The availability of personality traits in the hierarchical structure: An exploration of the "basic level".

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  • Yamaguchi Akihiro
    Department of Educational Psychology, Faculty of Education, The University
  • Hisano Masaki
    Department of Educational Psychology, Faculty of Education, The University

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Other Title
  • 階層構造から見た性格特性語の有用性について　基礎レベルの探索
  • カイソウ コウゾウ カラ ミタ セイカク トクセイゴ ノ ユウヨウセイ ニ ツ
  • An exploration of the “basic level”
  • 基礎レベルの探索

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Description

Personality traits have a structure that is hierarchically organized in terms of trait abstractness. Which level of the hierarchy is most available to the person perceiver? We started out with four levels, and tried to determine which was most available and therefore became the “basic level”, as in the Rosch, Mervis, Gray, Johnson, and Boyes-Braem's natural categories (1976). Two methods were employed. First, rating of trait descriptiveness showed that information effectiveness was relatively high at the second level from the top. Second, subjects preferred the same level when they described target persons. These results suggested that a “basic level” indeed existed in the hierarchy of personality traits. However, social desirability of traits and who the target person was also affected the results. Implications are discussed about theories of cognitive style, especially cognitive complexity, which assume the generality of our cognitive system and have been in confusion with contradictory findings.

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