Instincts and personality

In this study we investigate the usefulness of the instinct-conception for personality trait-research. Of particular interest is the effectiveness-con notation of instincts for personality conceptualizations. In its kind, the study forms an indirect test of the so-called psycholexical approach and it s main result, the Big Five personality trait factors. For this, 14,046 ins tinct-expressions, collected by Bernard (1924) are taken as the starting-po int. This large list of instincts is treated according to psycholexical pri nciples, namely by classifying the most relevant instinct-expressions into the recently developed AB5C representation of the Big Five framework. The c lassification was performed through both primary and secondary factor pole identifications of each instinct-expression and for each Big Five factor. T he majority of the personality-relevant instinct terms could be classified in the Big Five system, thus supporting the inclusive potential of the sema ntics of the Big Five, (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.