Taxonomy and structure of Hungarian personality traits

Abstract

This study reports on the application of the principles of the lexical approach to a non‐Indo‐European language, namely Hungarian. This language is a Uralic island surrounded on all sides by Indo‐European languages. In addition, the Hungarians are, in terms of cultural features, Europeans. These conditions provide a great opportunity for a crucial test case of the lexical approach to personality. Study 1 reports on the different phases of the selection of the trait terms from the Hungarian lexicon, a categorization into kinds of personality‐relevant terms, a comparison of the category findings with those of other languages, and on indices of relevance of the personality terms. Of the total number of 8738 personality‐relevant terms, 3914 adjectives were used for Study 2. In that study, personality descriptiveness ratings were obtained from a group of judges (N = 5). On the basis of these ratings, a manageable set of 624 adjectives was selected for a rating task. Four hundred subjects provided self‐ratings on the 624 adjectives. On the basis of the means and standard deviations of the ratings, the set of 624 was further reduced to 561 adjectives. On ipsatized data, principal components analyses were performed. Both a four‐factor solution and a five‐factor solution, which were Varimax‐rotated, are presented. The correspondence of these factors to the traditional Big Five factors is discussed.

Psychometric properties and comparison of different techniques for factor analysis on the Big Five Inventory from a Flemish sample

“…We used factor analysis with principal component extraction and varimax rotation as is customary for validating the Big Five Inventory (Benet-Martinez & John, 1998;Denissen et al, 2008;Lang, Lüdtke, & Asendorpf, 2001;Plaisant, Courtois, Réveillère, Mendelsohn, & John, 2010;Szirmák & De Raad, 1994). Orthogonal rotations such as the varimax rotation are used when the factors are supposed to be uncorrelated or have low interfactor correlations.…”

Lexical Studies of Indigenous Personality Factors: Premises, Products, and Prospects

“…In the five-factor solution, the Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Masculinity/ Emotional Stability factors remained much the same, whereas instead of Conscientiousness/Precision there was a Methodical Intellect factor and a second factor (also related to Conscientiousness) emphasizing Dependability; by loose standards, this solution resembles the AGB5. The six-factor solution produced a factor labeled Truthfulness that the investigators judged to be similar to the Integrity factor identified in Hungarian (Szirmák & De Raad, 1994). The investigators concluded that the Korean personality factors were quite similar to the Big Five, but clearly there were many divergences from the AGB5, both with respect to the axis locations of several factors and to the blends of clusters in Figure 1.…”

“…However, in both Italian studies, Agreeableness split into two distinct factors: One factor (Altruism, Tender-mindedness) included the Warmth, Generosity, and Integrity/ Sincerity clusters from Figure 1, and the other ("Quietness") included the Humility, Gentleness, and (reversed) Irritability clusters. Szirmák and De Raad (1994) reported the findings from lexical studies in Hungarian, a Finno-Ugric language. Over 8,000 person descriptors were extracted from dictionaries.…”

How universal is the Big Five? Testing the five-factor model of personality variation among forager–farmers in the Bolivian Amazon.

“…Among emic studies, an Openness factor is not consistently extracted (De Raad, 1994; Di Blas & Forzi, 1998; Szirmák & De Raad, 1994). Furthermore, several emic studies have consistently yielded more than five factors (Almagor, Tellegen, & Waller, 1995; Benet-Martínez & Waller, 1997).…”