The five-factor model of personality and Hollandʹs RIASEC interest types

The relationships between the Big Five and Hollandʹs RIASEC vocational interest model are investigated in a large sample of last-year students (N = 934) enrolled in different educational majors. In addition, the relationships between traits and Hollandʹs concepts of congruency, consistency and differentiation are investigated, as well as the relations between traits and response sets to interest inventories. The five factors are assessed with a Dutch/Flemish adaptation of the NEO-PI-R (Costa & McCrae, 1992) and the RIASEC types are assessed with the Self-Directed Search (Holland, 1977, 1979). The correspondence between both models is investigated using correlational and exploratory factor analysis. The results show that all Big Five domain factors are significantly related to at least one or more RIASEC types, but not all RIASEC scales are correlated with the Big Five. Especially the Realistic scale and to a lesser extent the Investigative scale are not represented in the Big Five. The findings of this study replicate and extend former findings by Costa, McCrae and Holland (1984) and Gottfredson, Jones and Holland (1993). The results suggest that there is considerable overlap between both models, but that they also account for unique variance.