A VALIDATION OF THE 5-FACTOR MODEL OF PERSONALITY IN ACADEMICALLY TALENTED YOUTH ACROSS OBSERVERS AND INSTRUMENTS

Four instruments-the NEO-Five-Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI), the Adjectiv e Check List (ACL), the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) and the Cal ifornia Child Q-Set (CCQ)-and two data sources-self reports and parent al ratings-were used to assess personality dimensions according to the five-factor model of personality in 870 academically talented youth ( mean age = 13.77) from the U.S.A. Data from the parents of 565 of thes e children were also analysed. The factor structure of the self and pa rent reports, the convergence between the two sources of reports and t he correlations of the adjectives in the ACL with the scores on the NE O-FFI were all consistent with previous results obtained from adults. The findings largely support the notion that the five-factor model as derived from data from adults is applicable to academically talented y outh. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.