Personality predicts several important criteria in the workplace, such as job performance, team effectiveness, leadership effectiveness and motivation (Ones, Dilchert, Viswesvaran, & Judge, 2007). A meta-analysis conducted by Van Aarde, Meiring and Wiernik (2017) in South Africa, which included predictive studies based on the Basic Traits Inventory (BTI), reaffirmed the predictive validity of personality traits, especially conscientiousness, for technical, training, contextual and counterproductive performance. However, there is a continuing debate regarding the predictive validity of the five broad traits versus their constituent personality facets (see Figure 1) for job performance (Judge, Rodell, Klinger, Simon, & Crawford, 2013). Some argue that the five broad traits are more robust predictors of job performance (Barrick & Mount, 2005; Ones, Viswesvaran, & Dilchert, 2005), whereas others argue each broad trait’s facets enable researchers and practitioners to better exploit predictive validity at specific levels of job performance (Anglim & Grant, 2014; Pletzer, Oostrom, Bentvelzen, & De Vries, 2020; Tett, Steele, & Beauregard, 2003). Cronbach and Gleser (1965) captured an important aspect of this debate by referring to it as the bandwidth-fidelity dilemma where ‘…there is some ideal compromise between a variety of information (bandwidth) and thoroughness of testing to obtain more certain information (fidelity)’ (p. 100).

DeYoung, Quilty, & Peterson (2007) found evidence to support a hierarchical level of personality between the broad five traits and their constituent facets, referred to as the 10 aspects of personality (see Figure 1), based on the measures of Abridged Big Five Circumplex (Hofstee, De Raad, & Goldberg, 1992) and NEO Personality Inventory-Revised (NEO-PI-R; Costa & McCrae, 1992). Judge et al. (2013) provide evidence that the 10 personality aspects have a distinct advantage over broad personality traits in that they more coherently represent the unique correlations between personality facets. Judge et al. (2013) further provide evidence that 10 personality aspects offer predictive gains over five broad traits when narrower aspects of job performance are measured.

DeYoung et al.’s (2007) findings on the 10 personality aspects had a considerable impact in the United States of America, boasting a total of 321 citations at the time of the search on the Web of Science. Other countries citing DeYoung et al.’s (2007) work at the time included Canada (93), Australia (73), Germany (65), England (63), the Netherlands (34), New Zealand (20), Peoples Republic of China (16), Scotland (14) and Belgium (13). However, no replications of the 10 personality aspects have been investigated in less developed parts of the Southern Hemisphere. It is becoming increasingly important to provide evidence on the replicability of personality models in non-WEIRD (white, educated, industrialised, rich and democratic) countries (Laajaj et al., 2019). Van de Vliert and Van Lange (2019) emphasise the need for a discipline called cross-latitudinal psychology to investigate the replicability of findings from the Northern Hemisphere to less developed parts of the Southern Hemisphere. South Africa is a middle-income country with 11 official languages with unique challenges in terms of its educational system (Department of Basic Education, 2019), economic growth (South African Reserve Bank, 2019), distribution of wealth (Statistics South Africa, 2019), as well as public sector corruption in terms of accountability, transparency and state capture (Transparancy International, 2019). An investigation of the hierarchical structure of eight of the 10 personality aspects in South Africa could provide practitioners in the region with a more parsimonious representation of facets whilst still allowing employers to make more nuanced personnel selection and development decisions. The intention of this article is not to argue against the five factors of personality in favour of the 10 personality aspects but to provide practitioners with alternative ways of interpreting the same results based on evidence (Wiernik, Yarkoni, Giordano, & Raghavan, 2020). For example, based on Figure 1, when it is important to predict either quantity or quality of tasks performed, measures of Industriousness and Orderliness respectively might provide unique information.

Figure 1 visually depicts a hierarchical structure of personality based on the three levels proposed for the BTI in the present study, namely personality facets, aspects and traits. Agreeableness (trait), as an example from Figure 1, can be represented by two personality aspects, namely Politeness and Compassion. Politeness, in turn, is represented by Straightforwardness, Compliance and Modesty (facets) whereas Compassion is represented by Prosocial Tendencies and Tender-mindedness (facets). Arrows leading from personality traits to aspects, such as the arrows leading from Agreeableness to Politeness and Compassion, reflect a common factor at the trait level (Agreeableness). Similar to the findings of Judge et al. (2013) on the NEO-PI-R, some aspects, such as Volatility (represented by facet Affective Instability in the BTI) and Intellect (represented by facet Ideas in the BTI), are represented by one indicator only and therefore, do not represent a hierarchical composite.

Evidence based on the procedure proposed by Credé and Harms (2015), supports the hierarchical structure of seven of the 10 personality aspects in the BTI. However, interpretations of sub-scores on facets, independent of the total scores for personality aspects, should be tempered by the evidence provided by bifactor statistical indices in Table 3. Interpretations of facet-level sub-scores might be relevant for development purposes when anomalous results exist for a candidate but should still be interpreted in light of total aspect or trait score.

