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Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences pp 1–17Cite as

Two-Factor Model of Personality

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Synonyms

Big Two; Higher order factors; Metatraits

Definition

The two-factor model (TFM) of personality is a model of personality traits structure that was discovered through factor analysis of traits, with two broad factors (also known as metatraits) emerging at the highest level (Digman 1997; Saucier et al. 2014). These factors/metatraits have been found to possess a theoretical meaning that corresponds to many psychological constructs developed and used in personality research (Digman 1997) and to have the potential to integrate the various concepts (Saucier et al. 2014; Strus and Cieciuch 2017). The TFM was developed in the course of research on the Big Five traits (Goldberg 1990; McCrae and Costa 2003) and can be treated either: (1) as its continuation and extension (DeYoung 2015) or (2) as a step beyond this tradition, opening new possibilities for personality structure description (Strus and Cieciuch 2017).

Introduction

The psychology of personality and individual differences...

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Acknowledgments

The work was prepared within Grants 2014/14/M/HS6/00919 from the National Science Centre, Poland.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Psychology, Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński University in Warsaw, Warsaw, Poland

    Jan Cieciuch & Włodzimierz Strus

  2. URPP Social Networks, University of Zurich, Zürich, Switzerland

    Jan Cieciuch

Authors
  1. Jan Cieciuch
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  2. Włodzimierz Strus
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jan Cieciuch .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Oakland University, Rochester, USA

    Virgil Zeigler-Hill

  2. Oakland University, Rochester, USA

    Todd K. Shackelford

Section Editor information

  1. Jagiellonian University, Krakow, Poland

    Anna Czarna

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Cieciuch, J., Strus, W. (2017). Two-Factor Model of Personality. In: Zeigler-Hill, V., Shackelford, T. (eds) Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28099-8_2129-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28099-8_2129-1

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  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-28099-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-28099-8

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