THE STRUCTURE OF CONSCIENTIOUSNESS: AN EMPIRICAL INVESTIGATION BASED ON SEVEN MAJOR PERSONALITY QUESTIONNAIRES

The purpose of this study was to identify the underlying structure of the trait domain of Conscientiousness using scales drawn from 7 major personality inventories. Thirty‐six scales conceptually related to Conscientiousness were administered to a large community sample ( N = 737); analyses of those scales revealed a hierarchical structure with 6 factors: industriousness, order, self‐control, responsibility, traditionalism, and virtue. All 6 factors demonstrated excellent convergent validity. Three of the 6 factors, industriousness, order, and self‐control, showed good discriminant validity. The remaining 3 factors—responsibility, traditionalism and virtue—appear to be interstitial constructs located equally…