European Journal of Personality, Eur. J. Pers. (2013)
Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/per.1940
Personality Structure in the Trait Lexicon of Hindi, a Major Language
Spoken in India
JITENDRA K. SINGH1, GIRISHWAR MISRA2 and BOELE DE RAAD3*
1
Defence R&D Organization, Defence Institute of Psychological Research (DIPR), Delhi, India
University of Delhi, Delhi, India
3
University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands
2
Abstract: The psycho-lexical approach is extended to Hindi, a major language spoken in India. From both the
dictionary and from Hindi novels, a huge set of personality descriptors was put together, ultimately reduced to a
manageable set of 295 trait terms. Both self and peer ratings were collected on those terms from a sample of 511
participants. Factor analyses (principal components analysis), performed separately on self and on peer ratings,
suggested three up to six factors. From a comparison with an ancient but still popular system of personality
description, called the triguna, and from a comparison with a recently developed comprehensive trait taxonomy in
Dutch, it was concluded that only three factors, not to be confused with the Big Three, firmly stood out, all three
belonging to the three-dimensional triguna. Congruence coefficients between factors based on self and on peer ratings
confirmed the stability of these three factors. The three factors are called rajasic, representing ambition, friendliness,
humility versus hypocrisy, deception and violence, tamasic, representing egoism, mean mindedness and concealment,
and finally sattvic, representing competence, impartiality, being organized, sober and harmonious. Copyright © 2013
John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Key words: lexical studies; personality scales and inventories; cross-cultural research
INTRODUCTION
Some 30 personality trait studies have been performed or are
being performed according to the psycho-lexical approach to
personality. Reviews of or references to the majority of those
studies can be found in Saucier, Hampson, and Goldberg
(2000) and De Raad, Barelds, Levert, et al. (2010). Those
studies include trait taxonomies in the major European
languages (see, e.g. De Raad, 2000), some African languages
(e.g. Saucier, Ole-Kotikash, & Payne, in preparation) and some
Asian languages such as Korean (Hahn, Lee, & Ashton, 1999),
Japanese (e.g. Aoki, 1971; Tsuji, 2001), Chinese (Wang, Fang,
& Zuo, 1995; Yang & Wang, 1999; Zhou, Saucier, Gao, & Liu,
2009) and Tagalog (Church, Katigbak, & Reyes, 1996).
The coverage of languages of Asia in psycho-lexically based
trait studies is far from ideal. About 60% of the world population
lives in Asia, and the largest number of languages in the world is
spoken in Asia (and the Middle East), about 10 times as
many as in Europe. The languages belong to a variety of
language families, Indo-European, Altaic, Sino-Tibetan,
Austro-Asiatic, Austronesian and Afro-Asiatic, instead of
mainly Indo-European as in Europe. Moreover, the number
of people in Asia more than doubles the number of people
in Europe. From the major language families in Asia,
relatively few languages are represented in trait taxonomies:
Indo-European in Russian (Shmelyov & Pokhil’ko, 1993),
Altaic in Korean (Hahn et al., 1999) and Japanese (Aoki, 1971;
Tsuji, 2001), Sino-Tibetan in Chinese (e.g. Yang & Wang,
1999) and Austronesian in Tagalog (Church et al., 1996). Interestingly, the handful of psycho-lexical studies in Asia show
more diversity than the 20 or more in Europe.
Another language, belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of
Indo-European, is Hindi, which has developed from Sanskrit,
which in turn has its roots in Vedic Sanskrit, an Old-Indic
language and found in the ancient texts used in a large
section of the Asian continent. The present study aims to
describe and structure Hindi personality trait terms, along
the lines of the psycho-lexical approach to personality. Hindi
is spoken by a huge population in a large (mainly Northern)
region of India comprising eight states. The majority of the
national dailies, television programs, cinemas and scientific
literature is prepared in Hindi. Hindi is taught up to
high-school level in all educational institutions of the
country, and it has a rich literary tradition. It is the primary
official language of the country, next to English, the
secondary official language. India, being a multilingual
society, has been described as a ‘Linguistic Area’ (Emaneau,
1956), and as a sociolinguistic giant (Pandit, 1972) characterized by multilingualism (Annamalai, 1986). Every Indian has
linguistic competence in at least two languages in which
Hindi constitutes the largest proportion, acquired by Indians
during childhood or at a later stage of development.
Personality conceptions in India
*Correspondence to: Boele De Raad, University of Groningen, Groningen,
The Netherlands.
E-mail: [email protected]
Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
The concepts of person and of personality have been around
in many ancient Indian texts culminating around the middle
Received 25 May 2012
Revised 25 July 2013, Accepted 26 July 2013
J. K. Singh et al.
of the first millennium BCE in the Vedas (Sanskrit véda
means ‘knowledge’ or ‘wisdom’), a large corpus of texts that
includes the Upanishads (Sanskrit upanishad means: sitting
nearby the teacher to receive instruction) and the
Bhagavad-Gita. These texts distinguish between person
and personality.
