2800 PERSONALITY TRAIT DESCRIPTORS--NORMATIVE OPERATING CHARACTERISTICS ...

285 Pages·2007·11.68 MB·English

REPORT RESUMES
ED 014 738 CO 000 472
2800 PERSONALITY TRAIT DESCRIPTGIS-NORMATIVE OPERATING
CHARACTERISTICS FOR A UNIVERSITY POPULATION.
BY- NORMAN, WARREN T.
MICHIGAN UNIV., ANN ARBOR,COLL.OF LIT.,SCI.,ARTS
REPORT NUMBER UM-00310-1-T PUB DATE APR 67
EDRS PRICE MF-41.25 HC- $11.20 278P.
DESCRIPTORS- *TAXONOMY, *DATA ANALYSIS, *INDIVIDUAL
CHARACTERISTICS, *PERSONALITY, COLLEGE STUDENTS,
LEXICOGRAPHY, TEST CONSTRUCTION, ITEM ANALYSIS, ALLPORT
ODBERT LIST OF 'TRAIT NAMES",
ALL TERMS IN CONTEMPORARY 'MERICAN ENGLISH WHICH PERTAIN
TO ASPECTS OF HUMAN BEHAVIOR OR PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS WERE
ASSEMN.ED FROM AVAILABLE LEXICONS. THESE TERMS WERE
CATEGORIZED INTO 15 RUBRICS ON THE BASIS OF JUDGMENTS OF
THEIR FAMILIARITY, SPECIFICITY, AND CERTAIN BROAD SEMANTIC
CRITERIA. SOME 2,800 TERMS WERE IDENTIFIED WHICH SEEMINGLY
REFERRED TO RELATIVELY STABLE AND SPECIFIC "BIOPHYSICAL"
TRAITS OF INDIVIDUALS. THESE WORDS WERE PRESENTED TO GROUPS
OF UNIVERSITY UNDERGRADUATES TO DETERMINE FAMILIARITY LEVELS,
SPECIFICITY OF CONNOTATIVE MEANING, AND A VARIETY OF
PSYCHOMETRIC OPERATING CHARACTERISTICS (E.G., ENDORSEMENT
RATES FOR SELF AND FOR OTHERS, DESIRABILITY, ETC.). RESULTS
OF THE ANALYSIS OF THESE DATA ARE PRESENTED AND SOME OF THEIR
POTENTIAL USES FOR TEST DEVELOPMENT AND PERSONALITY
DESCRIPTION ARE SUGGESTED. ADDITIONAL ANALYSES CURRENTLY IN
PROGRESS DIRECTED TOWARD FURTHER REFINEMENT OF THE SET AND
THE. DEVELOPMENT OF A STRUCTURED TAXONOMY BASED ON THESE
DESCRIPTORS ARE BRIEFLY OUTLINED. (AUTHOR)
08310-14
THE UNIVERSITY 0 4 MICH GA
(
re,
COLLEGE OF LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND THE ARTS
DEPARTMENT OF PSYCHOLOGY
CZ)
CD
2800 Person-;Le Trait Descriptors:
Normative Operating Characteristics
for a University Population
WARREN T. NORMAN
Supported by:
/National Institute of Mental Health
Grant Number MH.07195
Administered through:- April 1967
qt.
OFFICE OF R .SEARCH ,'ADMINISTRATION ANN ARBOR
CG 000 472
Revised Errata Sheet for Norman, W. T.
2800 Personality Trait
Descriptors: Normative Operating Characteristics
for a
University Population.
A. Table 1, Pages 7-13:
Category 3, N = 1645
9.08%
Category t. N = 765
4.22%
Category 5, N = 583
3.22%
Category 7, N = 1655
9.13%
Category 8, N = 242
1.34%
Category 12, V = 760
4.19%
Category 14, N = 4796
26.46%
Category 15, N = 3606
19.89%
And the footnote to Table l should read:
Total N = 18,125 of which 17,954 are from the Allport and Odbert
Monograph and 171 are additions from Webster's Third New Inter-
national Dictionary.
B. AMTEWLSLII :2 0-1:
The "CAT" number for the term CONVENTIONAL
which appeared in
FORM 12 should be "1" instead of "3".
