A fourth-order analysis of the Eysenck Personality Inventory: Some predictable results from an unusual analysis

Responses of 392 New Zealand subjects to the Eysenck Personality Inventory were subjected to second, third and fourth-order principal components analysis. Subsequently, the results obtained from two and three-factor, fourth-order varimax rotations were compared with each other when appropriate with equivalent first-order solutions obtained from the same previously published data. It is concluded that the nature of the solutions found is more a function of the number of factors rotated than of the level at which rotation takes place, even in the virtually untrodden realms of fourth-order analysis.