Words Don't Come Easy: How Lexical Difficulty of Items and Vocabulary of Subjects (Not) Affect Personality Assessment.
Personality is commonly assessed using self-report scales comprising short personality-descriptive statements or adjectives. However, whether respondents understand these items receives little empirical attention. Across three studies, we investigated how vocabulary and lexical difficulty affect per...
| Publicado en: | Journal of Personality & Social Psychology Vol. 129; no. 5; pp. 910 - 933 |
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| Autores principales: | , , |
| Formato: | Artículo |
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American Psychological Association
Nov2025
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| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ssf&AN=188428150&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: ssf uiTerm: 188428150 longDbName: Social Sciences Full Text (H.W. Wilson) uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 00223514 JSS jtl: Journal of Personality & Social Psychology issn: 00223514 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Nov2025 vid: 129 iid: 5 pid: 34 pub: American Psychological Association artinfo: ui: 188428150 10.1037/pspp0000572 ppf: 910 ppct: 23 formats: tig: atl: Words Don't Come Easy: How Lexical Difficulty of Items and Vocabulary of Subjects (Not) Affect Personality Assessment. aug: au: Altgassen, Elisa Schittenhelm, Catherine Wilhelm, Oliver affil: Department for Individual Differences and Psychological Assessment, Ulm University Department for Digitalisation in Pedagogical Fields of Action, University of Münster su: Personality assessment Vocabulary Five-factor model of personality Analysis of variance Linguistic complexity Self-report inventories Lexical access Statistical bias sug: subj: Personality assessment Vocabulary Five-factor model of personality Analysis of variance Linguistic complexity Self-report inventories Lexical access Statistical bias keyword: Big Five measurement invariance personality assessment response behavior vocabulary Big Five measurement invariance personality assessment response behavior vocabulary ab: Personality is commonly assessed using self-report scales comprising short personality-descriptive statements or adjectives. However, whether respondents understand these items receives little empirical attention. Across three studies, we investigated how vocabulary and lexical difficulty affect personality assessment. In Study 1 (n = 915), we compiled a broad pool of personality-descriptive adjectives and assessed their lexical difficulty via a multiple-choice vocabulary test. Based on this, we created adjective sets for each Big Five dimension with varying lexical difficulties. In Study 2 (n = 1,106), a significant portion of respondents failed to choose the correct definition for harder adjectives. Personality ratings showed that hard adjectives formed separate factors within each Big Five dimension. These factors showed low convergence with established personality items or easy adjectives, indicating they may reflect something other than the intended traits. Using locally weighted structural equation models, we found no systematic variations in model parameters by subjects' vocabulary, but vocabulary was modestly associated with the separate factor for hard adjectives. Study 3 (n = 542) examined whether the hard adjectives tapped different trait aspects (e.g., aspects of extraversion not covered by easier adjectives) or whether their shared variance reflected systematic response tendencies. Strong correlations among hard adjectives across Big Five dimensions suggested the latter: Responses to hard adjectives likely reflect acquiescence rather than trait-specific variance. Overall, our findings highlight lexical difficulty as a key item characteristic that can introduce systematic bias. When participants lack the vocabulary to understand items, measures may capture erroneous interpretations, contaminating latent personality factors. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: N holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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