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF
HEALTH, EDUCATION & WELFARE
OFFICE OF EDUCATION
THIS DOCUMENT HAS BEEN
REPRODUCED EXACTLY AS RECEIVED FROM THE
PERSON OR ORGANIZATION
ORIGINATING IT. POINTS OF VIEW OR OPINIONS
STATED DO NOT NECESSARILY
REPRESENT OFFICIAL OffICE Of EDUCATION
POSITION OR POLICY.
The University of Michigan
Department of Psychology
2800 PERSONALITY TRAIT DESCRIPTORS:
NORMATIVE °PI?Arrkiry CHARACTERISTICS
FOR 131171.7EP.SITv POPULATION
by
Warren T. Norman
April 1967
Supported by the National Institute of Mental Health
Grant Number MR 07195
Abstract
All terms in contemporary American English which pertain to aspects
of human behavior or personal characteristics were assembled from available
lexicons. These terms were categorized into 15 rubrics on the basis of
judgments of their familiarity, specificity, and certain broad semantic
criteria.
Some 2,800 terms were identified which seemingly referred to
relatively stable and specific "biophysical" traits of individuals. These
words were presented to groups of university undergraduates to determine
familiarity levels, specificity of connotative meaning, and a variety of
psychometric operating characteristics (e.g., endorsement rates for self
and for others, desirability, etc.). Results of the analysis of these data
are presented and some of their potential uses for test development and
personality description are suggested. Additional analyses currently in
progress directed toward further refinement of the set and the development
of a structured taxonomy based on these descriptors are briefly outlined.
2800 PERSONALITY TRAIT DESCRIPTORS:
NORMATIVE 0"ERATING CHARACTERISTICS
FOR A UNIVERSITY POPULATION1
Warren T. Norman
Department of Psychology
University of Michigan
This report summarize,,s
borne ',Lel i.minary work carried uut on a project
whose ultimate aim is the development of a well-structured
taxonomy of
personality descriptive terms.
The motivations for this effort are the needs
that exist in theoretical
and applied research contexts for a means of
describing
persons in terms of their characteristic traits,
dispositions or
styles of behavior; for
obtaining assessments of such attributes to whatever
degree of precision and specificity
is required; and for providing mechanisms
for communicating such information in a precise and unambiguous furm.
The
basic commitment which
underlies this research effort is that the eventual
construction of
more effective theories of the development, structure, and
functioning of personality and the formulation of more adequate proceduzes
for the selection, classification,
and evaluation of personnel will be facili-
tated by having available
a well-organized, and extensive vocabulary by means
of which to denote phenotypic attributes of persons.
It is also assumed that
the eventual development of psychometrically adequate methods and devices for
the assessment of personality characteristics
will be markedly aided by the
availability of a comprehensive and clearly
articulated taxonomy of trait
descriptive terms.
2
This taxonomy is to be sufficiently exhaustive, precise, and well-
structured to be useful for purposes of scientific communication and assessment.
The senses in which the terms "exhaustive," "precise," and "well-structured"
are here used deserve some additional comment. This attempt to construct a
taxonomy of personality characteristics is to be exhaustive in the sense that
it takes as its fundamental data base the set of all perceptible variations in
performance and appearance between persons or within individual& over time and
varying situations that are of sufficient social significance, of sufficiently
widespread
occurrence., and of sufficienb distinctiveness to have been encoded
and retained as a subset of descriptive predicates i.. the natural language during
the course of its development, growth, and refinement.
The taxonomy is to be precise in two senses.
First, terms are to be
excluded whose meanings are grossly vague or ambiguous; whether by virtue of the
existence of well-known but distinct and alternative usages for a given ortho-
graphic form, because the meaning derives from some obscure and generally unknown
historical, literary
or dialectic source, or because the term refers to a
compound or broad composite of more primary and separately distinguishable
attributes. And secondly, precision is to be sought by organizing the
terms
retained into subsets narrowly defined by a conjunction of criteria including
judged similarity of meaning and such empirical operating characteristics of
the terms
as their rated desirabilities, endorsement probabilities, difficulty
level, etc. as determined (eventually) on a variety of subpopulations.
