In personality psychology, the lexical hypothesis (also known as the fundamental lexical hypothesis, lexical approach, or sedimentation hypothesis) generally includes two postulates:1. Those personality characteristics that are important to a group of people will eventually become a part of that group's language.and that therefore:2. More important personality characteristics are more likely to be encoded into language as a single word.With origins during the late 19th century, use of the lexical hypothesis began to flourish in English and German psychology during the early 20th century. The lexical hypothesis is a major basis for the study of the Big Five personality traits, the HEXACO model of personality structure and the 16PF Questionnaire and has been used to study the structure of personality traits in a number of cultural and linguistic settings.
History
Early estimates
Sir Francis Galton was one of the first scientists to apply the lexical hypothesis to the study of personality, stating:
I tried to gain an idea of the number of the more conspicuous aspects of the character by counting in an appropriate dictionary the words used to express them... I examined many pages of its index here and there as samples of the whole, and estimated that it contained fully one thousand words expressive of character, each of which has a separate shade of meaning, while each shares a large part of its meaning with some of the rest. Despite Galton's early ventures into the lexical study of personality, more than two decades passed before English-language scholars continued his work. A 1910 study by George E. Partridge listed approximately 750 English adjectives used to describe mental states, while a 1926 study of Webster's New International Dictionary by M. L. Perkins provided an estimate of 3,000 such terms. These early explorations and estimates were not limited to the English-speaking world, with philosopher and psychologist Ludwig Klages stating in 1929 that the German language contains approximately 4,000 words to describe inner states.
Psycholexical studies
Allport & Odbert
Nearly half a century after Galton first investigated the lexical hypothesis, Franziska Baumgarten published the first psycholexical classification of personality-descriptive terms. Using dictionaries and characterology publications, Baumgarten identified 1,093 separate terms in the German language used for the description of personality and mental states. Although this number is similar in size to the German and English estimates offered by earlier researchers, Gordon Allport and Henry S. Odbert revealed this to be a severe underestimate in a 1936 study. Similar to the earlier work of M. L. Perkins, they used Webster's New International Dictionary as their source. From this list of approximately 400,000 words, Allport and Odbert identified 17,953 unique terms used to describe personality or behavior. This is one of the most influential psycholexical studies in the history of trait psychology. Not only was it the longest, most exhaustive list of personality-descriptive words at the time, it was also one of the earliest attempts at classifying English-language terms with the use of psychological principles. Using their list of nearly 18,000 terms, Allport and Odbert separated these into four categories or "columns":
Column I: This group contains 4,504 terms that describe or are related to personality traits. Being the most important of the four columns to Allport and Odbert and future psychologists, its terms most closely relate to those used by modern personality psychologists (e.g., aggressive, introverted, sociable). Allport and Odbert suggested that this column represented a minimum rather than final list of trait terms. Because of this, they recommended that other researchers consult the remaining three columns in their studies. Column II: In contrast with the more stable dispositions described by terms in Column I, this group includes terms describing present states, attitudes, emotions, and moods (e.g., rejoicing, frantic). As a result of this emphasis of temporary states, present participles represent the majority of the 4,541 terms in Column II. Column III: The largest of the four groups, Column III contains 5,226 words related to social evaluations of an individual person's character (e.g., worthy, insignificant). Unlike the previous two columns, this group does not refer to internal psychological attributes of a person. As such, Allport and Odbert acknowledged that Column III did not meet their definition of trait-related terms. Predating the person-situation debate by more than 30 years, Allport and Odbert included this group to appease researchers of social psychology, sociology, and ethics. Column IV: The last of Allport and Odbert's four columns contained 3,682 words. Termed the "miscellaneous column" by the authors, Column IV contains important personality-descriptive terms that did not seem appropriate for the other three columns. Allport and Odbert offered potential subgroups for terms describing behaviors (e.g., pampered, crazed), physical qualities associated with psychological traits (e.g., lean, roly-poly), and talents or abilities (e.g., gifted, prolific). However, they noted that these subdivisions were not necessarily accurate, as: (i) innumerable subgroups were possible, (ii) these subgroups would not incorporate all of the miscellaneous terms, and (iii) further editing might reveal that these terms could be used for the other three columns. Allport and Odbert did not present these four columns as representing orthogonal concepts. Many of their nearly 18,000 terms could have been classified differently or put into multiple categories, particularly those in Columns I and II. Although the authors attempted to remedy this with the aid of three other editors, the average degree of agreement between these independent reviewers was approximately 47%. Noting that each outside reviewer seemed to have a preferred column, the authors decided to present the classifications performed by Odbert. Rather than try to rationalize this decision, Allport and Odbert presented the results of their study as somewhat arbitrary and unfinished.
… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.