When referring to distinctive psychological characteristics of
persons, the terms svabhava (typical) and prakriti are used,
more or less resembling the term personality (Krishnan, 2002;
Menon, 2008; Paranjpe & Rao, 2008). The term prakriti
roughly stands for ‘human nature,’ which is constituted by three
fundamental attributes called triguna. ‘Guna’ (Sanskrit) means
‘cord’ or ‘string’ and can refer to an attribute of an object or a
modality of nature. The triguna is perhaps one of the most
popular constructs in the Indian context (see Boss, 1966; Kapur,
Hirisave, Reddy, Barnabas, & Singhal, 1997; Marutham,
Balodhi, & Mishra, 1998; Mathew, 1995; Misra, Suvasini, &
Srivastava, 2000; Murthy & Kumar, 2007; Pathak, Bhatt, &
Sharma, 1992; Uma, Lakshmi, & Parameshwaran, 1971).
History of triguna
The triguna historically comprises sattvic guna (roughly
referring to goodness, harmony and essence), rajasic guna
(roughly referring to passion, mobility and energy) and
tamasic guna (roughly referring to dullness, indifference
and inertia), constituting personality (prakriti), and meant to
comprise temperament, mental make-up and interaction
patterns of the individual. Much, however, leaves to be said
about the precise delineation of triguna, witness its elusive
etymological and philosophical history.
During their long history, the original basic meanings of the
three gunas (sattvic, rajasic and tamasic) have ‘organically’
accrued a certain complexity through long-time and changing
philosophies, of which certain kernel characteristics contemporarily seem to stand out as distinguishing features. The triguna
has given rise to a variety of different interpretations, also with
respect to their behavioural manifestations, although there seems
to be some agreement.
The root meaning of sattvic is ‘to be’, expressed in a variety
of related terms such as existence, reality, true essence, natural
character, vital breath, energy and conscientiousness. Associated behavioural qualities are, for exmaple, strength of character, firmness, resolution, courage, magnanimity and virtue.
According to Murthy and Kumar (2007), sattvic refers to being
good, pure, devoted, tolerant, mental equilibrium, mental
control, intelligence, knowledge and determination. Krishnan
(2002) emphasized persons with a predominance of sattvic
guna to be idealistic, analytical, intelligent, careful, free from
egoism and self-controlled. With the emphasis on being realistic, on energy and on character strength, sattvic seems to come
close to the Competence factor as described by De Raad and
Barelds (2008), in which the factor combines aspects of
Extraversion, Intellect, Agreeableness and Conscientiousness.
The origin of rajasic seems to be the most elusive one of
the three gunas, but its root meaning is most often found in
‘to be dyed’, also expressed in related terms such as being
coloured, being moved, affected, excited, delighted and
attracted. According to Murthy and Kumar (2007), rajasic
Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
is agreed to refer to emotions, passions, pain, restlessness,
drive, desire and envy. It is about affection and emotion
and about acting out the affection and the emotion.
According to Krishnan (2002), persons with a predominance
of rajasic guna are egoistic, proud, sensitive, ambitious,
emotional, fickle, pleasure seeking and greedy. Rajasic guna
seems to relate emotion-driven, self-oriented traits as
captured in Big Five (dis)Agreeableness, Conscientiousness
and possibly Emotional Stability. This guna could also relate
to Honesty–Humility of the six-factor model (Ashton, Lee,
Perugini, et al. 2004) and to Virtue as described in De Raad
and Barelds’ (2008) eight-factor model.
The root meaning of tamasic seems to be in ‘gasping for
breath’, and in expressions such as being exhausted, to perish,
being distressed, immovable or stiff. According to Murthy and
Kumar (2007), tamasic is agreed to refer to indifference,
uncertainty, misunderstanding, elusion, inertia, fear, arrogance,
helplessness, mental imbalance and inactivity. Krishnan’s
(2002) description agrees with the generally apathetic and
somewhat malevolent character of the person with a
predominance of tamasic guna: they are evil minded, indolent
and indiscrete; they find satisfaction in trivial joys and in vulgar
pleasure. Connections to traits of the Big Five or other models
are difficult to make, except maybe a reference to hedonism
(De Raad & Barelds, 2008).
The triguna is not only still alive in the everyday context
of Indians, but also some Indian psychologists have
embraced the triguna to be of interest to psycho-spiritual
and clinical fields (e.g. Stempel, Cheston, Greer, & Gillespie,
2006; Wolf, 1998, 1999). The triguna is now seen as to
describe three fundamental, relatively enduring qualities of
personality. The relative intensity of the gunas is used to
characterize individual differences in behaviour. The gunas
are supposed to constantly influence each other in such a
way that when one dominates, the others automatically
recede. Such a characterization of gunas implies a relative
enduringness. Paranjpe (2004) suggested that this ‘changing’
nature of the gunas is because they reflect both states and
traits (see also Paranjpe & Rao, 2008).
