Another predominant finding of the current meta-analysis was an absence of a strong relationship of FFM agreeableness with dependency, inconsistent with the hypotheses of Widiger, Trull, et al. (2002). Significant effect sizes for facets of agreeableness were obtained, but they were relatively small (ranging from .09 for tender-mindedness to .16 for modesty). These findings are congruent with a previous meta-analysis of FFM studies of dependency by Bornstein and Cecero (2000). Bornstein and Cecero identified 18 studies that had investigated the relationship between the FFM and dependency. Only one of these was included in the current meta-analysis (i.e., Dyce & O'Connor, 1998), as Bornstein and Cecero included studies confined to dependency, they did not require that the FFM measure provide a facet-level analysis nor did the measure of dependency have to concern the personality disorder as defined by DSM-IV-TR. They reported that “as hypothesized, high dependency scores were associated with high levels of neuroticism and agreeableness” (Bornstein & Cecero, 2000, p. 335). Nevertheless, they also emphasized that the magnitude of the effect size for agreeableness was, at best, modest (i.e., .08).
