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• Applied bifactor models to NEO-FFI-3, HEXACO PI-R, and BFI-2 data estimating domain, evaluation, and acquiescence factors. • The evaluation factor was a significant, positive predictor of GPA. • There was little evidence of a relation of GPA to the acquiescence factor. • Domain factor score validities were more negative than corresponding summated scale validities. • Results suggest that extraneous factor contamination can be measured and used with the modeling techniques employed here. Bifactor models were applied to the NEO-FFI-3, HEXACO PI-R, and BFI-2 questionnaires. Factor scores of factors representing the domains of the questionnaires, evaluation, and acquiescence were estimated. Simple and multiple validities of the factor scores were compared with summated scale validities. The evaluation factor was a significant predictor of GPA in all questionnaires. There was little evidence of a relation of GPA to the acquiescence factor. The validities of the domain factor scores, controlling for the evaluation and acquiescence factors, were uniformly more negative than those of corresponding summated scales. Results suggest that the evaluative contamination of Big Five and HEXACO summated scores can be isolated and used effectively with bifactor modeling techniques. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Moral character may be the most central and consequential facet of one's personality. • The measurement of moral character suffers important shortcomings. • The MCQ is a new measure of global and domain-specific facets of moral character. • The MCQ has 30 items reflecting moral cognition, motivation, emotion, and behavior. • Examining self-reports, we find the MCQ has good reliability and validity. Although moral character may be the most central and consequential facet of one's personality, existing measures are few and suffer from shortcomings. We present the Moral Character Questionnaire (MCQ) to focus primarily on global moral character and secondarily on six moral domains – Honesty, Compassion, Fairness, Loyalty, Respect, and Purity. All subscales assess core components of personality dispositions, including behavior, motivation, cognition, and identity. Across 14 samples and >13,000 participants, MCQ subscales are generally unidimensional, have good-to-strong reliability, and are temporally stable. Based upon hypotheses regarding 21 criterion measures, analyses reveal strong convergent/discriminant validity. Finally, we found connections between the MCQ scales and core personality traits. The MCQ is an efficient and psychometrically strong measure grounded in contemporary personality theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]