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Index: Personality Theories, Types and Tests

Cattell's 16PF

Here's a very brief summary.

Raymond B Cattell (1905-1998) developed his 16PF in the 1940s. Most sources indicate an original publication date of 1949, so it's been around for a while, and has gone through at least five edition revisions, which probably explains the strange letter coding sequence. The PF stands for 'Personality Factors', and there are sixteen of them, hence 16PF.

The 16PF is one of the longest-standing and most widely used personality testing systems of all. Belbin used the Cattell 16PF model in constructing his 'Belbin Team Roles' theory, model and testing instruments.

Cattell's theory asserts that every person possesses a degree of each of the following sixteen traits. Note that these traits include scale descriptions (not shown here) and terminology can vary; hence the code letters are helpful references. Cattell's 16PF personality testing instruments are available from various providers.

Warmth (A)
Reasoning (B)
Emotional Stability (C)
Dominance (E)
Liveliness (F)
Rule-consciousness (G)
Social Boldness (H)
Sensitivity (I)
Vigilance (L)
Abstractedness (M)
Privateness (N)
Apprehension/Apprehensiveness (O)
Openness to change (Q1)
Self-reliance (Q2)
Perfectionism (Q3)
Tension (Q4)

The Cattell systems also include an interpretation of the 'Big Five' factors, which the Cattell organization refers to as 'Five Global' factors (and which mostly use different descriptive factors names).

source: www.businessballs.com