A Method Factor Measure of Self-concept. Paper presented at the 26th annual meeting of The Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology Model Confirmatory Factor Analysis of individual items of the Big Five items as shown in Figure 1. Models with and without a general method factor were applied using Mplus. M was indicated by all items. M was estimated uncorrelated with Big Five factors. Factor scores generated using the regression method by Mplus were imported into SPSS. Method Factors as Measures of Faking There is an emerging trend to use method factors estimated in confirmatory factor analyses to assess faking. Such a model is shown in Figure 1. Several studies have found that method factors 1)correlate with F-H difference scores when participants were instructed to fake, 2)correlate with difference scores when participants were given incentives to fake and 3)correlate with social desirability scores in “respond honestly” conditions and in conditions in which there were incentives to fake (Biderman & Nguyen, 2004; Clark & Biderman, 2005; Biderman & Nguyen, 2009; Bäckström, Björklund, & Larsson (2009). Because of its relationship to traditional measures of faking, the method factor, M, in Figure 1 might be conceptualized as measuring self- enhancement. Method Factors as Measures of Self-Concept Some studies of the general factor of personality (GFP) have suggested that an unrotated first order factor of Big Five items may be related to differences in self-esteem or one’s own view of oneself. (Erdle, Irwing, Rushton, & Park, 2010; Loehlin & Martin, 2011; van der Linden, Scholte, Cillessen, Nejenhuis, & Segers, 2010; ). Since M is indicated by all items of the Big Five measures, the above observations suggest that it may be M that is related to self-concept. This study investigated the relationship of M to self-esteem and depression. It also investigated the effect of removal of the influence of M on relationships of the Big Five dimensions to these measures. Method Participants. 206 undergraduate students at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. Design. Repeated Measures. Measures. The measures in this study included the following: IPIP Big Five 50-item sample questionnaire. Costello & Comrey (1967) Depression scale. Rosenberg (1965) Self Esteem Scale. Factor scores from application of models described below. Procedure. Participants were administered the IPIP Big Five questionnaire followed by the Depression scale and the Self-esteem scale. No instructions or incentives to fake were given. Correlations of Self-esteem and Depression with M M Self-esteem.401 c Depression-.412 c Correlations of Self-Esteem and Depression with Big Five Scale scores ExtAgrConStaOpn Self-esteem.285 c.188 a.381 c.242 c.359 c Depression-.202 b c c c b Effect of removing influence of M on Big Five correlations Correlations with Big 5 Factor scores from method factor model. ExtAgrConStaOpn Self-esteem c c Depression c Effect of alternative way of removing influence of M Partial Correlations with Big 5 scale scores partialling out M ExtAgrConStaOpn Self-esteem c c Depression.145 a c a p <.05 b p <.01 c p <.001 Discussion M correlates positively with self-esteem and negatively with depression. M is not correlated with the Big Five factors, suggesting that it represents a personality characteristic separate from the Big Five. Removing the influence of M, either by using Big 5 factor scores from Model M or by partialling out M factor scores, changes considerably correlations involing Big 5 dimensions. Conclusion M is both a measure of amount of dissimulation and a measure of self- concept. When faking instructions or incentives are present, individual differences in M reflect the differences in respondent reactions to those faking conditions. But when faking instructions are not present, individual differences in M reflect differences in respondent self concept or affective states. Goodness-of-fit With MWithout M Chi-square df CFI RMSEA Difference Chi-square256.1 df50 p <.001 The chi-square difference test suggests that the CFA with a single method factor fits significantly better than the CFA without the method factor. Michael D. Biderman The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga Nhung T. Nguyen Towson University Christopher J.L. Cunningham The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga E1 E2 E3 E4 E5 E6 E7 E8 E9 E10 A1 A2 A3 A4 A5 A6 A7 A8 A9 A10 C1 C2 C3 C4 C5 C6 C7 C8 C9 C10 S1 S2 S3 S4 S5 S6 S7 S8 S9 S10 O1 O2 O3 O4 O5 O6 O7 O8 O9 O10 E A C S O M Figure 1.