ROLE OF BEHAVIORALLY DESCRIPTIVE ADJECTIVES IN DESCRIPTION OF PERSONALITY

Behaviorally descriptive adjectives and personality trait terms have b een analyzed periodically by many psychological researchers and practi tioners during the last half of this century. This analysis of persona lity-descriptive adjectives and terms has led to the development of se veral widely used adjective checklists for personality assessment and the postulation and the construct validation of several personality mo dels. Foremost among the adjective checklists have been the 1948 Activ ity Vector Analysis (AVA), the 1950 Adjective Check List (ACL), and th e more recent Personality Adjective Check List (PACL) in 1987. The fir st descriptions and reports of their developmental and validation rese arch appeared in the professional refereed literature, respectively by Clarke in 1956, Gough in 1960, and Strack in 1987. The ACL contains 3 00 adjectives, various forms of the AVA contain 81 to 87 adjectives, a nd the PACL contains 153 adjectives. The dimensionality of personality models and the number of scales interpreted in the protocols from the se instruments have either remained stable as in the case of AVA (4 di mensions, 6 scales) or have been quite variable over time. For example , the ACL was originally 5-dimensional with 6 scales being interpreted . Currently, the ACL yields 37 interpretable scales, and the PACL perh aps a 5-factor structure.