In Study 1, university students rated the 300 items of the Adjective Check List for "psychological importance. " Adjectives representing the factors Extraversion (E) and Agreeableness (A) were judged more important than adjectives representing Emotional Stability (S), Conscientiousness (C), and Openness (0). In Study 2, graduate faculty members rated hypothetical applicants described with adjectives representing different combinations of the five factors. Contrary to predictions, applicants described with E and A adjectives were viewed less positively than applicants described with C and 0 adjectives, who were not viewed differently from applicants described by all five factors. In Study 3, university students rated the 300 adjectives for psychological importance in one of two contexts: working relationships or personal relationships. The results suggested that the unexpected results of Study 2 were obtained because the graduate faculty members viewed the applicants in the context of working rather than personal relationships.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Allport, G. W. (1937). Personality: A psychological interpretation. New York: Holt.
2.
Asch, S. E. (1946). Forming impressions of personality. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 41, 258-290.
3.
Barrick, M. R. , & Mount, M. K. (1991). The Big Five personality dimensions and job performance: A meta-analysis. Personnel Psychology, 44, 1-26.
4.
Best, D. L. , Williams, J. E., & Briggs, S. R. (1980). A further analysis of the affective meanings associated with male and female sex-trait stereotypes. Sex Roles, 6, 735-746.
5.
Borkenau, P. , & Ostendorf, F. (1989). Descriptive consistency and social desirability in self- and peer reports. European Journal of Personality, 3, 31-45.
6.
Briggs, S. R. (1989). The optimal level of measurement for personality constructs. In D. M. Buss & N. Cantor (Eds.), Personality psychology: Recent trends and emerging directions. New York: Springer.
7.
Buss, D. M. (1991). Conflict in married couples: Personality predictors of anger and upset. Journal of Personality, 59, 663-688.
8.
Cattell, R. B. (1930). Personality: A systematic theoretical and factual study. New York: McGraw-Hill.
9.
Digman, J. M. (1990). Personality structure: Emergence of the five-factor model. Annual Review of Psychology, 41, 417-440.
10.
Digman, J. M. , & Inouye, J. (1986). Further specification of the five robust factors of personality. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 50, 116-123.
11.
Digman, J. M. , & Takemoto-Chock, N. K. (1981). Factors in the natural language of personality: Re-analysis, comparison and interpretation of six major studies. Multivariate Behavioral Research, 16, 149-170.
12.
Fiske, D. W. (1949). Consistency of the factorial structures of personality ratings from different sources. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 48, 329-344.
13.
Goldberg, L. R. (1980, April). Some ruminations about the structure of individual differences: Developing a common lexicon for the major characteristics of human personality. Paper presented at the annual convention of the Western Psychological Association, Honolulu.
14.
Gough, H. G. , & Heilbrun, A. B. (1980). The Adjective Check List manualPalo Alto, CA: Consulting Psychologists Press.
15.
Hamilton, D. L. (198 1). Organizational processes in impression formation. In E. T. Higgins, C. P. Herman, & M. P. Zanna (Eds.), Social cognition: The Ontario Symposium (Vol. 1, pp. 135-160). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
16.
Isaka, H. (1990). Factor analysis of trait terms in everyday Japanese language. Personality and Individual Differences, 11, 115-124.
17.
John, O. P. (1989). Towards a taxonomy of personality descriptors. In D. M. Buss & N. Cantor (Eds.), Personality psychology: Recent trends and emerging directions (pp. 261-271). New York: Springer-Verlag.
18.
John, O. P. (1990). The "Big Five" factor taxonomy: Dimensions of personality in the natural language and in questionnaires. In L. A. Pervin (Ed.), Handbook of personality theory and research (pp. 66-100). New York: Guilford.
19.
John, O. P. , Caspi, A., Robins, R. W., Moffitt, T. E., & Stouthamer-Loeber, M. (1994). The "Little Five": Explaining the nomological network of the five factor model of personality in adolescent boys. Child Development, 65, 160-178.
20.
John, O. P. , Goldberg, L. R., & Angleitner, A. (1984). Better than the alphabet: Taxonomies of personality-descriptive terms in English, Dutch, and German. In H. Bonarius, G. van Heck, & N. Smid (Eds.), Personality psychology in Europe: Theoretical and empirical developments. Berwyn, PA: Swets North America.
21.
Keppel, G. (1991). Design and analysis: A researcher's handbook (3rd ed.). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
22.
McCrae, R. R. , & Costa, P. T. (1985a). Openness to experience. In R. Hogan & W. H. Jones (Eds.), Perspectives in personality (Vol. 1, pp. 145-172). Greenwich, CT: JAI.
23.
McCrae, R. R. , & Costa, P. T. (1985b). Updating Norman's "adequate taxonomy": Intelligence and personality dimensions in natural language and in questionnaires. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 49, 710-721.
24.
McCrae, R. R. , & Costa, P. T. (1989). More reasons to adopt the five-factor model. American Psychologist, 2, 452-453.
25.
McCrae, R. R. , Costa, P. T., & Busch, C. M. (1986). Evaluating comprehensiveness in personality systems: The California Q-Set and the five-factor model. Journal of Personality, 54, 430-446.
26.
McCrae, R. R. , & John, O. P. (1992). An introduction to the five-factor model and its applications. Journal of Personality, 60, 175-215.
27.
Munick, M. L. (1992). The influence of the "Big Five" personality factors on impression formation and evaluative judgments. Unpublished master's thesis, Wake Forest University.
28.
Norman, W. T. (1963). Toward an adequate taxonomy of personality attributes: Replicated factor structure in peer nomination personality ratings. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 66, 574-583.
29.
Rassini, F. T. , & Norman, W. T. (1966). A universal conception of personality structure?Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 4, 44-49.
30.
Peabody, D. , & Goldberg, L. R. (1989). Some determinants of factor structures from personality-trait descriptors. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 57, 552-567.
31.
Piedmont, R. L. , McCrae, R. R., & Costa, P. T. (1991). Adjective Check List scales and the five-factor model. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 60, 630-637.
32.
Srull, T. K. , & Wyer, R. S., Jr. (1989). Person memory and judgment. Psychological Review, 96, 58-83.
33.
Tupes, E. C. , & Christal, R. E. (1961). Recurrent personality factors based on trait ratings (USAF Aeronautical Systems Division Tech. Rep. No. 61-97). Lackland Air Force Base, TX: U.S. Air Force.
34.
Williams, J. E. , & Best, D. L. (1977) . Sex stereotypes and trait favorability on the Adjective Check List. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 37, 101-110.
