A Psycholexical Study of Personality Trait Structure of Hindi Speaking Indians

This study adopted a psycholexical approach to uncover the personality trait structure of Hindi speaking Indians. The endorsement for personality descriptive adjectives was obtained from young adults (n=240) using a Likert-type 5-point rating scale. The principal component analysis using varimax rotation revealed a six-factor structure comprised of (I) rajasic (passion and mobility), (II) sattvic (goodness and harmony), (III) tamasic (dullness and inertia), (IV) competence, (V) neuroticism, and (VI) extraversion. The six-factor structure of personality in Hindi language has broader psycholexical space than what is proposed in the “Big Five” personality theory. The origins of contemporary psycholexical studies are found in the classic list of personality descriptive adjectives developed by Allport and Odbert (1936). The same list has been revised, modified and supplemented by researchers in subsequent studies (e.g. Cattell, 1943; Goldberg, 1981, 1982; Norman 1967; Tupes & Christal, 1961). In the course of a span of about seven decades researchers have reported varied factor solutions (e.g. five, six, eight and sixteen). The popular view tends to suggest that across the world personality converges on a five-dimensional space (see Goldberg, 1981; John, Nauman & Soto, 2008; McCrae & Costa, 1997). The dimensions of the five-factor structure largely conceptualize the psycholexical space of personality in the Euro-American languages (e.g., Caprara & Perugini, 1994; DeRaad, 1992; DeRaad & Szirmak, 1994; Saucier, Georgiades, Taousis & Goldberg, 2005; Szarota, 1996). The questionnaire measure of five factors, popularly known as the NEO-PI-R (Costa & McCrae, 1992), has also received wide attention and has been substantiated in different cultures including Chinese (e.g., McCrae, Costa, & Yik, 1996), French (McCrae, Costa, del Pilar, Rolland, & Parker, 1998), Greek (Tsaousis, 1999), and Russian (Martin, Oryol, Rukavishnikov, & Senin, 2000) cultures. Nonetheless an inconsistent pattern in the emergence of a fifth factor tapping intellect/imagination/ culture/integrity has also been noted (Caprara & Perugini, 1994; Peabody & De Raad, 2002; Szirmak & De Raad, 1994) questioning the assumed and projected universality of the five-factor structure (see Block, 1995). Studies conducted in non-Western cultures highlighting the significance of language in describing personality have received little attention (Church, 1987). Psycholexical investigation of person-descriptive adjectives in Filipino language has revealed a seven-factor structure (Church, Katigbak & Reyes, 1996). The extension of earlier studies has yielded ten factors (Imperio, Church, Katigbak & Reyes, 2008). These factors involving social and physical attributes are characteristically different from the BigFive (Goldberg, 1981), HEXACO (Lee & Asthon, 2004), and ML7 (Saucier, 2003). There is growing evidence that personality may not share the same characteristics across cultures (Church & Katigbak, 1988; Markus & Kitayama, 1998; Misra & Gargen, 1993; Shweder, 1999). This study explored the pattern of personality structure in a Hindi speaking Indian sample belonging to the South Asian Cultural context. Hindi is one of the most popular languages of India spoken in a large region of the country comprising eight States. It has a rich literary tradition. The majority of the National daily newspapers, television programs, cinemas, and scientific literature are prepared in this language. Hindi is taught up