Culture and personality
Other analyses of Indian personality have focused on
identity, lifestyle and cultural heritage. Misra and Giri
(1994), for example, argued that Indians are distinguished
by sharing an interdependent self-construal and relationship
orientation. The interest in the shaping of personality under
cultural–ecological conditions and in the culturally informed
ways of appreciating personality has been expressed in
Church and Loner (1998), Super and Harkness (1997) and
Valsiner and Lawrence (1997). Regarding the Indian context,
according to Sinha (1988), Indians believe in a shared
lifestyle, relationship maintenance, dependence proneness
and need for approval, while individual needs, aspirations
and motives are guided by norms and standards of the group
rather than by personal preferences (Misra & Gergen, 1993).
The identity of Indians in terms of the aforementioned
characteristics is the product of a long cultural heritage,
which is reflected in everyday activities (Sen, 2006).
Eur. J. Pers. (2013)
DOI: 10.1002/per
Hindi factors
For the study of Indian personality, it is important that
space is given at the empirical level to the socio-cultural
ethos by which Indians are suggested to be guided in
everyday life. The appropriate way to study personality
accordingly is the study from an indigenous or emic perspective. Too often, psychological phenomena are viewed from
the perspective of established findings in other cultures, or
an etic perspective (Pike, 1967). The so-called psycho-lexical
approach (Allport & Odbert, 1936; De Raad, 2000;
Goldberg, 1981) starts from observations within the culture
and aims to structure phenomena as found in that culture.
This approach is followed here, because it studies personality
at the level of the everyday context where the interplay
between personality and culture is given form. The approach
assumes that the myriad of representations of cultural
attributes shared by people, including everyday conceptualizations of personality, have been sedimented into the lexicon
of the pertaining language, so that the first delineation of the
personality domain may to a large extent take place within
the confines of that lexical repository.
The psycho-lexical approach to personality
This approach assumes that ‘those individual differences that are
most salient and socially relevant in people’s lives will eventually become encoded into their language’ (Goldberg, 1982, p.
204). In the various psycho-lexical studies that have been
mentioned, the lexicons were scanned for personality trait
descriptors in such a way that the trait semantics in those
lexicons were turned into representative and manageable trait
vocabularies. Those trait vocabularies have been administered
to large samples of participants to obtain ratings to be used to
structure the trait domains. Factor analyses of those ratings have
yielded structures with three (e.g. Di Blas & Forzi, 1999) up to
eight factors (e.g. De Raad & Barelds, 2008). The most
frequently found structures, however, are those with five or six
factors. Reviews of the various trait-taxonomical studies can
be found in Ashton, Lee, Perugini, et al. (2004), De Raad
(2000), De Raad, Barelds, Levert, et al. (2010), Peabody
and De Raad (2002), Saucier et al. (2000) and Saucier and
Goldberg (2001).
The psycho-lexical approach has provided a range of candidates for cross-culturally replicable trait factors. The strongest
empirical support has been gathered for three candidates. The
first candidate involves three factors (e.g. De Raad, Barelds,
Levert, et al., 2010; Di Blas & Forzi, 1999; Peabody & De Raad,
2002), the second involves five factors (e.g. Saucier et al., 2000)
and the third involves six factors (Ashton, Lee, Perugini, et al.,
2004; Saucier, 2009). Which one of these structures forms the
best cross-cultural candidate is a debated issue (see, e.g. Ashton
& Lee, 2010; De Raad, Barelds, Mlačić, et al., 2010).
A comparison of the Dutch, English and German Big Five
structures (Hofstee, Kiers, De Raad, Goldberg, & Ostendorf,
1997), using congruence coefficients as criteria of factor similarity, casted doubt on an unequivocal replicability of all Big
Five factors. Comparisons among Big Five structures from five
languages (De Raad, Perugini, & Szirmák, 1997) and from
seven languages (De Raad, Perugini, Hrebícková, & Szarota,
1998) suggested that three, at best four, factors of the Big Five
Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
are cross-culturally replicable. De Raad, Barelds, Levert, et al.
(2010) pair-wise compared structures with one up to six factors
from 14 trait taxonomies and found support for the replicability
of a structure with no more than three factors. In a different
type of comparisons of trait taxonomies, Peabody and De Raad
(2002) and De Raad and Peabody (2005), also the relative
consistency of such a recurrent three-factor structure was
supported. Those Big Three factors are characterized by items
typical for Extraversion, Agreeableness and Conscientiousness, respectively.
Big Five structures based on large-scale trait taxonomies
in the various languages were all based on ipsatized, that is,
standardized per participant, ratings. Support for a six-factor
structure, as reported by Ashton, Lee, Perugini, et al. (2004),
was similarly found in ipsatized ratings. The six-factor
structure, adding an Honesty–Humility factor to the Big
Five, includes a shift of irritability terms from the Emotional
Stability factor to the Agreeableness factor. The additional factor
Honesty–Humility was defined by terms such as honest, sincere
and fair versus dishonest, conceited and boasting.
