Critique of the Five-Factor Model of Personality

Introduction: Lexical Coverage of the Personality Trait Sphere

Assuming that most aspects of human personality structure are represented in the trait lexicon (i.e. that the personality sphere is encompassed by trait-descriptive words — see Ashton et al., 2004; Saucier and Goldberg, 2001), Allport and Odbert's (1936) list of more than 4,000 English trait descriptors was reduced down to some 35+ clusters of trait synonyms (e.g. see Cattell, 1986). Raymond B. Cattell (who, along with Freud, Piaget, and Eysenck, was listed among the ten most highly cited psychologists of the twentieth.century — Haggbloom et al., 2002: 142), attempted.a comprehensive sampling of the trait lexicon, on the further assumption that the most important attributes of ...