Review of Factor analysis in the study of personality

Abstract

Reviews the book, Factor analysis in the study of personality by J. C. Flanagan (1935). The reviewer contends that this book may well mark the beginning of a period of rapid progress if psychologists in the department of personality adopt and utilize the methods discussed and illustrated. Psychology would be placed soundly upon an objective scientific basis if statistical methods as advanced as factor analysis were used widely and correctly. This monograph aims to give a critical review of factor theory and its development; to develop a general technique for constructing tests to measure independent components directly; to provide a new method for determining the values to be attached to individual responses, namely, an iterative method of solving for regression coefficients without computing intercorrelations; and to present two measures of independent components representing almost all of the information contained in an original set for four variables. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)