Seven- and eight-factor structures as respectively reported
by Almagor, Tellegen, and Waller (1995) and De Raad and
Barelds (2008) are both based on raw (non-ipsatized) data.
Another characteristic shared by these latter studies was the
nonrestrictive approach with respect to selecting trait descriptors from the lexicon. As a consequence, besides versions of
the Big Five, two factors were extracted in the two studies that
had a clear relationship (De Raad & Barelds, 2008). The first of
these two factors, Virtue (strongly negatively related to
Negative Valence in that study), refers to traits such as
trustworthiness, decency and honesty versus unreliable,
indecent, and dishonest. Obviously, the content of this factor
also relates to the ipsatized ratings-based Honesty–Humility
factor. The second of the two factors, Competence or Positive
Valence, refers to traits such as excellence, problem-solving
capacities, inventive and entrepreneurship versus giving up,
passivity and lack of problem-solving capacities. De Raad
and Barelds (2008) also reported a hedonism factor, which
combines traits of sensation seeking, having pleasure and the
search for sensual stimuli.
In the present article, two studies are described. Study 1 is
about the selection of a full and representative set of Hindi trait
items and the reduction of the list to manageable proportions.
Study 2 gives the description of the structures in Hindi trait
language; this part also includes explicit relationships with
some relevant models in the research literature.
The present studies seek to find answers to the following
more general and more specific questions. A first general
question concerns the most appropriate structural configuration of the Hindi trait domain. Another general question is
which structural configuration has the best chance to be
replicated cross-culturally: does Hindi give evidence at this
point? More specific questions relate to how the lexically
based Hindi trait structure relates to both a Hindi model of
personality and to the Big Five. Is most of the variance
explained by the factor structure with Big Five related
constructs, or is this rather the earlier described triguna?
Also, the consistency of structural models across self and
other ratings is examined.
Eur. J. Pers. (2013)
DOI: 10.1002/per
J. K. Singh et al.
STUDY 1: SELECTION OF PERSONALITY
DESCRIPTIVE ADJECTIVES
In order to select the relevant personality descriptive adjectives
in Hindi language, a thesaurus (Kumar & Kumar, 1996) was
used, which had a collection of 160 850 lexical entries. A
thesaurus was preferred over the dictionary, because it provided
more words than most dictionaries in Hindi. The experience
with the thesaurus and with dictionaries was that certain typical
expressions often used in novels (especially expressions used to
describe characters in certain settings) were missing. Examples
are Jujharoo (the person who never gives up) and Jogadoo
(person who uses all possible means to achieve a goal, both
ethical and unethical). For this reason, we also consulted a few
contemporary Hindi novels. The selected novels were about life
in India both in rural and in urban settings with a focus on
relationship and identity during different historical periods from
the early 20th century to the last decade of the 20th century. A
professor of Hindi literature recommended the novels for
this purpose.
The initial selection of Hindi trait words and the further reduction took part in four steps. In order to prevent idiosyncrasies
in selections, new judges were recruited for steps 3 and 4.
Step 1: Initial selection and first reduction. Two research
scholars who were enrolled in a PhD programme at
the Department of Psychology of the University of
Delhi in north India went through the thesaurus and
through the novels in order to identify trait words.
Five novels were used, namely Nadi ke Dweep
(Island of River) (Agyeya, 1952), Ve Din (Those
Days) (Verma, 1964), Maila Anchal (The Soiled
Linen) (Renu, 1954), Godan (Cow Donation)
(Premchand, 1936) and Chaak (Pushpa, 2009). From
the thesaurus, the two judges independently selected
quite similar lists of relevant trait adjectives
(approximately 2950 and 2800, respectively). They
were in agreement on 2750 adjectives, which were
retained for further use. Around 700 adjectives were
selected from the novels. For this, the one judge read
three novels and selected around 1100 adjectives,
and the other judge read two novels and selected
around 645 adjectives. The two judges compared
the lists and agreed to retain 523 of the words they
had in common. The words they had not in common
were discussed by the two judges upon which they
agreed on still another 177 words to retain, resulting
in the 700 list. The latter list was added to the 2750,
and an overlap of 150 adjectives was removed, thus
forming a full final list of 2750 + 550 = 3300 trait
relevant adjectives, which was subjected to elimination criteria.
For this step, a conservative procedure was followed regarding
elimination criteria. Words were removed upon agreement by
two judges; the remaining set was subjected to the further steps
of reduction. Adjectives were dropped if they clearly belonged
to the following categories: (i) non-descriptive words of
persons or behaviours (e.g. nouns such as Composer
[Rachaita] and Consumer [Upbhokta]); (ii) complicated,
Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
unusual, outdated and jargon (e.g. phantoosh [person who
behaves rustically]); (iii) role-oriented words that did not have
a direct bearing on traits (e.g. plumber); (iv) words denoting
groups of individuals (e.g. doctor); and (v) words reflecting
an ideological overtone (e.g. extremist). Following these
criteria, both the sources were scrutinized by the two judges.
