Abstract
At first glance, the attempts by personality theorists to provide a taxonomy of personality traits seem to have achieved little in the way of consensus. However, as Eysenck and Eysenck (1985) demonstrated, many (or even most) of the disagreements concerning the number and nature of major personality dimensions stem from looking at the same reality from rather different perspectives. Thus, for example, it is relatively straightforward to reconcile Cattell’s emphasis on 16 personality factors (PF) with Eysenck’s claim that there are only three major dimensions of personality (i. e., extraversion, neuroticism, and psychoticism). Because Cattell’s factors are correlated, it is possible to extract second-order factors. When this is done, Cattell’s 16 PF yields factors of exvia and anxiety that correspond closely to the Eysenckian dimensions of extraversion and neuroticism, respectively (Barrett & Kline, 1980; Hundleby & Connor, 1968).
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Eysenck, M.W. (1987). Trait Theories of Anxiety. In: Strelau, J., Eysenck, H.J. (eds) Personality Dimensions and Arousal. Perspectives on Individual Differences. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-2043-0_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-2043-0_5
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