A robust five-factor structure of the 16PF: Strong evidence from independent rotation and confirmatory factorial invariance procedures

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0191-8869(97)00025-1Get rights and content

Abstract

Establishing factorial invariance across samples and forms has important implications for efforts to build a taxonomy of personality traits. These methods provide a strong test of measurement properties and, if factorial invariance obtains, allow meaningful factor comparisons across groups. Results are presented for an invariant second-order factor structure in two forms (Form C and Clinical Analysis Questionnaire) of the 16PF and across six independent samples: four samples consisting of male and female police applicants (combined N = 15,332) and two samples of male felons (combined N = 15,460). Independently rotated common factor analyses indicated that six previously reported factors (Extraversion, Anxiety, Control, Independence, Sensitive Awareness, and Intelligence) were well-replicated in all samples. A restricted factor solution (salient loadings only) with identical factor loadings (metric factorial invariance) was found to hold remarkably well across all samples. Further constraints on the factor model known as ‘strict factorial invariance’ (Meredith, 1993; invariant factor loadings, mean intercepts, and unique variances) were found to provide a good fit to the data within police applicant and felon samples. The findings from this study offer strong evidence in support of a stable five-factor personality structure of the 16PF across different forms and people.

References (114)

  • B. Bolton

    Evidence for the 16PF primary and secondary factors

    Multivariate Experimental Clinical Research

    (1977)
  • M.W. Browne et al.

    Single sample cross-validation indices for covariance structures

    Multivariate Behavioral Research

    (1989)
  • M.W. Browne et al.

    Alternative ways of assessing model fit

  • G. Carey et al.

    The familial relationship among personality, substance abuse, and other problem behavior in adolescents

    Behavior Genetics (Abstract)

    (1995)
  • R.B. Cattell

    The description and measurement of personality

    (1946)
  • R.B. Cattell

    Confirmation and clarification of primary personality factors

    Psychometrika

    (1947)
  • R.B. Cattell

    Factor analysis

    (1952)
  • R.B. Cattell

    Second-order personality factors in the questionnaire realm

    Journal of Consulting Psychology

    (1956)
  • R.B. Cattell

    Validation and intensification of the sixteen personality factor questionnaire

    Journal of Clinical Psychology

    (1956)
  • R.B. Cattell

    Personality and motivation structure and measurement

    (1957)
  • R.B. Cattell

    Theory of fluid and crystallized intelligence: A critical experiment

    Journal of Educational Psychology

    (1963)
  • R.B. Cattell

    The scree test for the number of factors

    Multivariate Behavioral Research

    (1966)
  • R.B. Cattell

    Personality and mood by questionnaire

    (1973)
  • R.B. Cattell

    The scientific use of factor analysis in behavioral and life sciences

    (1978)
  • R.B. Cattell et al.

    Culture Fair Intelligence Test (Scale 3)

    (1959)
  • R.B. Cattell et al.
  • R.B. Cattell et al.

    Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire

    (1994)
  • R.B. Cattell et al.

    Clinical Analysis Questionnaire

    (1980)
  • R.B. Cattell et al.
  • R.B. Cattell et al.

    The number of factors in the 16PF: A review of the evidence with special emphasis on the methodological problems

    Educational and Psychological Measurement

    (1986)
  • R.B. Cattell et al.

    Untersuchung der interkulturellen konstanz der Personlichkeitsfaktoren in the 16PF test

    Psychologische Beitrage

    (1965)
  • R.B. Cattell et al.

    Constance interculturelle des facteurs de personalite measures par le test 16 PF: Comparison franco-americaine

    Revue de Psychologie Appliquee

    (1961)
  • R.B. Cattell et al.

    The Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire

    (1957)
  • J. Cohen

    Things I have learned (so far)

    American Psychologist

    (1990)
  • A.L. Comrey
  • A.L. Comrey
  • P.T. Costa et al.

    Age differences in personality structure: A cluster analytic approach

    Journal of Gerontology

    (1976)
  • P.T. Costa et al.

    Still stable after all these years: Personality as a key to some issues in adulthood and old age

  • P.T. Costa et al.
  • P.T. Costa et al.
  • P.T. Costa et al.
  • R. Cudeck et al.

    Model selection in covariance structures analysis and the ‘problem’ of sample size: A clarification

    Psychological Bulletin

    (1991)
  • W.R. Cunningham

    Factorial invariance: A methodological issue in the study of psychological development

    Experimental Aging Research

    (1982)
  • J.M. Digman

    Five robust trait dimensions: Development, stability, and utility

    Journal of Personality

    (1989)
  • J.M. Digman

    Personality structure: Emergence of the five-factor model

    Annual Review of Psychology

    (1990)
  • J.M. Digman et al.