Only those words were removed on which the judges reached
consensus. This procedural first reduction step resulted in the
removal of 2473 adjectives so that 827 adjectives were retained
for further inspection in the next reduction steps.
Step 2: Reduction of 827 to 465 adjectives. The list of 827
adjectives was subjected to further scrutiny by the
same two judges as in Step 1 by applying some
additional criteria. Those words were excluded if
they referred to (i) physical features having no trait
connotation (e.g. lamboo); (ii) physical and mental
health (e.g. paralytic and depressive); (iii) power
and status (e.g. feudal and anarchist); and (iv)
politics and religion (e.g. Naxali and blasphemous).
Agreement between the two judges was reached on
362 adjectives to be excluded, thus resulting in a list
of 465 adjectives to be used for the next step.
Step 3: Reduction of 465 to 357 adjectives. The list of 465
adjectives was given to a team of three postgraduate
students of psychology (from north India) to assess
for each adjective whether it is to be considered
obscure, ambiguous and unfamiliar (yes or no) (see
De Raad et al., 1998). Only those adjectives were
removed on which the three judges fully agreed,
given the three criteria. This step resulted in the
removal of 108 terms, yielding a set of 357 adjectives to be subjected to the last reduction step.
Step 4: Reduction of 357 to 295 adjectives. The list of 357
adjectives was given to another set of five judges
with a postgraduate degree in psychology (also from
north India). The judges were asked to rate each
adjective on the criterion of ‘appropriateness’ for
personality description on a 3-point scale running
from ‘least appropriate’ (1) to ‘most appropriate’
(3). The adjectives with mean ratings of 1.5 or higher
were retained, implying that 62 adjectives were
dropped. A set of 295 personality descriptive
adjectives was thus finally retained.
The construction of the list to obtain ratings
Considering the bilingual nature of Indians, the 295 adjectives
were translated into English and again back-translated into
Hindi with the help of three judges, in order to arrive at a
bilingual personality trait list. They had 90% agreement on
the translation of the adjectives. The adjectives that did not
have exact English equivalents were kept only in Hindi.
Finally, two versions were constructed, one for self ratings
and the other for peer ratings, both in bilingual format. The lists
were provided with a 5-point rating scale running from ‘least
descriptive’ (1) to ‘most descriptive’ (5). The adjectives were
arranged according to the Hindi alphabet. In Hindi, such an
ordering is without problems regarding, for example, a
clustering of words with a similar semantic tone as in English
(e.g. words starting with ‘un-’).
Eur. J. Pers. (2013)
DOI: 10.1002/per
Hindi factors
STUDY 2: STRUCTURING HINDI PERSONALITY
TRAITS
clearly small, we give preference to continue with analysing
the raw data-based findings and give less emphasis to the
results with ipsatized data.
Sample
A sample of 511 young Hindi speaking adults (M = 23.15 years,
SD = 2.48) participated in the study. Among them were 318 men
(62.2%) and 193 women ( 37.8%). They were enrolled in
undergraduate courses (38.16%) and in postgraduate courses
(61.84%) in north India where Hindi is the main language.
The majority of the participants (72.31%) had an urban
middle-class background; the rest had a rural middle-class
background (27.69%). ‘Middle class’ was defined in terms of
a monthly income level.
RESULTS
We applied principal components analysis first on raw data and
then on ipsatized data, for self and peer ratings. On the basis of
the raw data analyses, we determined the numbers of factors
that could be of interest for the analyses of the ipsatized data.
This is followed by correlations between the two types of
factors, again for self and peer ratings separately.
Principal components analyses: raw data
Material and procedure
The same personality descriptive adjective checklist consisting
295 adjectives was used twice, namely for both self and peer
ratings. Because both Hindi and English are official languages
in India, and the Hindi-speaking Indians are bilingual, the list
was presented in a bilingual form (Hindi and English), in order
to facilitate comprehension of the words by the participants
who all had working knowledge of English. For some people,
it was probably of help to have the English equivalent of a term
next to the Hindi term. In the case of self ratings, the participants
were instructed to indicate for each of the 295 adjectives the
extent to which the adjectives described themselves. A 5-point
rating scale was used ranging from ‘least descriptive’ (1) to
‘most descriptive’ (5). For the peer ratings, the participants were
asked to keep in mind a well-acquainted other and to rate that
person using the same scale format.
The responses were collected in two sessions. In the first
session, half of the participants provided self ratings and
other half peer ratings. In the second session, it was the other
way around. Thus, the order was reversed for half of the
group in each session. The two sessions together lasted for
about 2 hours. In case that the participants had any difficulty
in understanding the adjectives, clarification was provided.
