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Psychometric studies of the organization of the "natural language of personality" have typically employed rating scales as measurement medium and factor analysis as statistical technique. The results of such investigations over the past 30 years have varied greatly, both with respect to number of factors and with respect to the constructs generated. Re-analysis of the correlations of six studies, including the classical work of Cattell, indicated that the domain appears to be well described by five factors, with some suggestion of a sixth. The five factors were related across studies, using the Kaiser-Hunka-Bianchini method. Generally, the factors were highly related, with most indices of relatedness exceeding .90. The five-factor model was tested by the multiple-group method, used to factor a large-scale study of teachers' ratings of children. With slight modification of the originally hypothesized structure, the five-factor model accounted for the observed relationships quite well. The five constructs suggested by the factors appear to be domains of research effort and theoretical concern which have long been of interest to psychologists.
Digman et al. (Wed,) studied this question.