[Construction of a new personality inventory by means of factor analysis based on Promax rotation]

The purpose of the paper is to construct a personality inventory which measures broader dimensions regarding multiple traits of personality common to normal people by means of extensive use of factor analysis. For the purpose, we prepared 300 items which are supposed to reflect the hypothetical 20 personality traits. Out of the 300 items, 240 items were selected on the basis of means and standard deviations of the items. We applied the oblique Promax rotation method in factor analysis and repeated it several times by changing the number of items and the number of factors. Finally, 12 factors were extracted from the 120 items, in each of which the 10 items having more than 0.4 factor loadings. Basing upon the result, we constructed a new personality inventory consisting of 13 scales (including a lie scale). The constructed scales demonstrated high test-retest reliabilities ranging from 0.880 to 0.950.