Analyses
The majority of psycho-lexically based trait studies have
been performed using ipsatized ratings, giving rise to Big
Five and Six factor structures. The main reason to apply
ipsatization was to remove individual differences in the participants’ use of the rating scale. Ipsatization has, however,
been under serious dispute; it would practically mean
sacrificing a large part of the first main component. If that
component would be psychologically meaningful, instead
of mainly representing bias in the use of the rating scale, its
removal would be bad practice (cf. De Raad & Barelds,
2008). In order to find out first what the effect would be of
ipsatization on the structure, in comparison with the use of
raw data, we started applying principal components on raw
(non-ipsatized) data followed by analysis of ipsatized data.
In case a clear difference, especially regarding the removal
of the first un-rotated component, would occur, both types
of results are reported in some detail. If the difference is
Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Both self- and peer-rating data were subjected to principal components analysis, followed by varimax rotation. For self ratings,
the first 10 eigenvalues were 32.69, 22.27, 16.08, 9.11, 7.64,
6.17, 4.76, 4.19, 3.77 and 3.53. For peer ratings, the first 10
eigenvalues were 31.51, 21.30, 15.12, 10.27, 6.63, 5.78, 4.74,
4.42, 4.30 and 3.96. On the basis of the eigenvalue-patterns
alone, it seemed that both the self and peer ratings could best
be summarized by three large and up to four smaller components
(henceforth called factors). To help making further decisions
about the appropriate number of factors, we constructed the
hierarchy of factors among solutions with one up to eight
factors. Moreover, we calculated congruencies between factors
based on self ratings and those based on peer ratings.
Following the procedure used by De Raad and Szirmák
(1994), Ashton, Lee, and Goldberg (2004) and De Raad
and Barelds (2008), both self- and peer-ratings factors were
extracted with solutions including the single first un-rotated
factor up to a solution with eight rotated factors, in order to
observe the hierarchical emergence of the factors.
Figures 1 and 2 depict the emergence of factors in those
difference solutions for self and peer ratings separately.
Between the factors from different solutions, correlations
are given to indicate how factors at two adjacent levels relate
to each other. For this, only correlations of 0.40 or higher
are used.
In both Figures 1 and 2, it can be observed that after the three
factors, called sattvic, rajasic and tamasic, had emancipated,
these factors remained stable in all the subsequent solutions.
From the three-factor level up to the eight-factor level, factors
from adjacent levels correlated almost perfectly. New factors
beyond the first three (4/4, 5/5 and 6/6) were difficult to interpret
clearly, for which reason we used the first two highest loading
terms for a tentative label. Factors with a question mark, which
were also the factors explaining the smallest amounts of
variance, remained virtually un-interpretable. On the basis of
both the amounts of variance explained and the relative
(un)interpretability, the best choices for extraction of factors
seemed to be no more than six factors for both self and
peer ratings.
Hindi trait factors based on raw data
Because internationally psycho-lexical studies were most
about five factors and sometimes on six or more, we continued
Eur. J. Pers. (2013)
DOI: 10.1002/per
J. K. Singh et al.
1/1
first unrotated factor
self
.72
2/1
2/2
sattvic
tamasic
.91
.85
-.70
-.40
.53
.84
3/1
3/3
3/2
sattvic
rajasic
tamasic
1.0
.94
.53
4/3
4/4
4/1
4/2
sattvic
perseverant
lively
rajasic
tamasic
1.0
.99
1.0
1.0
5/3
5/4
5/1
5/2
5/5
sattvic
perseverant
lively
rajasic
tamasic
successful
fatalist
1.0
.99
-1.0
.99
.97
6/3
6/4
6/1
6/2
6/5
6/6
sattvic
perseverant
lively
rajasic
tamasic
successful
fatalist
all-rounder
trickster
.99
.97
1.0
.94
.95
7/3
7/4
7/1
7/2
7/5
sattvic
perseverant
lively
rajasic
tamasic
successful
fatalist
1.0
.99
1.0
1.0
1.0
8/3
8/4
8/1
8/2
8/5
sattvic
perseverant
lively
rajasic
tamasic
successful
fatalist
.57
-.80
7/6
?
7/7
?
.95
.99
8/7
?
8/6
?
8/8
?
Figure 1. Hierarchy of factor solutions (principal components analysis followed by varimax rotation), based on self ratings.
with six factors, in order to have the best chances for connections to those systems. Thus, six varimax-rotated factors were
investigated for both self and peer ratings. Tables 1 and 21 contain trait terms that load highest on those factors. A first inspection of the contents of both the six self-based factors and the six
peer-based factors suggest the first three factors to be related to
the so-called triguna. The first of the three remaining smaller
self-based factors could tentatively be described as ‘Endeavor’,
a term that should capture extraverted traits (lively and optimist),
conscientious traits (perseverant and workaholic) and agreeable
traits (hospitable and honest). The second of the smaller three
factors could be called ‘Achievement’, with such traits as successful, self-restrained and efficient. The last factor seemed to
1
Full matrices with loadings are available upon request from the first author.
Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
relate to ‘Extraversion’, with such traits as assertive and
extroverted versus shy and introverted.
The first of the three remaining peer-based factors could
tentatively be described as ‘Agreeableness’, although it also
refers to Extraversion, with such traits as forgiving, polite,
humble and peace loving and also entertaining and resourceful.
The second smaller peer-based factor seemed to refer to
‘Strength’, with a mix of extraverted traits (extroverted versus
shy), emotional stable traits (strong-willed and brave) and (dis)
agreeable traits (antagonistic and argumentative). The last
peer-based factor contained traits typical of a follower, and
might be called ‘Conventionality’, with traits such as silly,
unsuccessful, imitative and traditionalist. Although for both
the self and peer results the last three factors contained
indications leading to the tentative interpretations, more is
needed to grasp their meanings more precisely.
Eur. J. Pers. (2013)
DOI: 10.1002/per
Hindi factors
1/1
first unrotated factor
peer
.65
-.76
2/2
2/1
sattvic
tamasic
.95
-.57
.81
3/1
3/3
3/2
sattvic
rajasic
tamasic
.98
1.0
.99
4/1
4/3
4/2
4/4
sattvic
rajasic
tamasic
forgiving
sweet-tongued
.90
.41
1.0
.98
.96
5/3
5/5
5/2
5/1
5/4
sattvic
antagonistic
deviant
rajasic
tamasic
forgiving
sweet-tongued
1.0
.93
1.0
1.0
1.0
6/3
6/5
6/2
6/1
6/4
6/6
sattvic
antagonistic
deviant
rajasic
tamasic
forgiving
sweet-tongued
feebleminded, silly
.99
.97
.92
.79
.51
1.0
7/4
7/3
?
7/7
?
7/2
7/1
7/5
7/6
rajasic
tamasic
forgiving
feebleminded, silly
sattvic
sweet-tongued
.99
.99
.95
1.0
8/4
8/3
?
8/7
?
8/2
rajasic
sattvic
.99
.96
.98
.81
.58
8/1
8/5
tamasic
forgiving
8/6
?
8/8
?
sweet-tongued
Figure 2. Hierarchy of factor solutions (principal components analysis followed by varimax rotation), based on peer ratings.
It is of interest to know whether the factors for self and for
peer correlate among each other. We therefore also applied
promax rotation for both six-factor solutions. The two
promax-rotated six-factor solutions gave rise to the same
interpretations as in the case of varimax rotations with average
correlations between the corresponding varimax-rotated and
promax-rotated factors of 0.99 for self factors and of 0.98 for
peer factors. The correlations among the promax-rotated
factors were small. For self, the correlations varied between
0.20 (between rajasic and Endeavor) and 0.25 (between
sattvic and Endeavor) with an (absolute) average of 0.12. For
peer, the correlations varied between 0.27 (between tamasic
and rajasic) and 0.29 (between sattvic and ‘Strength’) with an
(absolute) average of 0.13.
Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Principal components analyses: ipsatized data
Because it was expected that analyses of ipsatized data
would not yield more than the number of factors obtained
with raw data, we performed principal components analyses
and extracted six factors, followed by varimax rotation. For
self ratings, the first 10 eigenvalues were 28.97, 17.19,
9.26, 8.34, 6.67, 6.01, 4.65, 3.99, 3.81 and 3.78. For peer
ratings, the first 10 eigenvalues were 26.36, 16.10, 11.25,
7.49, 6.35, 5.47, 4.94, 4.45, 4.39 and 4.15. On the basis of
the eigenvalue patterns, both self and peer ratings could best
be summarized by three up to six factors. We used the
six-factor structures for further inspection. The six self- and
peer-rating factors are represented in Tables 3 and 4. The first
Eur. J. Pers. (2013)
DOI: 10.1002/per
J. K. Singh et al.
Table 1. Factors based on self ratings: raw data
Factor 1. Rajasic (‘is restless, envious, ambitious, & is guided by passion & motion’)
Brutish (0.83), hypocrite, flatterer, cunning, deceptive, emotionless, busybody, insensitive, violent, bully, cruel, showy, boastful and
quarrelsome (0.56) versus ambitious ( 0.73), friendly, hard-working, well-mannered, polite, tender-minded, sociable, generous, helpful,
devoted, humble and faultless ( 0.50)
Factor 2. Tamasic (‘is evil-minded, indiscreet, vulgar, & is guided by darkness & concealment’)
Crooked (0.66), restless, snobbish, shrewd, egoistic, clamorous, uncivilized, mean-minded, a-social, unrelenting, frustrated, intolerant,
impudent, arrogant, mischievous, dissatisfied, obstinate, wicked, self-destructive and indecent (0.49)
Factor 3. Sattvic (‘is idealistic, analytical, careful, & is guided by truth & illumination’)
Well-behaved (0.68), impartial, competent, gentleman, abstemious, organized, virtuous, courteous, capable, caring, calm, humane, committed,
gentle, civilized, sober, realistic, harmonious, simple, resourceful, level-headed and soft-spoken (0.48)
Factor 4.
