Final report on research relating to the concept of five separate dimensions of personality—or six including intelligence

A final analysis is reported of four separate studies conducted in 19 separate schools in southern England with pupils mainly of a wide ability range and with an average age of 14 +, comprising 1083 cases in all, to whom Cattellʹ s HSPQ was applied. Factor analysis of their responses yielded five orthogonal factors plus intelligence, in order of extraction: independence vs agreeableness, tender vs tough minded, stable vs neurotic, conscientious vs lax and extra- vs intro-version. Thus these results extend the existence of a ‘big five (or six)’ model of personality dimensions at least to the adolescent age range of 14 +. A further study of 439 polytechnic students extracted virtually the same factors in a different order from an analysis of Cattellʹs 16PF. The fact that these five factors are not entirely congruent with the five factor model of personality proposed by McCrae and Costa (Personality and Individual Differences, 6, 587–597, 1985) lends support to Eysenckʹs (Personality and Individual Differences, 13, 667–673, 1992a) contention that certain of die ‘big five’ (and other five factor solutionsʹ) factors are primary aspects of the single dimension of psychoticism.