work as well as play , and some theorists (Hogan, 1979) have even sug -
gested that such societal advantages may account for individual differ -
ences in an evolutionary sense: Human beings have evolved consistent
differences because this range of characteristics is useful in the survivalof the social group.
THE COMPREHENSIVENESS OF THE FIVE-FACTOR MODEL
We know that the FFM encompasses the lay conception of personalityas embodied in the trait names of the English language and that theNEO-PI-R provides both self-report and observer rating measures of thefactors (McCrae & Costa, 1985b, 1987). We can now turn to the ques -
tion of whether the FFM is truly comprehensive: Can it account for the
traits identified by other psychological systems? A series of studiesusing the NEO-PI along with other instruments points to an affirmativeanswer.
Perhaps the most impressive evidence of comprehensiveness comes
from analyses of the California Q-Set, or CQS, developed by severalpanels of psychologists and psychiatrists who explicitly tried to includeevery important aspect of personality suggested by their psychodynamicorientation (J. Block, 1961). We know that their selection was not bi-ased by the FFM, because they had completed their work before it wasfirst reported (T upes & Christal, 1961/1992).
In our study , we had 403 men and women from the BLSA describe
themselves using the CQS; when we analyzed the 100 items, we foundfive factors whose defining items are given in Table 5. It was clear to usthat these were essentially the same factors that we measured in theNEO-PI, and correlations between the CQS factors and NEO-PI scalesconfirmed this hypothesis. The FFM organizes CQS items as well as itorganizes trait names.
One particularly elegant way to demonstrate convergences between
two instruments is by factoring the scales from both instruments to -
gether in a joint analysis. When Wiggins’s revised Interpersonal Adjec -
tive Scales (IAS-R; Wiggins, Trapnell, & Phillips, 1988) were factored
along with NEO-PI factors, all the IAS-R scales showed their highestloading on the Extraversion and Agreeableness factors (McCrae &Costa, 1989d). As Figure 1 in Chapter 2 shows, the traits of the inter -
personal circle can be arranged around these two dimensions. From this52 PERSONALITY IN ADULTHOOD