A Psycholexical Classification of Ukrainian Descriptors of Individual Differences

Authors

  • Oleg Gorbaniuk Institute of Psychology, John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin / Institute of Psychology, University of Zielona Góra, Zielona Góra, Poland Author
  • Andrij Mirowich Institute of Psychology, John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin Author
  • Władysława Leoszko Institute of Psychology, John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin Author
  • Julia Gorbaniuk Institute of Psychology, John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin Author
  • Aleksandra Kordon Institute of Psychology, John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin Author
  • Maria Świderska Institute of Psychology, John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin Author
  • Olena Kuts Institute of Psychology, John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin Author
  • Anna Korczak Institute of Psychology, John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin Author

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.2478/cpp-2018-0007

Keywords:

individual differences, personality, psycholexical taxonomy, Ukrainian language

Abstract

The aim of the psycholexical study was to classify the terms describing individual differences in the Ukrainian language.

Method. To accomplish this objective, we analysed 220,000 entries included in a universal dictionary of Ukrainian and identified 20,024 terms – adjectives, participles, type-nouns, and attribute-nouns – used to describe human characteristics. The identified person-descriptive terms were classified by a team of five trained judges into 13 categories and subcategories. The judges’ taxonomic decisions were tested for validity and interjudge agreement.

Results. This procedure yielded lists of Ukrainian personality descriptors, consisting, respectively, of 2,426 adjectives, 2,255 participles, 1,653 attribute-nouns, and 1,474 type-nouns. The analysis of semantic redundancy of terms representing different parts of speech but having the same common morpheme among dispositional descriptors identified a total of 1,634 morphemes that differed in terms of meaning. The analysis identified 212 (22.0% of morphemes) type-nouns that could not be replaced by any different part of speech with the same morpheme to describe the same personality trait.

Conclusions. Ukrainian personality lexicon has a comparable or higher diversity of personality-descriptive vocabulary, attested to by the presence of 96% Big Factors markers from international comparative analyses of psycholexical structures of natural languages. The results of the study contribute to the debate on universals in the description of individual differences and constitute the basis for future questionnaire-based studies aimed at identifying the psycholexical structure of the Ukrainian language.

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Published

2018-08-10

Issue

Vol. 19 No. 2 (2018): Current Problems of Psychiatry

Section

Artykuły

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