For this study, we decided to drop the facet of Excitement Seeking from Extraversion because of its low correlation with other facets of Extraversion. Previous research shows that Excitement Seeking is related to both Openness to Experience and Extraversion (Aluja, García, & García, 2003; Hough, Oswald, & Ock, 2015; Taylor & De Bruin, 2017). Other scholars argue that Excitement Seeking might be related to an alternative broader trait such as Spontaneity, Plasticity or Impulsivity (DeYoung, 2015; DeYoung et al., 2007; Hofstee et al., 1992). Liveliness was dropped because of several negative factor variances reported, which could have been caused by model misspecification (Brown, 2006; Schumacker & Lomax, 2010). Liveliness and Excitement Seeking might share communality and could be investigated in the future as an indication of Spontaneity, Plasticity or Impulsivity (DeYoung, 2015; DeYoung et al., 2007; Hofstee et al., 1992). Facet Playfulness in the South African Personality Inventory (SAPI) displays a strong loading on Extraversion (Morton, Hill, Meiring, & De Beer, 2019) and appears invariant across ethnic groups in South Africa (Morton, Hill, Meiring, & Van de Vijver, 2019). An adaptation of the facet Playfulness might be a useful alternative to Liveliness and Excitement Seeking or a meaningful addition to trait Extraversion on the BTI. The number of facets available for Assertiveness did not enable the inspection of H1. Modesty was dropped from Agreeableness and Values dropped from Openness to Experience because of the facets’ low reliability. The low reliabilities are similar to findings reported in prior studies conducted on the BTI (Taylor & De Bruin, 2017). Constructs, such as the Interpersonal Relatedness and Broad-Mindedness from the SAPI (Morton, Hill, Meiring, & De Beer, 2019), might be more reliable additions than facets Modesty and Values. A revised version of the BTI might include additional facets to inspect the hierarchical structure of Assertiveness, Volatility and Intellect.

Based on the above findings, we propose working definitions for the 10 personality aspects in Table 4. These definitions are phrased in terms of their implications for the workplace.

This study has important implications for assessment in the workplace. Firstly, the potential of personality aspects from the BTI to predict aspects of performance at the corresponding level of specificity, such as task, contextual (Motowidlo & Van Scotter, 1994), adaptive, (Pulakos, Arad, Donovan, & Plamondon, 2000), counterproductive (Spector et al., 2006) or leadership performance (Yukl, 2012) can now be investigated. Secondly, personality aspects provide practitioners with another, perhaps more parsimonious, layer of interpretability to help their clients make more informed decisions about the selection of applicants (Judge et al., 2013).

Some limitations should be considered when interpreting the results. Hierarchical structures could not be inspected for three of the 10 personality aspects. The addition of facets, with DeYoung et al.’s (2007) conceptualisation of the 10 personality aspects as the point of departure might be a prospect for a revised version of the BTI. An inspection of the bifactor statistical indices further reveals a more unidimensional rather than hierarchical structure amongst the seven of the 10 personality aspects. This suggests that the personality aspects might be a more parsimonious, albeit not hierarchical, representation of the common variance amongst the facets in the traits.

Psychology is currently facing challenges related to the replicability of the discipline’s findings (Efendic & Van Zyl, 2019). Even though this study provides evidence for the existence of personality aspects, albeit not hierarchical aspects, amongst South African employees, the proposed factor structure must be replicated with larger samples than the one used in the current study before definitive statements are made about the manifestation of the 10 personality aspects amongst the facets of the BTI. An investigation of the 10 personality aspects amongst alternative measures of the Big Five in South Africa, such as the NEO-PI-R (Laher, 2013) or the South African Personality Inventory (Fetvadjiev, Meiring, Van de Vijver, Nel, & Hill, 2015), might serve as additional evidence for the manifestation of the 10 personality aspects amongst facets of personality measures. Other measures might also yield evidence for the hierarchical structure of the 10 personality aspects. In doing so, a more robust case can be built to argue the existence of DeYoung et al.’s (2007) 10 personality aspects in South Africa. The self-report data are the only point of reference. Further studies on the prediction of specific facets of job performance from the personality aspects could bolster the scientific and practical usefulness of the 10 personality aspects in South Africa (Judge et al., 2013).

Finally, Africa is in a unique position in that it has geographical areas stretching across the northern and southern hemispheres. It might be meaningful to determine if the findings on the 10 personality aspects are replicable in the northern hemispheres of Africa as well, thereby giving heed to Van de Vliert and Van Lange’s (2019) call for cross-longitudinal research in psychology.

The current study supports the notion that 10 personality aspects might provide a more parsimonious representation, but not necessarily a hierarchical representation, of the common variance amongst the facets of the BTI. The findings hold promise for further research into the predictive validity of these personality aspects for specific levels of performance in the workplace. Further replications are required before it can be conclusively shown that DeYoung et al.’s (2007) 10 personality aspects represent a more parsimonious representation of personality facets in the South African context. Whilst this model does not override the five-factor model of personality, it does allow for the prediction of more specific work-related outcomes based on parsimonious factors at a greater level of specificity than the Big Five.