others can actually make me more productive. ​

Similarly, individuals who enter a highly organized environment that places a premium on achievement and responsibility, such as the military, also seem to grow more conscientious over time (Jackson et al., 2012). So the takeaway here is, to become more conscientious, put yourself in environments that encourage you to be conscientious.​

Articles Related to Conscientiousness

​Want to learn more? Check out these articles:

Books Related to Conscientiousness

If you’d like to keep learning more, here are a few books that you might be interested in.

Final Thoughts on Conscientiousness

I imagine you might be able to relate to how my personal levels of conscientiousness mean I often – but certainly not always – do the right thing. There is nothing wrong with having limits to your conscientiousness. But if you do think you’d like to be more conscientious, you might learn a lot from asking the people in your life who seem most conscientious what they do and how they think. Or, just put yourself in environments where being conscientious is highly rewarded, and you may find yourself taking on more of the trait.
 
If you’d like to watch a video that really ties together everything we’ve discussed here, and builds on it, too, then I recommend watching this:

Video: What is Conscientiousness?

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