Seven-Factor Trait Markers

This 70-item collection measures the seven lexical trait factors of Saucier's (1997) seven-factor structure with the ten-item public-domain IPIP scale keyed to each factor: the familiar Big Five — Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Emotional Stability, and Intellect — plus two dimensions that conventional Big Five studies exclude by design, Attractiveness and Negative Valence.

Classical lexical studies reached five factors partly through a selection rule: before factoring, researchers screened out terms judged purely evaluative or merely physical. Tellegen and Waller argued that this rule pre-decided the answer, and analyses restoring the excluded terms recovered seven dimensions — the 'Big Seven', replicated cross-culturally (Almagor, Tellegen, & Waller, 1995).

Saucier (1997) then manipulated the selection rules directly, factoring person-descriptors sampled under broader and narrower criteria; unrestricted selection yielded the seven-factor structure represented here, in which self-rated Attractiveness and a strongly evaluative Negative Valence dimension stand apart from the Big Five rather than dissolving into them.

The ten-item scales here are original public-domain IPIP markers keyed to Saucier's seven factors — the model's catalogued IPIP operationalization, not an excerpt from any proprietary questionnaire. Scale membership and reverse-keying follow Goldberg's IPIP multi-scale map (ScalesFor967items) verbatim, with construct names as catalogued at ipip.ori.org.

Each factor is reported against Eugene–Springfield Community Sample reference values in the norms section; it is a research-oriented structure profile rather than a clinical instrument, and the two evaluative dimensions record how respondents describe themselves on those terms, not how others would judge them.

“Act wild and crazy.”

Illustrative only. During administration items are presented one screen-set at a time; response-key direction is never shown to respondents.

Item responses are summed within each scale (reverse-keyed items recoded first) and expressed as a population percentile against the cited reference sample, with a reliability-based confidence range where α is published.

Norms computed from the Eugene-Springfield Community Sample (ESCS) — Lewis R. Goldberg’s adult community panel from Eugene and Springfield, Oregon (Harvard Dataverse, doi:10.7910/DVN/UF52WY). This is a community sample and is NOT nationally representative. The mean, standard deviation, reference N and Cronbach’s α were computed directly from the raw IPIP item-level responses on THIS scale’s exact item set and reverse-keying (complete cases); reference N varies by scale and is shown with each scale below. The confidence range uses the standard error of measurement (SEM = SD·√(1−α)) from that computed α.

Public-domain items from the International Personality Item Pool (Goldberg, L. R., 1999; ipip.ori.org). Scale membership and reverse-keying taken verbatim from Goldberg's IPIP multi-scale map (ScalesFor967items). Construct names from ipip.ori.org.