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Dimensions of Personality and Meaning
Author(s) -
HALLWORTH H. J.
Publication year - 1965
Publication title -
british journal of social and clinical psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.479
H-Index - 92
eISSN - 2044-8260
pISSN - 0007-1293
DOI - 10.1111/j.2044-8260.1965.tb00458.x
Subject(s) - varimax rotation , semantic differential , psychology , personality , meaning (existential) , extraversion and introversion , context (archaeology) , social psychology , developmental psychology , big five personality traits , psychometrics , psychotherapist , paleontology , cronbach's alpha , biology
Research in the field of personality assessment has established two main dimensions, referred to as ‘emotional stability’ and ‘introversion’. Osgood's work with the semantic differential has established three dimensions of meaning: evaluation, activity and potency. Analyses of teachers' personality ratings of their pupils led to the hypothesis that these two sets of dimensions are part of the same universe. An experiment was devised to test this hypothesis within a specific social context: teachers made personality ratings and applied semantic differential scales to 200 secondary school boys. The measures were correlated, a principal components analysis was obtained, and the axes were rotated to the Varimax criterion. An examination of the Varimax factors showed that, in general, the hypothesis was substantiated.