What is a basic factor and which factors are basic? Turtles all the way down

Abstract

Criteria for a "basic factor" of personality include: (1) reliable identification of the dimension factor across methods, genders, ages; (2) at least moderate heritability; (3) identification of similar kinds of behavioral traits in non-human species; and (4) association of the trait biological trait markers. The conventional five factor model has not gone far beyond the first of these. An alternative five factor model has been developed from factor analyses of traits selected from psychobiological studies of personality; it includes the basic factors of sociability, neuroticism-anxiety, impulsive unsocialized sensation seeking, aggression-hostility and activity. Universal factors are likely to have biological bases. Personality traits must be studied at all biological levels from the behavioral to the genetic.