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Some Verbal Problems Connected with Character Nomenclature

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 February 2018

R. C. Oldfield*
Affiliation:
Cambridge Psychological Laboratory

Extract

The problem of devising scientific means of assessing and describing the personal characteristics of an individual has been attacked along a number of lines, of which the principal, perhaps, has been the attempt to separate independent variables by the use of tests, which, it was expected, might be the subject of progressive refinement through study of the intercorrelations of scores obtained with them. So, starting with the admittedly imprecise categories of common discourse, and the adjectives commonly used in the description of individuals, it was hoped that by degrees it would be possible to disentangle the basic variables to which personality and character are subject, and to provide the means of assessing each by the use of a particular test. It can scarcely be said that these hopes have been realized. The categories in question have eluded the refining power of test score factorization.(1)

Type
Part I.—Original Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1939 

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References

References.

(1)See for example Vernon, P. E.—“The Assessment of Psychological Qualities by Verbal Methods,” I.H.R.B. Report, No. 83, 1938.Google Scholar
(2) Allport, G. W., and Odbert, H. S.—“Trait Names: a Psycho-lexical Study,” Psychol. Monog., 1936, No. 211.Google Scholar
(3) Shorter Oxford English Dictionary. Google Scholar
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