Cross-rater agreement on common and specific variance of personality scales and items

•Self–other agreement on the unique variance of facet scales was substantial.•Self–other agreement on the unique variance of single items was substantial.•Facets and single items capture consensually valid and possibly useful variance.

Using the NEO Personality Inventory-3, we analyzed self/informant agreement on personality traits at three levels that were made statistically independent from each other: domains, facets, and individual items. Cross-rater correlations for the common variance in the five domains ranged from 0.36 to 0.65 (M = 0.49), whereas estimates for the specific variance of the 30 facets ranged from 0.40 to 0.73 (M = 0.56). Cross-rater correlations of residual variance of individual items ranged from −0.14 to 0.49 (M = 0.15; 88% statistically significant at p < 0.002). Agreement on common variance was moderately related to item observability and evaluativeness, whereas variance played a larger role. Facets and even single items detect nuances of personality variation that may merit substantive attention.