Five-Factor Personality Inventories Have a Competence-Related Higher-Order Factor Due to Item Phrasing

Martin Bäckström; Fredrik Björklund; Rebecka Persson; Ariela Costa

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2020.557544

Five-Factor Personality Inventories Have a Competence-Related Higher-Order Factor Due to Item Phrasing

Front Psychol. 2020 Nov 26:11:557544. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.557544. eCollection 2020.

Authors

Martin Bäckström¹, Fredrik Björklund¹, Rebecka Persson¹, Ariela Costa^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Psychology, Lund University, Lund, Sweden.
² Department of Psychology, São Francisco University, Campinas, Brazil.

Abstract

This research examines whether the items of some of the most well-established five-factor inventories refer to competence. Results reveal that both experts and laymen can distinguish between items that refer to how competently a behavior is performed and items that do not (Study 1). Responses to items that refer to competence create a higher-order factor in the personality inventories (Study 2), and the variability in responses to competence-related items in personality self-ratings is best modeled as a general factor rather than as also tied to the specific Big Five factors (Studies 3 and 4). We suggest that a focused debate on what personality items should refer to is likely to have considerable positive consequences for both theory and measurement of personality.

Keywords: Big Five; competence; higher-order factors; personality; traits.