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The complex domain of personality has been subjected to numerous attempts at simplification through factor analytic techniques, but the results of these efforts have been somewhat disappointing to those who had hoped in this way to achieve major conceptual advances. Comparison of a sample of such studies often leaves the reader somewhat disheartened at the lack of continuity that he finds.Careful reviews, such as that of Eysenck (1953), suggest, however, that the picture may be less black than it seems. Eysenck stresses the frequency with which the same two major personality factors have been isolated by investigators working with very different kinds of instruments and variables. He points out that similarities in results are often masked by variations in rotation positions, or by failure to carry out second-order analyses of oblique solutions. Even when solutions are similar, differences in the conceptualization of the factors imply a greater disparity between experiments than actually exists.The first of the two recurrent factors observed by Eysenck suggests a dimension of ego-weakness vs. ego-strength, or, in Eysenck's terms, "general neuroticism" vs. "will." The second factor seems best defined by Jung's bipolar conception of introversion-extraversion (Jung, 1924; Eysenck, 19S3, p. 318).Factorial studies of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory have until recently failed to approximate this general trend. A recent volume by Welsh and Dahlstrom (1956, p. 264) lists eight factorial studies of the MMPI, and Welsh comments:1 This research was carried out under the direction of Robert F. Bales. The larger project of which the study is a part was facilitated by the Laboratory of Social Relations, Harvard. Funds were supplied by the Rockefeller Foundation.

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