Using conformity and social ability to predict the general factor of personality

Abstract

Personality traits covary to produce a higher-order trait labeled the general factor of personality or GFP. The GFP appears to reflect a mixture of response bias and social-effectiveness. In the current study data from the Oregon Youth Study (N = 206) is used to test the possibility that the GFP is also due to normative conformity. Results showed that although conformity did account for a significant amount of variance in the GFP, response bias and social-effectiveness were stronger predictors. Additionally, exploratory analyses showed that individuals with high levels of initially measured social-effectiveness in late childhood and a stronger slope indicating increased social-effectiveness throughout adolescent development had a higher GFP as measured in early adulthood. Additional research using improved measures of conformity is recommended.