Is there a Meaningful General Factor of Personality?

Numerous studies and meta-analyses have now confirmed that personality traits tend to correlate such that a general factor of personality (GFP) emerges. Nevertheless, there is an ongoing debate about what these correlations, and therefore the GFP, represents. One interpretation is that the GFP reflects a substantive factor that indicates general social effectiveness or emotional intelligence. Another interpretation is that the GFP merely is an artifact based on measurement or response bias. In the present paper, we elaborate on a selection of topics that are central to the debate about this construct. Specifically, we discuss (a) the GFP in relation to more specific personality dimensions (e.g., Big Five, facets), (b) the validity of the GFP and under what circumstances it seems to 'disappear', and (c) the theoretical and practical relevance of the general factor. Overall, the review should provide insight into the nature of the GFP and whether or not it represents a meaningful factor that can contribute to a better understanding of personality.

The Motivation and Opportunity for Socially Desirable Responding Does Not Alter the General Factor of Personality

Socially desirable responding may affect the factor structure of personality questionnaires and may be one of the reasons for the common variance among personality traits. In this study, we test this hypothesis by investigating the influence of the motivational test-taking context (development vs. selection) and the opportunity to distort responses (forced-choice vs. Likert response format) on personality questionnaire scores. Data from real selection and assessment candidates (total N = 3,980) matched on gender, age, and educational level were used. Mean score differences were found between the selection and development groups, with smaller differences for the FC version. Yet, exploratory structural equation models showed that the overall factor structures as well as the general factor were highly similar across the four groups. Thus, although socially desirable responding may affect mean scores on personality traits, it does not appear to affect factor structures. This study further suggests that the common variance in personality questionnaires is consistent and appears to be little influenced by motivational pressures for response distortion.

Predicting trait emotional intelligence from HEXACO personality: Domains, facets, and the general factor of personality

OBJECTIVE

The current study provides a comprehensive analysis of the overlap between trait emotional intelligence (EI) and personality. This overlap was examined using the HEXACO personality framework at both the domain and the facet levels, and through varying methods of deriving a general factor of personality (GFP).

METHOD

A sample of 1,370 Australian adults (51% male, age in years M = 45.5, SD = 11.7, range: 21-71) completed the 200-item HEXACO Personality Inventory-Revised and the Modified Assessing Emotions Scale measure of self-reported Trait EI.

RESULTS

The strongest domain correlations with Total EI emerged for Extraversion (r = .67) followed by Openness (r = .39), Conscientiousness (r = .35), and Agreeableness (r = .26). Large adjusted multiple correlations were obtained when predicting Total EI from HEXACO domains (.74) and facets (.81). The correlations of the GFP and Total EI ranged from .53 to .64 depending on how the GFP was operationalized.

CONCLUSION

Trait EI is largely captured by the HEXACO personality framework, whereby Extraversion or the GFP provides a rough initial approximation, but composites of domains and facets provide progressively better representations.

The Relationship Between Trait Emotional Intelligence and Personality. Is Trait EI Really Anchored Within the Big Five, Big Two and Big One Frameworks?

Pérez-González and Sánchez-Ruiz (2014) published a study in which they found that trait emotional intelligence can be considered a broad personality trait integrated into the higher levels of a multi-level personality hierarchy. They also came to the conclusion that this construct can be considered a proxy for the general factor of personality. The purpose of this study is to try to replicate their study. We follow the same methodology these authors used but with a new sample, and a different definition of trait emotional intelligence and therefore a different measurement tool. Our results show convergent validity between trait emotional intelligence and personality, but not discriminant validity, suggesting than trait emotional intelligence is not integrated in the higher level of the personality hierarchies, but it is another way to measure the same big five personality traits that traditionally compose the construct of personality. We also found that trait emotional intelligence highly correlated with the general personality factor, but additionally we found an extremely high negative correlation between those two constructs and neuroticism. This finding suggest that they may represent above all just the absence of neuroticism in a person.

