Brief Method for Assessing Social-Personal Orientation

Abstract

This srcdy reports the development of a brief measure of the construct "social-personal orientation" (SPO), defined as a tendency to define one's self-concept primarily in terms of social experiences or in rerms independent of social relntionships. Choices of "social" or "personal" terms on a 30-item adjective checklist were stable and internally consistent in three samples of college studects. Evidence on construct validity of the measure was obtained from responses of 88 males and 75 females to the Carlson Adjective Checklist and the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) . Predicted sex differences and relationships of SPO to Sensation-Intuition and Thinking-Feeling type scores on the MBTI were confirmed at the ,001 level.Among the most pervasive individual differences to be found in personality literamre is a basic difference between people who see themselves as intrinsically involved with others and those who do not. Such a. disposition to respond to the social implications of experience has been variously represented in personality theory as a trait (e.g., sociability), a need (e.g., affiliation) an erg (e.g., gregariousness), or a type (e.g., extravert); an extensive literature of methodological and substantive research attests to the ubiquity of a socialresponsiveness variable.The present study reports the development of a brief measure of the construct "social-personal orientation" as an aspect of the self-concept. Socialpersonal orientation (SPO) refers to a tendency to define one's self-concept either in terms of social relationships or in terms independent of social relationships. N o value connotations are implied by these terms: Social Orientation does not mean "other-directedness," "fitting-in," but simply means being positively oriented toward leople; Personal Orientation does not imply "selfishness" or "defensive withdrawal," but means being positively oriented toward qualities and experiences which are not primarily social. SPO may be distinguished from more inclusive, more "dynamic" formulations of a social responsiveness variable in that it ( a ) represents conscious cognitions which the person uses in organizing his experiences and ( b ) describes qualitatively whether one is socially or personally oriented, not how much or in what ways. Previous work established relationships between a questionnaire measure of SPO and indices of self-esteem, sociometric status, and parental identification in preadolescents (Carlson, 1963). Sex differences in the development and the correlates of SPO were found in a longitudinal study of adolescent development (Carlson, 1965), and later pilot investigations with adults yielded significant sex differences in SPO and relationships of SPO co Introversion-Extraversion type scores on the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator.

Self, Values, and Affects: Derivations From Tomkins' Polarity Theory1,2

“…While the results of the present studies point to generality of the humanistic-normative polarity across a variety of tasks, and across samples differing in race, sex, and geographic region, some possible limitations upon generality stemming from related work shoul.d be noted, Previous research on the dependent variables of the present study (Carlson, 1969a(Carlson, , 1969bCarlson & Levy, 1968) suggests that sex differences and race-sex interactions may be anticipated in further inquiry, Moreover, several lines of evidence suggest that the developmental level of subjects may constrain the generality of the relationships reported here, Earlier work on social-personal orientation (Carlson, 1965) suggests that sex-typed individualistic or interpersonal bases of sel.fregard do not develop until late adolescence. It is likely that stable value structures--as well as stable bases of sel.f-conception--are not established at developmental levels before late adolescence.…”

“…This hypothesis was derived from previous work on socialpersonal orientation (Carlson & Levy, 1968) indicating that socially oriented subjects are more invested in others and more attuned to emotional modes of experience, in contrast to the personally oriented SUbjects! preference for subjective and intellectual modes.…”

“…cents (Carlson) 1963)} to sex differentiation in adolescent development (Carlson, 1965)} to sex differences and to variables of Jungian typology in adults (Carlson & Levy, 1968). Thus, social-personal orientation appears to describe a coherent pattern of qualitative differences between those who see themselves as intrinsically involved with other people and those who do not.…”

“…In terms of the present formulation of polarity theory, humanistic persons should resonate more·to the "interpersonal" virtues, and normative persons to the "Lndlv Ldua.Lt.st Lc" virtues, Measures. Social-personal orientation was measured by the Carlson Adjective Checklist (Carlson & Levy, 1968). On this instrument, a subject descri.bes himself by choosing 10 terms from a set of 30 socially desirable adjectives.…”

The Measurement of Three Lifestyle Values: Resourcefulness, Responsibility and Relationships to others

“…The adjective checklist used [2,22] was an inadequate measure of these three particular constructs, however, since the adjectives had not been specifically preselected as representative of the fuzzy concepts. Indeed, it was their empirical discovery which led to the formulation of the constructs.…”