People–things and data–ideas: Bipolar dimensions?

Abstract

We examined a longstanding assumption in vocational psychology that people-things and data-ideas are bipolar dimensions. Two minimal criteria for bipolarity were proposed and examined across 3 studies: (a) The correlation between opposite interest types should be negative; (b) after correcting for systematic responding, the correlation should be greater than -.40. In Study 1, a meta-analysis using 26 interest inventories with a sample size of 1,008,253 participants showed that meta-analytic correlations between opposite RIASEC (realistic, investigative, artistic, social, enterprising, conventional) types ranged from -.03 to .18 (corrected meta-analytic correlations ranged from -.23 to -.06). In Study 2, structural equation models (SEMs) were fit to the Interest Finder (IF; Wall, Wise, & Baker, 1996) and the Interest Profiler (IP; Rounds, Smith, Hubert, Lewis, & Rivkin, 1999) with sample sizes of 13,939 and 1,061, respectively. The correlations of opposite RIASEC types were positive, ranging from .17 to .53. No corrected correlation met the criterion of -.40 except for investigative-enterprising (r = -.67). Nevertheless, a direct estimate of the correlation between data-ideas end poles using targeted factor rotation did not reveal bipolarity. Furthermore, bipolar SEMs fit substantially worse than a multiple-factor representation of vocational interests. In Study 3, a two-way clustering solution on IF and IP respondents and items revealed a substantial number of individuals with interests in both people and things. We discuss key theoretical, methodological, and practical implications such as the structure of vocational interests, interpretation and scoring of interest measures for career counseling, and expert RIASEC ratings of occupations.

Culture and vocational interests: The moderating role of collectivism and gender egalitarianism.

“…The negative relationship between neuroticism and conscientiousness also matches the size and direction of relationships in existing literature (e.g., Beckmann, Wood, & Minbashian, 2010;Lee, Kelly, & Edwards, 2006). The intercorrelations between interests in this study were around .10 lower than found in other past research (Tay, Su, & Rounds, 2011.) The lower intercorrelations may be due to the ipsative nature of the interest measures.…”

Engineering Students' Beliefs About Research: Sex Differences, Personality, and Career Plans

“…We hypothesized that personality or individual difference variables may be partially responsible and interact with these sex differences. We focused on the individual's level of orientation toward both persons and things in their environments (Person-Thing Orientation: Graziano, Habashi, & Woodcock., 2011;Lippa, 1998;Little, 1968;Tay et al, 2011). We found that women engineering majors were on average lower in Thing Orientation than men, and that Thing Orientation was a significant predictor of intention to pursue a research-oriented engineering career for women.…”

“…The bivariate correlation of Person and Thing Orientations in our sample indicated that they are independent constructs (r ϭ Ϫ.06, residual r ϭ .19). Once the common variance is removed, a negative residual correlation of the magnitude of r > .40 would be expected for constructs that are ends of a bipolar continuum (Tay et al, 2011). Preliminary analyses of undergraduate involvement in research and intention to pursue a research career across the three STEM disciplines in our study revealed that students in Life Sciences (M ϭ 3.82 on a 1-5 scale) and Psychological Sciences (M ϭ 3.52) were significantly more likely than those in engineering (M ϭ 2.95) to participate in research as undergraduates.…”

“…Lippa's (1982) structure describes Person and Thing Orientation as opposite ends of a single continuum and places "Person" people and "Thing" people as opposite orientations-flip sides of the same coin. However, there is mounting empirical evidence supporting Person and Thing Orientations as independent constructs, not opposing orientations (see Graziano, Habashi, & Woodcock, 2011;Little, 1974;Tay, Su, & Rounds, 2011;Woodcock, Graziano, Branch, Ngambeki, & Evangelou, in press). If Person and Thing Orientations are independent constructs it follows that their measures would be largely uncorrelated, and that individuals possess a specific level of interest in or orientation toward both people and things.…”

STEM Education

“…Research shows that interest in STEM is highly responsive to environmental influences (Cheryan et al 2009, 2011; Murphy et al 2007; Stout et al 2011). Questions have also been raised concerning the validity and reliability of measures commonly used in this line of research, such as the person-thing construct and similar bipolar interest scales (e.g., data-ideas) (Tay et al 2011; Valian 2014). Further, although gender differences in work-life preferences are pervasive, they do not explain gender gaps in STEM interest or participation (Xie & Shauman 2003; Frome et al 2006, 2008; Cech et al 2011; Riegle-Crumb et al 2012; Perez-Felkner et al 2012; Morgan et al 2013; Mann & DiPrete 2013).…”