How Universal Is the General Factor of Personality? An Analysis of the Big Five in Forager Farmers of the Bolivian Amazon

In various personality models, such as the Big Five, a consistent higher order general factor of personality (GFP) can be identified. One view in the literature is that the GFP reflects general social effectiveness. Most GFP studies, however, have been conducted in Western, educated, industrialized, and rich democracies (WEIRD). Therefore, to address the question of the universality of the GFP, we test whether the GFP can also be identified in a preliterate indigenous sample of Tsimane by using self-reports, spouse reports, and interviewer ratings. In the Tsimane, a viable GFP could be identified and the intercorrelations between personality traits were significantly stronger than in samples from industrial countries. The GFP correlated with the ratings of social engagement. In addition, self and spouse ratings of the GFP overlapped. Overall, the findings are in line with the notion that the GFP is a human universal and a substantive personality factor reflecting social effectiveness.

The General Factor of Personality and Character: A Reanalysis

Using data from the Texas Twin Project, it was recently reported that 7 measures of character covaried to the extent that they formed a general factor of character (Tucker-Drob, Briley, Engelhardt, Mann, & Harden, 2016 ). In turn the relationship between the general factor of character and the Big Five personality traits were examined. It was found that personality was associated with the general factor of character primarily through the traits of conscientiousness and openness. For several reasons we propose that a more accurate interpretation of the data is that a Big Five personality traits form a general factor of personality, and that the relationship between the general character factor and personality is primarily through the general factor of personality. The results lend some support to this contention and are discussed in relation to the growing interest in covariation among multiple personality traits.

Big Five Personality Traits and the General Factor of Personality as Moderators of Stress and Coping Reactions Following an Emergency Alarm on a Swiss University Campus

We conducted an online survey including 306 participants aged 18-64 years to assess the general factor of personality (GFP) and Big Five personality traits in relation to individual stress and coping reactions following a shooting emergency alarm at a Swiss university campus. Although the emergency eventually turned out to be a false alarm, various witnesses showed pronounced distress owing to a vast police operation. The GFP structure was replicated using two alternative modelling approaches. Neuroticism related substantially to acute fear and traumatic distress as well as to more enduring maladaptive coping. Agreeableness was negatively associated with the coping strategy of medication use, whereas both agreeableness and conscientiousness related positively to social activity following the emergency. The GFP related moderately to peri-traumatic distress and showed a substantial negative association with medication use and a strong positive association with social activity. In conclusion, both the GFP and Big Five traits significantly moderate stress responses following a stressful life event. The GFP predominantly relates to socially adaptive coping, whereas in particular neuroticism accounts for acute stress reactions such as fear and traumatic distress. These findings support the notion that personality influences how persons react in the face of adversity. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Is there a genetic correlation between general factors of intelligence and personality?

We tested a hypothesis that there is no genetic correlation between general factors of intelligence and personality, despite both having been selected for in human evolution. This was done using twin samples from Australia, the United States, the Netherlands, Great Britain, and Croatia, comprising altogether 1,748 monozygotic and 1,329 same-sex dizygotic twin pairs. Although parameters in the model-fitting differed among the twin samples, the genetic correlation between the two general factors could be set to zero, with a better fit if the U.S. sample was excepted.

How Much Is Personality Structure Affected If One or More Highest-Level Factors Are First Removed? A Sequential Factors Approach

Rotations of 1 to 12 factors were compared by Goldberg's "bass-ackward" method, with or without initially holding constant one or more principal components. Two sets of data were employed: ratings by 320 undergraduates using 435 personality-descriptive adjectives, and 512 Oregon community members' responses to 184 scales from 8 personality inventories. Holding constant none or one or three initial factors made relatively little difference to the resulting structure. On the whole, that structure was not strongly hierarchical: allowing an additional dimension usually resulted in a new substantive dimension rather than in the splitting of an old one.