The invariance of certain personality factors over four decades

The Michill Adjective Rating Scale (MARS) measures four factors: Unhappiness (similar to Emotional Stability versus Neuroticism of the Big-Five), Extraversion (similar to Extraversion versus Introversion of the Big-Five), Selfassertiveness (similar to Agreeableness versus Disagreeableness of the Big-Five), and Productive Persistence (similar to Dependability versus Undependability of the Big-Five). To investigate the invariance of the factor structure represented by these four factors, selfrating data collected with MARS, over a period of four decades, were divided into three samples of 204 (tested between 1954 and 1956), 441 (tested between 1966 and 1968), and 289 (tested between 1996 and 1998) undergraduates. Comparison of the loadings of the 48 MARS items on the foregoing four factors, across the three samples drawn from three separate populations, yielded median stability coefficients (Pearson rs) ranging between .85 and .96.[PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]