Personality and vocational interests: The relation of Holland's six interest dimensions to five robust dimensions of personality.

Relations between interest-based personality dimensions from J. L. Holland's (1985) theory of vocational personalities and 5 robust factors of personality (R. R. McCrae and O. P. John; see record 1993-01496-001) were examined. Results for 479 male and 246 female US Navy trainees imply that the 6 theoretical scales of the Vocational Preference Inventory and 20 scales of the NEO Personality Inventory share 2–4 significant factors. Social and Enterprising vocational preferences were positively correlated with Extraversion; Investigative and Artistic preferences were positively correlated with Openness; and Conventional preferences were correlated with Conscientiousness. Examinations of correlations for instruments with scales that are assumed to represent facets of 5 general personality factors usually supported these interpretations. Despite their regularity, the vocational–personality correlations were too low to suggest that either form of assessment is a dependable substitute for the other. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)