cattell and his colleagues began a comprehensive program of international research aimed at identifying and mapping out the basic underlying dimensions of personality. their goal was to systematically measure the widest possible range of personality concepts, in a belief that "all aspects of human personality which are or have been of importance, interest, or utility have already become recorded in the substance of language" (cattell, r. b., 1943, p. 483). they wanted to include every known personality dimension in their investigation, and thus began with the largest existing compilation of personality traits (allport and odbert, 1936). over time, they used factor analysis to reduce the massive list of traits by analyzing the underlying patterns among them. they studied personality data from different sources (e.g. objective measures of daily behavior, interpersonal ratings, and questionnaire results), and measured these traits in diverse populations, including working adults, university students, and military personnel. (cattell, 1957, 1973).