What’s in an Adjective?

Abstract

Abstract. In this exploratory study, a group of subjects was asked to come up with visible and quantifiable behaviors tied to certain person-descriptive adjectives. Another group of subjects then rated how much different levels of the behaviors would justify the use of each adjective to describe a person, as a cross-validation. The reliability of these ratings was excellent. Associations between adjectives and “their” behaviors were very strong and largely specific. The shapes of associations were usually linear or negatively accelerated, which is highly relevant for the formal modeling of person perception processes. Researchers aiming to measure personality in terms of behavior should make more systematic use of the knowledge that competent users of the natural language already share in this regard.