Meaning & use
conscientiousness
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Meanings
noununcountable
The quality of taking care to do tasks well and thoroughly, because you feel responsible for them.
Grammar: No plural and no article needed: her conscientiousness impressed us.
Patterns
- conscientiousness in something
- conscientiousness about something
Her conscientiousness meant that every report was checked twice before it left her desk.
The manager praised the team for its conscientiousness during the busy season.
His conscientiousness about deadlines made him the person everyone relied on.
noununcountabletechnical
In psychology, one of the five main personality traits, describing how organized, careful and self-disciplined a person tends to be.
Grammar: Used as a technical term, often next to openness or extraversion.
Patterns
- high in conscientiousness
- a measure of conscientiousness
Studies link high conscientiousness to better exam results.
The questionnaire scores participants on conscientiousness and four other traits.
Low conscientiousness does not mean a person is lazy, only that they prefer flexibility.
Common combinations
- high conscientiousness
- People with high conscientiousness tend to plan ahead.
- show conscientiousness
- The intern showed conscientiousness by arriving early every day.
- praised for conscientiousness
- She was praised for conscientiousness in her research.
- a lack of conscientiousness
- A lack of conscientiousness led to many small errors.
- conscientiousness and diligence
- The job demands conscientiousness and diligence.
Synonyms and how they differ
- diligence
- Diligence stresses steady hard effort, while conscientiousness stresses care and a sense of duty.
- thoroughness
- Thoroughness is about covering every detail of a task, whereas conscientiousness describes the attitude behind it.
- carefulness
- Carefulness is plainer and can apply to a single act, while conscientiousness describes a lasting trait.
- dutifulness
- Dutifulness focuses on meeting obligations, while conscientiousness also includes quality and attention to detail.
Opposites
Word family
- conscientious adjective
- careful and hard-working
- conscientiously adverb
- in a careful, responsible way
- conscience noun
- inner sense of right and wrong
- conscientious objector noun
- a person who refuses to fight on moral grounds
Commonly confused: conscientiousness or conscience? conscientiousness or consciousness?
conscientiousness vs conscience
Conscience is your inner sense of right and wrong. Conscientiousness is the habit of working carefully and responsibly.
conscientiousness vs consciousness
Consciousness means being awake and aware. It has nothing to do with working carefully.
Practice
The nurse's ______ showed in the way she checked every dose twice.
Choose one answer.
Conscientiousness is the careful, responsible attitude shown by checking twice. Conscience is a moral sense and consciousness is awareness, so neither describes careful work.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “conscientiousness”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.