Meta-analytic five-factor model personality intercorrelations: Eeny, meeny, miney, moe, how, which, why, and where to go.
Abstract
Meta-analysis is frequently combined with multiple regression or path analysis to examine how the Big Five/Five-Factor Model (FFM) personality traits relate to work outcomes. A common approach in such studies is to construct a synthetic correlation matrix by combining new meta-analyses of FFM-criterion correlations with previously published meta-analytic FFM intercorrelations. Many meta-analytic FFM intercorrelation matrices exist in the literature, with 3 matrices being frequently used in industrial-organizational (I-O) psychology and related fields (i.e., Mount, Barrick, Scullen, & Rounds, 2005; Ones, 1993; van der Linden, te Nijenhuis, & Bakker, 2010). However, it is unknown how the choice of FFM matrix influences study conclusions, why we observe such differences in the matrices, and which matrix researchers and practitioners should use for their specific studies. We conducted 3 studies to answer these questions. In Study 1, we demonstrate that researchers' choice of FFM matrix can substantively alter conclusions from meta-analytic regressions or path analyses. In Study 2, we present a new meta-analysis of FFM intercorrelations using measures explicitly constructed around the FFM and based on employee samples. In Study 3, we systematically explore the sources of differences in FFM intercorrelations using second-order meta-analyses of 44 meta-analytic FFM matrices. We find that personality rating source (self vs. other) and inventory-specific substantive and methodological…
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Big Five personality dimensions measured in questionnaires and natural language are not entirely orthogonal; they are weakly intercorrelated.
“Big Five personality dimensions measured in questionnaires and natural language48 are not entirely orthogonal; they are weakly intercorrelated75.”
From A psychometric framework for evaluating and shaping personality traits in large language models (2025) · cites this paper as [75]
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Agreeableness and Its Consequences: A Quantitative Review of Meta-Analytic Findings
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Self-citationA psychometric framework for evaluating and shaping personality traits in large language models
Serapio-García, G., Safdari, M., Crepy, C., Sun, L., Fitz, S., Romero, P., Abdulhai, M., Faust, A., & Matarić, M. (2025) · Nature Machine Intelligence · doi:10.1038/s42256-025-01115-6 · Cited by 30 · see citing works
- Authors
- Park, H. (., Wiernik, B. M., Oh, I.-S., Gonzalez-Mulé, E., Ones, D. S., & Lee, Y.
- Venue
- Journal of Applied Psychology
- Published
- 2020-12
- Volume
- 105
- Issue
- 12
- Pages
- 1490-1529
- ISSN
- 0021-9010 (ISSN-L)
- 1939-1854
- OpenAlex
- W3011685505
- Cited by
- 57
- References
- 21
- Citations by year
- 2026: 5 · 2025: 7 · 2024: 11 · 2023: 6 · 2022: 12 · 2021: 12 · 2020: 4
- FWCI
- 3.39
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Journal of Applied Psychology (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- OSF Preprints (OSF Preprints) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Personality Traits and Psychology
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Applied Psychology › Psychological Testing and Assessment
- Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management › Job Satisfaction and Organizational Behavior
- Keywords
- Big Five personality traits, work outcomes, employee personality
- MeSH terms
- Humans, Models, Psychological, Personality, Personality Inventory
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