Their factor analysis produced four factors: sensation seeking (the tendency to seek out novel and thrilling experiences), lack of planning (the tendency to act without thinking), lack of perseverance (the inability to remain focused on a task), and urgency (the tendency to act rashly in response to distress, or what we here describe as negative urgency). Each factor has an analogue among the facets of the big five personality traits, as represented in Costa and McCrae's (1992) framework. Sensation seeking is analogous to the excitement seeking facet of extraversion, lack of planning is analogous to the deliberation facet of conscientiousness (keyed in the opposite direction), lack of perseverance is analogous to the self-discipline facet of conscientiousness (also keyed in the opposite direction), and urgency is analogous to the impulsiveness facet of neuroticism. Whiteside and Lynam constructed scales to represent each factor. Intercorrelations among those scales ranged from −.14 (sensation seeking and lack of perseverance) through .00 (sensation seeking and lack of planning) to a high of .45 between lack of perseverance and lack of planning. Because the scale scores appeared to be reliable, there appeared to be far more reliable variance unique to each scale than shared with other scales.
