The General Factor of Psychosocial Development and its relation to the General Factor of Personality and Life History strategy Curtis S. Dunkel a,⇑ , Jwa K. Kim b , Dennis R. Papini b a Department of Psychology, Western Illinois University, Macomb, IL 61455, USA b Middle Tennessee State University, TN, USA article info Article history: Received 13 August 2011 Received in revised form 12 October 2011 Accepted 15 October 2011 Available online 8 November 2011 Keywords: Psychosocial development Life History theory General Factor of Personality abstract It was hypothesized that the eight Eriksonian psychosocial stages form a single latent variable or General Factor of Psychosocial Development (GFPD) and that this latent factor is associated with the General Fac- tor of Personality (GFP) and Life History (LH) strategy to the extent that the variables form a higher order Super-K factor. Correlational analyses and confirmatory factor analyses each supported the hypothesized GFPD. Additionally, correlational and confirmatory factor analyses supported the hypothesis that the three variables form a single Super-K factor. The results of Study 3 suggest that the relationship between the psychosocial stages and between the GFPD, GFP, and LH strategy remained after controlling for social desirable response biases. Ó 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction 1.1. General Factor of Personality Currently the most influential model for understanding individ- ual differences in personality is the Five Factor Model or Big Five (e.g., Digman, 1997). The Big Five traits are openness, conscien- tiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism. The Big Five are often conceptualized as being the most fundamental per- sonality traits sitting atop a hierarchy of more localized character- istics, but recent research has shown that the Big Five traits are correlated (e.g., Digman, 1997; Musek, 2007). The significant correlations between the Big Five traits suggest that the traits are not at the hierarchical apex of the organization of personality traits; that higher order constructs hold a spot above the Big Five in the hierarchical paradigm. For example, using three separate samples and three separate instruments to measure the Big Five, Musek (2007) found evidence for the General Factor of Personality (GFP). Following Musek’s (2007) results, numerous studies have been conducted to replicate and extend the findings of the GFP (see Rushton & Irwing for a review, 2011). However, a number of questions concerning the GFP remain. Of the issues surrounding the nature of the GFP is that the GFP is simply a mea- surement artifact (Ashton, Lee, Goldberg, & de Vries, 2009) that most likely reflects individual differences in socially desirable responding (Anusic, Schimmack, Pinkus, & Lockwood, 2009; Bäckstrom, 2007; Bäckstrom, Bjorklund, & Larsson, 2009; McCrae et al., 2008). Counter to this criticism research has shown that the GFP remains after statistically controlling for socially desirable responding (Erdle & Rushton, 2010; Rushton & Erdle, 2010), the GFP is substantially heritable (Rushton et al., 2009), and the GFP predicts important life outcomes (van der Linden, Scholte, Cillessen, te Nijenhuis, & Segers, 2010; van der Linden, te Nijenhuis, & Bakker, 2010). If it is not an artifact of social desirable responding; what then is the GFP? The leading explanation is that individual differences in the GFP represent individual differences in Life History strategies (Dunkel & Decker, 2010; Figueredo, Vásquez, Brumbach, & Schneider, 2004; Rushton & Irwing, 2011; Rushton et al., 2009). 1.2. Life History theory Life History (LH) theory is based on evolutionary principles and was originally used to explain optimal reproductive strategies given variance in environmental constraints (Pianka, 1970) and a wide array of co-varying species characteristics (Promislow & Harvey, 1990, 1991). LH theory is based on the premise that organ- isms must allocate resources to the competing needs of mainte- nance, growth, and reproduction. Because resources are finite, trade-offs must be made so that resources directed toward one end diminish the resources available for use toward the other ends. Differences in the allocation of the resources are referred to as LH strategies. LH strategies fall along a continuum. At one end of the continuum is a fast LH strategy. The fast LH strategy is defined by a fast rate of maturation, early and unrestricted reproductive behavior, and relatively less parental investment in offspring. At the opposite end of the spectrum is a strategy defined by slow 0191-8869/$ - see front matter Ó 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.paid.2011.10.016 ⇑ Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 309 298 1078. E-mail address: c-dunkel@wiu.edu (C.S. Dunkel). Personality and Individual Differences 52 (2012) 202–206 Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect Personality and Individual Differences journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/paid