Predicting the General Factor of Personality: From Adolescence Through Adulthood

Abstract

It was predicted that interviewers’ rating of the attractiveness of interviewees’ personality would be predictive of interviewees’ self-assessed personality and that this association would primarily be a function of the General Factor of Personality (GFP). Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health, ratings based on four interviews occurring across adolescence and into adulthood exhibited small, but reliable, associations with self-assessed personality in early to middle adulthood. Consistent with predictions, the association was primarily a function of the GFP, was independent of interviewee sex and ethnicity, and remained when controlling for the rated candidness of the interviewee. The results are discussed in terms of the GFP social- effectiveness hypotheses.