Factor Theory of Personality with Particular Emphasis on Cattell's 16PF - A Literature Review.

The concept of personality is widely recognised as being central in psychology, yet its nature and the ways in which it can be defined and measured are questions on which psychologists are in considerable disagreement. While theorists tend to disagree over definitions of personality, they tend to agree that in order to perform a systematic exploration of personalitys relation to other variables, a definite set of personality factors need to be specified. Researchers engaged in the question of the number of factors in the personality sphere seem to divide roughly into three positions Two factors, five-to-eight factors, and 13-to-18 factors. Cattell devoted a major segment of his career to the development of the Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaires 16PF. With the continuing use of Cattells 16PF by the Australian Army Psychology Corps comes the need to review the available literature with a focus on its use in personnel selection. The 16PF reports to measure 16 distinct personality traits, yet there is no evidence of the convergent validity of the 16 scales apart from factor loadings and what evidence there is of discriminant validity suggests the primary traits are not clearly differentiated. The psychometric adequacy of the test must be questioned. SDW