Take 2 personality factors: A study of two fundamental ways of trait differentiation in eleven trait taxonomies

Abstract

We investigated a two-dimensional structure of traits in eleven trait-taxonomies. Ratings from 7,104 participants on 4,642 trait variables were used. We studied exploratory two-factor (PCA) results, hierarchies of solutions with two and five factors, second-order structures of solutions with five factors, and confirmatory analyses. Moreover, we did the same analyses on the joint data set (using Simultaneous Components Analyses), initially consisting of 4,642 trait variables, but reduced on the basis of common trait terms to 922 terms. The two factors were easily identified in the separate data sets, though the relation with the Big Five factors was not consistently the same for those data sets. The analyses of the joint data set clearly supported the two-factor model.

Keywords

• psycho-lexical approach
• trait structure
• cross-cultural
• big two