Simplimax: Oblique Rotation to an Optimal Target with Simple Structure

Factor analysis and principal component analysis are usually followed by simple structure rotations of the loadings. These rotations optimize a certain criterion (e.g., varimax, oblimin), designed to measure the degree of simple structure of the pattern matrix. Simple structure can be considered optimal if a (usually large) number of pattern elements is exactly zero. In the present paper, a class of oblique rotation procedures is proposed to rotate a pattern matrix such that it optimally resembles a matrix which has an exact simple pattern. It is demonstrated that this method can recover relatively complex simple structures where other well-known simple structure rotation techniques fail.