title: The General Factor of Personality: A General Critique.
abstract: Recently, it has been proposed that all non-cognitive measures of personality share a general factor of personality. A problem with many of these studies is a lack of clarity in defining a general factor. In this paper we address the multiple ways in which a general factor has been identified and argue that many of these approaches find factors that are not in fact general. Through the use of artificial examples, we show that a general factor is not: The first factor or component of a correlation or covariance matrix.The first factor resulting from a bifactor rotation or biquartimin transformationNecessarily the result of a confirmatory factor analysis forcing a bifactor solution We consider how the definition of what constitutes a general factor can lead to confusion, and we will demonstrate alternative ways of estimating the general factor saturation that are more appropriate.
authors: Department of Psychology, Northwestern University.
authors: William
authors: W
authors: Revelle
authors: Joshua
authors: J
authors: Wilt
keywords: CFA; EFA; Factor Analysis; General Factor of Personality; Psychometrics; SEM
references: J Abnorm Psychol. 1996 May;105(2):181-93
references: 8722999
references: J Res Pers. 2011 Nov;45(5):468-478
references: 22879686
references: J Pers Assess. 2010 Nov;92(6):544-59
references: 20954056
references: Twin Res Hum Genet. 2009 Aug;12(4):356-65
references: 19653836
references: Pers Soc Psychol Rev. 2009 May;13(2):79-91
references: 19458345
references: Twin Res Hum Genet. 2009 Oct;12(5):420-4
references: 19803769
references: Multivariate Behav Res. 2006 Jun 1;41(2):189-225
references: 26782910
references: Twin Res Hum Genet. 2009 Jun;12(3):254-60
references: 19456217
references: J Pers Soc Psychol. 1997 Dec;73(6):1246-56
references: 9418278
references: J Pers Soc Psychol. 1992 Jul;63(1):146-63
references: 1494982
references: J Educ Psychol. 1966 Oct;57(5):253-70
references: 5918295
references: Twin Res Hum Genet. 2009 Dec;12(6):555-63
references: 19943718
references: Psychometrika. 2011 Oct;76(4):537-49
references: 22232562
references: Multivariate Behav Res. 1979 Jan 1;14(1):57-74
references: 26766619
references: Qual Life Res. 2007;16 Suppl 1:19-31
references: 17479357
references: Psychol Bull. 1999 Jan;125(1):3-30
references: 9990843
references: Multivariate Behav Res. 1993 Oct 1;28(4):407-34
references: 26801141