Personality’s ‘Big One’: Reality or Artifact?

The existence of a “general factor of personality” is highly debatable

Many current theories of personality propose that most of the variation in personality traits can be explained by the existence of a few distinct broad factors that subsume narrower traits. For example, the well-known “ Big Five” model proposes that most people’s personality traits can be described in terms of the five major factors of neuroticism, extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and openness to experience.