Our second set of analyses was based on the approach used by Markon et al. (2005) to evaluate the hierarchical structure of personality. First, we created a file that had the lower-order scales from the three large omnibus inventories that were also included in the Markon et al. (2005) investigations – the NEO-PI-R, the MPQ, and the TCI. A total of 72 personality scales were used for this analysis (30 from the NEO-PI-R, 11 from the MPQ, and 31 from the TCI; N = 946; this covariance matrix is available at www..edu). We then subjected these scales to a series of EFA analyses using the oblique GEOMIN rotation procedure with maximum likelihood estimation as implemented in Mplus 6 (this estimation procedure also addresses missing data issues). Our focus here was on both the nature of the factors that emerged from the analyses and especially the degree of correlation between the factors, as a considerable degree of factor inter-correlations seems like a natural starting point for inferring the existence of higher-order factors.
