Personality and Factor Analysis: A Reply to Guilford

Consideration is given to the problem of how we are to arrive at personality factors that possess some demonstrable degree of representativeness. It is suggested that psychometric considerations play an important part and that factor analysis in particular can be of great value in this connection. It is also suggested that there are other considerations of at least equal importance. Factors emerging from such analyses must be replicable and reliable, and they must fulfill certain basic psychometric requirements. In addition, there should be evidence of their heritability, they should have theoretical backing leading to objective laboratory verification of deductions from such theories, and they should be socially relevant in the sense of correlating significantly with social parameters. The evidence suggests that there are three and only three such factors emerging from relevant research, that these are all higher order factors, and that primary factors lack some or all of the qualities required. It is suggested that the models presented by Guilford, Cattell, and Eysenck converge on some such model as is here presented.