The structure of the French personality lexicon

Abstract

The structure of the French personality lexicon was investigated. Self‐ratings on the 388 most frequently used French personality‐descriptive adjectives were obtained from 415 French‐speaking people. The scree plot of eigenvalues indicated six large factors. In the varimax‐rotated six‐factor solution, the four largest factors, in order of size, corresponded fairly closely to the Big Five dimensions of Agreeableness, Emotional Stability, Extraversion, and Conscientiousness. The fifth factor was similar to the Honesty dimension found in several other languages. The sixth factor was defined by Imagination‐related terms, but not by Intellect‐related terms. Solutions involving one to five factors were also investigated and correlations between the factors that emerged from these different solutions are presented. The results are discussed in relation to other lexical studies of personality structure. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.