The great triumvirate: Agreement between lexically and psycho-physiologically based models of personality

Responses to the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire and the Cattell 16 Personality Factor Questionnaire from a sample of 740 university and college students were subjected to principal components analyses and promax rotations in a series of item and scale-factor analyses. Decisions on the number of factors to retain were based on a range of criteria including factor replicability and psychological interpretability. The first order item and scale-factor analyses confirmed a six-factor model of exvia, anxiety, control, independence, tough poise and intelligence which was highly congruent with Cattellʹs second order source traits as defined by Krug and Johns (1986). Exvia and anxiety were clearly similar to Eysenckʹs extraversion and neuroticism whilst psychoticism correlated substantially (− 0.40) with control, independence and tough poise. The control, independence and tough poise factors were subjected to a second order principal components analysis with one retained factor. Scores on this factor correlated highly with Eysenckʹs P (0.67), control (− 0.52), tough poise (0.54), independence (0.70) and masculinity (0.35), a result which confirms the validity of Eysenckʹs PEN model of personality. It was considered that the results did not provide any evidence for the existence of Costa and McCraeʹs (1976) concept of “openness to experience” or the validity of the ‘Big Five’ model of personality.