GOING BEYOND THE 5 FACTORS GIVEN - REJOINDER

Given the stated concerns and details of my critique of the five-factor approach to personality description, the preceding comments by Costa and McCrae and by Goldberg and Saucier impress me as essentially unresponsive. I reject the suggestion that the omission in my critique of consideration of certain studies would seriously influence the tenability of my disquietude. There is no disagreement among us regarding the usefulness of a common conceptual scheme that is both parsimonious and comprehensive; we differ in the faith we invest in the method of factor analysis and whether the five factors so decisively proposed sufficiently achieve the desired goal. After close consideration, some may wish to take up or continue with the five-factor approach, some now may not.