Abstract

After 50 years of intensive research, scientific consensus concerning the number and content of the cross-culturally universal dimensions of personality has not been yet reached. In an effort to develop a theoretically predicted taxonomy of personality traits, the three-dimensional spherical cube model was proposed (Putiov, 2011). The model postulates that - the six largest personality factors yielded by factor analysis can be associated with the six pairs of edges of a cube inscribed in a sphere formed by three orthogonal dimensions, and that - any personality trait can be mapped on the surface of this sphere. The six broad personality traits were revealed by factor analysis and linked to the six pairs of edges of the spherical cube. Multidimensional scaling in combination with factor analysis provided the possibilities of - identification of three orthogonal axes of the spherical cube representation of personality structure, and - localization of the personality traits of three levels of generality (three very broad traits, six broad traits and 37 narrow traits) on the surface of spherical cube. It seems that the spherical cube model provides insights into the adaptive significance of personality structure. In particular, the revealed structural features of personality lexicon point to three hypotheses: (1) that people can use cross-culturally universal algorithm of trait assessment - a sense to which extent it is advantageous (A), benign (B), and controlled (C) - to solve the adaptive problems of predicting and controlling others’ behavior via perception, classification, judgment, and signaling of fitness correlated traits; (2) that individual variation in personality can be established through sexual and social selection of narrow personality traits as the signals of high individual quality; and (3) that this mechanism complements rather than contradicts the majority of other proposed mechanisms.