General Factors of Personality in Six Datasets and a Criterion-Related Validity Study at the Netherlands Armed Forces.

Several papers showed that a general factor occupies the top of the hierarchical structure of personality, the so-called General Factor of Personality (GFP). The first question is whether the GFP behaves similar to the general factor of mental ability ( g), in that GFP scores from different personality questionnaires correlate highly. The second question is whether the GFP is related to real-life outcomes. In six large datasets (total N=21,754) collected in the Netherlands armed forces, the GFPs extracted from six personality questionnaires generally showed high degrees of correlation suggesting they measure the same construct. Moreover, GFP was related to drop-out from military training. This evidence strengthens the view that the GFP is a substantive construct with practical relevance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]