A COMPREHENSIVE FACTOR ANALYSIS OF PERSONALITY QUESTIONNAIRE ITEMS: A TEST OF TWENTY PUTATIVE FACTOR HYPOTHESES

The purpose of the present study was to evaluate twenty putative factor hypotheses (PFH's) of personality using various rotation methods, both orthogonal and oblique. In order to obtain a representative item pool, the literature was surveyed, with special attention to factor analytic studies. The test sources provided 1726 non-repeated items, from which 400 items, representing 20 PFH's, were selected. A balanced questionnaire consisting of items reworded for general consistency of presentation and answer format was administered to a cross-continent sample from which 1003 complete data sets were obtained. Factoring of 401 variables was carried out by principal axis method followed by four rotation procedures: two orthogonal, two oblique. Results across the various solutions indicated the following factors: Sociability (SY), Adjustment-Emotionality (AE), Dominance (AD), Superego (SG), Hypochondriac-Medical (HM), Impulsiveness (IP), Cooperativeness-Considerateness (CC), Inferiority (IF), Persistence (PS), Trust vs. Suspicion (TS), General Activity (GA). In addition, other factors were found, which although of lesser variance, have been reported in the literature.