    Further specification of the five robust factors of personality

    Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

    (1986)
  • J.M. Digman et al.

    Factors in the natural language of personality: Re-analysis, comparison, and interpretation of six major studies

    Multivariate Behavioral Research

    (1981)
  • H.J. Eysenck et al.

    The Eysenck Personality Inventory

    (1963)
  • H.J. Eysenck et al.

    Personality structure and measurement

    (1969)
  • H.J. Eysenck et al.

    • Cited by (50)

    • Decoding gender differences: Intellectual profiles of children with specific learning disabilities

      2022, Intelligence
      Citation Excerpt :

      Measurement invariance is determined when a measured construct has the same measurement properties in different groups and, when it is present, we can be certain that any group mean and variance differences in levels of variables marking the construct reflect actual differences in levels of the construct among the groups (Johnson & Bouchard, 2007). When measurement invariance is not achieved, mean and variance differences could reflect differences in the relative importance of the indicators used to measure the construct (Hofer, Horn, & Eber, 1997). Given the body of evidence suggesting that females and males achieve similar levels of overall intellectual processing power using different processes and/or strategies (e.g., Spelke, 2005), it is not unreasonable to hypothesize that measurement invariance across females and males is less than complete (see Johnson & Bouchard, 2007 on this point).

    • Bilingual advantages of working memory revisited: A latent variable examination

      2014, Learning and Individual Differences
      Citation Excerpt :

      An M-CFA with 12 WM tests was performed, using three tests to measure each of the four WM components according to the M-Model of WM. Measurement equivalency for the two groups indicated that the measured construct had identical meaning and structure for the groups, and the individual within-group and between-group differences in the means reflected the differences in the underlying constructs (Lubke, Dolan, Kelderman, & Mellenburgh, 2003). However, if the construct was not equivalent between the groups, the between-group mean differences would not indicate differences only at the level of the latent construct but would refer to differences in the observed variables used to assess the latent construct (Hofer, Horn, & Eber, 1997). Additionally, non-equivalency was also indicative of a different factorial structure, and the measured construct did not have an identical meaning in both groups (Byrne, 2010).

    • The sensitive, imaginative, articulate art student and conservative, cool, numerate science student: Individual differences in art and science students

      2013, Learning and Individual Differences
      Citation Excerpt :

      Hence sex differences will be explored in this study. This study looks at personality differences between arts and science students using the 16PF which is one of the most established and psychometrically robust measures in psychology (Aluja & Blanch, 2004; Furnham, 1991; Hofer, Horn, & Eber, 1997; Matthews, 1989; Peng, Khaw, & Edariah, 1995; Perano & Willerman, 1983). For instance Herman and Usita (1994) found the 16PF could correctly classify 80% of young appropriate volunteers.

    • The personality differentiation by intelligence hypothesis: A measurement invariance investigation

      2013, Personality and Individual Differences
      Citation Excerpt :

      A further shortcoming of Waiyavutti et al.’s (2012) study is that only the factor loadings (discrimination parameters) and item thresholds (difficulty parameters) were constrained to equality across intelligence groups. Additionally testing for the equality of residual variances of each variable across groups can test whether the “specific and random error components of each variable” (Hofer, Horn, & Eber, 1997, p. 253) are equivalent. A further set of equality constraints can be placed on the factor variances and covariances, which can provide further evidence that an instrument maintains the same measurement properties across groups (Morin, Madore, Morizot, Boudrias, & Tremblay, 2009).

    • Differences in regional brain volume related to the extraversion-introversion dimension-A voxel based morphometry study

      2012, Neuroscience Research
      Citation Excerpt :

      Later versions of the model include five global (second-order) factors, scores on which can be estimated as linear combinations of primary factor scores. While problems with replicability of the primary factors have been noted (Aluja and Blanch, 2004; Eysenck, 1991), the global factors have been confirmed in large-scale studies (Hofer et al., 1997; Ormerod et al., 1995; Rossier et al., 2004). The currently dominating psychometric model of personality is the five-factor model, originally developed mainly by McCrae and Costa (1990).

    • The Aging Personality and Self: Diversity and Health Issues

      2010, Brocklehurst's Textbook of Geriatric Medicine and Gerontology
    View all citing articles on Scopus
    View full text
    Copyright © 1997 Published by Elsevier Ltd.