Four ways five factors are not basic

Abstract

This is a reply to the Costa and McCrae article entitled: "Four ways five factors are basic" [(1992) Personality and Individual Differences, 13(6), 653-665]. This article takes up the challenge and discusses four major criticisms of the 5-factor model. The first criticism relates to the level of the hierarchical model of personality at which different factors arise, suggesting that 3 of the 5 factors in the Costa and McCrae model are essentially primaries, often highly intercorrelated, and linked closely with psychoticism. The second criticism is directed at the failure of Costa and McCrae to discuss the overwhelming evidence from meta-analyses of factorial studies that 3, and not 5 factors emerged at the highest level. The third criticism is directed at the lack of a nomological network or theoretical underpinning for the 5 factors, and the fourth is directed at the failure of providing a biological link between genetic causation and behavioural organization. All four criticisms suggested that the postulation of the 5-factor model is a premature crystallization of spurious orthodoxy. © 1992.