Finally, the taxonomy is to be well-structured not just in the sense
implied by the groupings mentioned above, but also in the sense that relations
3
between
groups of terms are to be determined. It seems likely that several
alternative structurings based on different sets of criteria and, perhaps,
different kinds of relational
calculi may ultimately be required. However,
whatever the form and
complexity, the taxonomy is to be eventually organized
or articulated rather than left
as a mere collection of distinct subsets of
functionally
synonymous descriptors.
Procedures
The sequence of procedures
that we have employed during the initial part
of the research program ib 1.-ief1y outlined below.
Phase 1: Construction of the Master Pool.
The initial pool of terms
considered was the set of 17,954 "Trait-Names"
drawn from the 1925 unabridged
edition of Uebster's New Internationdi
Dictionary, and listed by Allport and
Odbert (1936). Each term in this list together with
a code number was punched
into (and printed on) a separate IBM card for subsequent handling.
In addition
the entire
contents of Webster's Third New International Dictionary,
Unabridged
(1961)
was scanned and all terms which pertained in any manner to attributes
of persons or their behavior but which were not included in the Allport-Odbert
list were recorded. In the course of this effort notations
were made of all
terms listed by Allport and Odbert which
have been dropped from the Third
International and
any relevant grammatical, prefixal, or suffixal forms of
2
terms not included in the Allport-Odbert pool were also added.
By rough estimate it
appears that the total pool comprising both the
total Allport-Odbert list and
all potential additions from Webster's Third
4
numbers nearly 40,000 terms or roughly 10% of the total number of entries in
the latter source. A systematic search for additional terms (e.g., from
compendia of slang or from technical jargons) has been deferred at this point,
and possibly indefinitely, both because of the low likelihood of uncovering
additional useful terms and because of the more pressing need to begin simpli-
fying and imposing some order on the materials available from the sources
already mentioned.
Phase 2: Initial Culling of the Master Pool. While it is not possible
in general to draw hard and fast distinctions between classes of terms which
are vague or ambiguous in their semantic reference r.nd filose that are not,
still the differences in degree of openness of meaning that do exist did provide
a basis for an initial, gross refinement of the pool on judgmental grounds.
For instance, a rather large number of terms in the Allport-Odbert list
(as well
as many potential additions from Webster's Third) are quite clearly so
seldom used in contemporary discourse, pertain to such obscure literary,
historical, or mythological referents, or derive from such archaic or little
known dialects, that to include them as descriptive predicates in a contemporary
scientific vocabulary would make such a compendium virtually useless for its
intended purposes.
In the second place, many terms (including more than a few of those just
alluded to) refer to such broad and loosely related classes of attributes or
behaviors or entail the use of such extended and nebulous metaphors and analogies
to make their relevance to personal characteristics at all clear, that they are
also best excluded from further consideration at the outset.
5
Third, there exists a large class of terms which denote variously
anatomical or physiognomic characteristics, medical or physiological symptoms,
merely physical aspects of behavior, movements, or location, or of appearance,
grooming, and dress. While some of these attributes might conceivably have
important implications for personality development and functioning, the
implications would ordinarily be indirect and so highly contingent upon historical
and current situational conditions that such relations were judged to be best left
as matters for subsequent experimental study.
Fourth, and finally, the natural lAngttazz. (at least, contemporary American
English) is loaded with terms whose connotations are either purely evaluative
(honorific or pejorative) or which are merely quantifiers of degree' or amount
for whatever substantive term they are coupled with. Such terms convey almost
exclusively some degree of social or personal approval or disapproval; that is,
without any indications as to what attributes or characteristics of the person
the valuation accrues. There is no implication here that other terms are value-
neutral; only that whatever the evaluative loadings or valences of these remaining
terms may be, they also have connotations that refer to specific attributes or
traits of the person.
These four bases for excluding terms were applied initially to the terms in
the Allport-Odbert list. To qualify for exclusion on one or another of these
bases, a term had to be initially so-categorized by one member of the research
staff and subsequently agreed to by at least two of the three others. Doubtful
terms or those for which disagreements could not be resolved were retained for
further consideration.