 2. History, Measurement, and Conceptual Elaboration of the Big‑Five Trait Taxonomy  57
The results for the Conscientiousness do -
main are shown in the Panel (A) of Figure 
2.2. Consider the BFI-2 Organization facet 
first: As expected on the left-hand side of 
the figure, that BFI-2 scale had its highest 
correlations with Orderliness on the BFAS 
(r = .70) and with Order on the NEO-PI-R 
(r = .74); in contrast, the correlations with 
Deliberation, Dutifulness, Competence, and 
Achievement Striving on the NEO-PI-R on 
the right-hand side were all much lower (all 
around .40). BFI-2 Productiveness showed a 
very different profile: relatively low correla -
tions with BFAS Orderliness and NEO-PI-
R Order (around .40) on the left but much 
more substantial expected convergent cor -
relations with Industriousness ( r = .77) and 
Self- Discipline ( r = .73) on the right. BFI-2 
Responsibility, finally, showed its peak in 
the middle of the profile and correlated most 
strongly with Dutifulness ( r = .58) and De -
liberation ( r = .47).
Panel (B) of Figure 2.2 shows the same 
overall pattern of high convergent and lower 
discriminant correlations for Agreeableness. 
Specifically, BFI-2 Compassion was sub -
stantially associated with BFAS Compassion 
(r = .70) and NEO-PI-R Altruism ( r = .67) 
but not with Trust, Modesty, and Straight -
forwardness. In contrast, BFI-2 Trust was 
uniquely associated with Trust on the NEO-
PI-R ( r = .65). And BFI-2 Respectfulness was 
distinctively associated with BFAS Politeness 
(r = .66) and NEO-PI-R Compliance ( r = .52).
Similar patterns of convergent and dis -
criminant correlations were obtained for the 
BFI-2 facets from the other three Big Five 
dimensions as well. Taken together, these re -
sults support the theoretical conceptualiza -
tion and measurement of the BFI-2 facets as 
well as the validity of the lower-level scales 
included in the BFAS and the NEO-PI-R, 
making us optimistic that the field can even -
tually reach consensus about the lower-level 
constructs that define each of the broad Big 
Five domains.
An alternative approach to examining 
the convergent and discriminant interrela -
tions between the lower-level constructs 
is provided by the AB5C approach (Hof -
stee et al., 1992) described earlier. Because 
it presents the locations of the facets in a 
two- dimensional circumplex space, rela -
tions across the fuzzy boundaries of the Big Five domains can be made apparent. Here 
we reanalyzed the data from Soto and John 
(2017a, Study 3) to show the 22 lower-level 
scales from all three instruments that belong 
either to the Extraversion or the Agreeable -
ness domains; together these two domains 
define what has long been known as the in -
terpersonal circle (e.g., Wiggins, 1979).
The 11 Extraversion and 11 Agreeableness 
facet scales from the three Big Five instru -
ments (BFI-2, NEO-PI-R, and BFAS) were 
jointly factored using principal components 
analysis and VARIMAX rotation. Figure 
2.3 shows the loadings on the two orthogo -
nal factors for the 22 facet scales in the re -
sulting two-  dimensional space. Clearly, one 
factor represents Agreeableness (with BFI-2 
Compassion and NEO Tender-  mindedness 
at its center) and the other Extraversion 
(with BFI-2 Sociability and NEO Activity 
at its center). However, the two factors do 
not show a tight simple structure but form 
the expected half-  circle, ranging all the way 
from NEO Modesty in the upper-left quad -
rant (i.e., loading positively on Agreeable -
ness but negatively on Extraversion) to the 
three Assertiveness scales in the lower-right 
quadrant (i.e., loading positively on Extra -
version but negatively on Agreeableness). 
And the boundary between the two clouds 
of loadings is decidedly fuzzy, populated by 
two NEO Extraversion facet scales, namely 
Warmth and Positive Emotions, which load -
ed positively and about equally on both Ex -
traversion and Agreeableness.
Figure 2.3 also highlights how the loca -
tions of the six NEO Extraversion facets 
range from Assertiveness to Warmth and 
thus cover a wide (and heterogeneous) swath 
of Agreeableness content. Across instru -
ments, Agreeableness facets such as trust 
and altruism have positive loadings on Ex -
traversion, whereas modesty and compliance 
have negative loadings. The BFAS scales, in 
particular, behave as conceptualized; for 
example, Compassion and Politeness both 
load positively on their Agreeableness fac -
tor but on opposite sides of its center, with 
Compassion loading positively on Extraver -
sion and Politeness loading negatively, thus 
maximizing their distance even though they 
both clearly belong to the Agreeableness do -
main. The same type of pattern holds for the 
two BFAS Extraversion scales, Assertiveness 