| Research Abstract |
Recent lexical studies of traits in English and other European languages, have consistently found 5 robust factors (Big Five). However, we don't have yet emic studies but only etic ones in Japan. So, we examined whether or not the same 5 factors could be confirmed in Japanese lexical studies.
Twenty-three psychologists including graduate students collected personality descriptive words from the Kojien (5^<th> ed., 1998), the most authorized dictionary in Japan. There 13,198 personality words (the 1^<st> database) were found. Then, 18 psychologists rated currency of the words by a 3-point scale and 11,145 words (the 2^<nd> database) were selected as understandable (mean ratings over 1.5) ; these include 8,134 nouns, 1,099 verbs, 646 adjectives, 77 adverbs, 4 rentaishi (adjectival words), and 1,185 idiomatic phrases. Next, 3,779 words (the 3^<rd> database) were selected, based on the mean ratings over 2.5 on currency, clarity, and utility as ordinarily used. We also have got 400 popular words, rated as 3 on each scale by each rater. So, we asked 490 student subjects to rate themselves on these 400 word items. Factor-analysis of the ratings yielded 11 factors ; i.e. irritability, sociability, malignity, self-centeredness, social maturity, shyness, eccentricity, persistence, dullness, genuineness, and optimism. These factors seem to share little features with the Big Five. This may mean that indigenous factors of the personality descriptors in Japanese are somewhat different from those in English (Big Five), or that non-trait words (representing temporal states etc.) contaminated the result.
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