A PSYCHO-LEXICAL STUDY OF PERSONALITY TRAIT WORDS

要旨

1) About 6, 000 personality trait words were collected from a standard Japanese dictionary (Meikai Kokugo Jiten, 88th ed.), 217 students' free descriptions of other persons and 43 students' free descriptions of themselves. Of these words, 517 were classified by more than four of the six raters into the category corresponding to the first category (generalized and personalized determining tendencies-consistent and stable modes of an individual's adjustment to his environment) of Allport and Odbert's study in 1936.2) Out of these 517 words, 455 were rated concerning personal desirability by 100 male college students and by 100 male adults from 40 to 49 years old. The results were compared between two groups in the medians and quartile-ranges. The comparisons showed wider ranges of the student group in the rating of individual words than those of the adult group, and a stronger tendency of the student group to use the rating points around the neutral point of these scales. These differences seem to reflect generation gaps.3) Personality trait words were analyzed also from their frequencies of uses to describe other persons. A group of the most frequent 127 words were determined by a criterion that the words were selected by at least five members of each of two groups of 139 and 78 students.4) On the basis of their meanings, the 455 words, were classified into 10 categories.

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