ABSTRACT
The resurgence of research interest in personality traits has led to findings that consistently produce five factors of personality. Most of the earlier studies that have shown the five-factor model, now often referred to as the Big Five, have come from peer ratings of adults in college or other educational settings (Norman, 1963; Tupes & Christal, 1961). Exceptions include the studies by Costa and McCrae (1980; McCrae & Costa, 1985), whose subjects were mature adults and data obtained included questionnaire data as well as ratings. In a recent review, Digman (1990) showed that consensus about the validity and usefulness of this approach has been steadily increasing. A variety of recent studies have revealed the presence of the Big Five dimensions in different languages (Angleitner, Ostendorf, & John, 1990; Hofstee, Brokken, & Land, 1981), internal judgments (Peabody & Goldberg, 1989), across methods of analysis (Goldberg, 1990), and in Belgian teachers' descriptions of children using "personal" constructs based on Kelly's (1955) work (Mervielde, chap. 20 in this vol.).
