ABSTRACT
In recent years, the five-factor model (the Big Five) has emerged as a persuasive paradigm for the organization of personality concepts into a meaningful and heuristic structure. Like many scientific paradigms that often require a generation of consideration before adoption, the model is not at all new, having been clearly demonstrated in a series of studies that began more than 40 years ago (Fiske, 1949; Norman, 1963; Norman & Goldberg, 1966; Tupes & Christal, 1961). Seemingly assigned to oblivion by the antitrait movement of the 1970s, it has enjoyed a renaissance during the past decade, as many researchers became persuaded of its validity (e.g., Borkenau, 1988; Borkenau & Ostendorf, 1990; Costa & McCrae, 1985, 1988; Digman, 1990; Digman & Inouye, 1986; Goldberg, 1981, 1983, 1990; John, Angleitner, & Ostendorf, 1988; McCrae & Costa, 1985, 1989; Ostendorf, 1990; Wiggins & Trapnell, 1991).
