Selecting representative trait adjectives.

Abstract

A strong argument has been made for specifying the possible characteristics of personality by using trait adjectives from the natural language. This argument implies a rationale for the selection of variables to measure personality characteristics: One should select variables to be representative of trait adjectives in the natural language. In this study I argue that this rationale has never been carried through, and I make an attempt to do so. This requires defining a pool of trait adjectives, classifying them according to similarity of meaning, and selecting variables to represent this classification. Previous classifications have either led to no selection of variables or to a selection that is not representative. A pool of 571 terms was taken from three existing lists. These terms were classified into categories, and scales were selected to represent the categories. A first application of these scales was then made. Judges made ratings of similarity of meaning on 57 scales—each defined by two opposite trait-adjectives—for the corresponding 114 single terms. Factor analysis of the scales produced six factors. These showed some resemblance to the well-known Big Five factors, but with major differences. Instead of five factors of comparable size, the first three factors were predominant, representing 70% of the total variance. The Culture factor appeared as Intelligence; Emotional Stability as a small, only partly differentiated, factor. These differences may reflect both (a) differences between judgments about traits (internal structure) and judgments about people (external structure), and (b) representativeness (e.g., the previous nonrepresentation of intelligence and overrepresentation of Emotional Stability).

An Introduction to the Five‐Factor Model and Its Applications

“…Cloninger (1988), Gough (1987), andTellegen (1982) also have three-factor theories. Peabody (1987) noted that N-related trait terms are relatively rare in English, and thus that the inclusion of a separate emotional stability factor is not justified by analyses of trait adjectives. Digman (1985) suggested that there might be two higher order factors: Socialization (combining A and C with low N) and Self-Actualization (combining E, O, and low N); and Hogan (in press) stated that "these five factors can be reduced to three through higher order factor analysis.…”

Revealing dimensions of thinking in open-ended self-descriptions: An automated meaning extraction method for natural language

“…If the goal of the lexical approach to personality is to build a taxonomy of the major underlying personality dimensions, examining the words we use in everyday life to describe ourselves may be a good place to start to build a taxonomy of the major dimensions along which people think about themselves (Peabody, 1987;Tellegen, 1993). By sampling from the most frequently used adjectives in self-descriptions, we build on the capabilities of several automated language tools and principle components analysis to extract major themes in openended self-descriptions.…”

The lexical approach to personality: A historical review of trait taxonomic research

“…Peabody and Goldberg used a set of variables selected with the goal of achieving an adequate representation of common English trait adjectives (Peabody, 1987). A comparison of their selection with that of Cattell showed that Cattell's 35 variables included markers for all the domains included by Peabody and Goldberg but did so in an unrepresentative manner.…”