Perseverant (0.57), lively, hospitable, daring, self-confident, pious, curious, strict, genius, optimist, benevolent, compassionate, thoughtful,
concentrated, honest, workaholic, self-controlled, good character, sagacious and aristocratic (0.39)
Factor 5.
Successful (0.56), fatalist, talented, self-restrained, methodical, idealist, progressive, efficient and sensible (0.43) versus contentious ( 0.40),
apprehensive and argumentative ( 0.34)
Factor 6.
All-rounder (0.38), trickster, assertive, extroverted and splendid (0.29) versus anxious ( 0.73), shy ( 0.32), and introverted ( 0.25)
Note: The figures between brackets are loadings; each two-per-factor pole indicates the range of loadings for the trait variables on the factors.
Table 2. Factors based on peer ratings: raw data
Factor 1. Tamasic (‘is evil-minded, indiscreet, vulgar, & is guided by darkness & concealment’)
Obstinate (0.66), uncivilized, autocratic, unreliable, inconsiderate, aggressive, mischievous, short-tempered, crooked, shrewd, jealous, restless,
dissatisfied, maladroit, wicked, a-social, arrogant, immoral, mean-minded and indecent (0.48)
Factor 2. Rajasic (‘is restless, envious, ambitious, & is guided by passion & motion’)
Hypocrite ( 0.79), brutish, cunning, emotionless, flatterer, deceptive, bully, cruel, quarrelsome, violent, busybody, foul-mouthed and lazy
( 0.48) versus hard-working (0.71), ambitious, well-mannered, social, friendly, helpful, generous, tender-minded, devoted, kind, strong
and benevolent (0.47)
Factor 3. Sattvic (‘is idealistic, analytical, careful, & is guided by truth & illumination’)
Self-confident (0.63), self-restrained, idealist, talented, dedicated, flamboyant, resolute, cheerful, gentleman, perseverant, disciplined,
energetic, gentle, sagacious, attentive, progressive, strict, successful, genius, workaholic and virtuous (0.43)
Factor 4.
Forgiving (0.64), sweet-tongued, entertaining, polite, realist, resourceful, parsimonious, amiable, humble, peace-loving, gifted, loyal, devout,
empathetic (0.39) versus tyrannical ( 0.53), resource-less, insensitive, suspicious and stubborn ( 0.45)
Factor 5.
Antagonistic (0.58), deviant, argumentative, liar, strong-willed, level-headed, impartial, brave, extroverted and daring (0.30) versus shy
( 0.26)
Factor 6
Feeble-minded (0.47), silly, unsuccessful, imitative, anxious, dependent, absent-minded, traditionalist and fatalist (0.25)
three factors in both cases were relatively easily identified as
rajasic, tamasic and sattvic. The remaining three factors
were more difficult to grasp in a label.
Correlations between factors from raw and from
ipsatized data, self and peer
First, we wanted to know if and how the first un-rotated
raw-data-based factor correlated with any of the six ipsatized
factors, in comparison with correlations with the raw-data
based factors, for self and peer ratings separately, and for
varimax-rotated factors and un-rotated factors. The
correlations are given in Table 5.
The correlations in Table 5 show a similar pattern for raw
data and ipsatized data and for both self and peer ratings. These
patterns, and especially also the high correlations between the
first un-rotated factor and the un-rotated factors based on
ipsatized data, give no reason to believe that ipsatization had
the effect of removing the first un-rotated factor.
Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Table 6 contains the correlations between the six factors
based on raw data and the six factors based on ipsatized data,
for both self and peer ratings. The patterns of correlations
between factors based on raw data and on ipsatized data were
about the same (except for the signs) for self and peer for the
first five factors. Although some differences could be
observed, they did not seem to relate to the removal of the
first un-rotated factor. In the further discussion, the emphasis
will therefore be on the results based on the raw data.
Stability of the factors: congruencies
A further check on the stability of the factors and of their
usefulness is made on the basis of congruencies calculated
between the varimax-rotated self factors and the varimax-rotated
peer factors, for solutions with two up to eight factors. Congruencies were calculated after rotation of the peer to the self
solution and after rotation of the self to peer solution. The
congruencies are given in Table 7. The average congruencies
Eur. J. Pers. (2013)
DOI: 10.1002/per
Hindi factors
Table 3. Factors based on self ratings: ipsatized data
Factor 1. Rajasic
Brutish ( 0.81), hypocrite, flatterer, emotionless, deceptive, cunning, unlucky, busybody, insensitive, bully ( 0.67), versus ambitious (0.76),
friendly, hard-working, patriot, well-mannered, polite, helpful, smart, sociable, generous (0.57)
Factor 2. Tamasic
Mean-minded (0.69), shrewd, a-social, crooked, imposter, wanderer, wicked, seasoned, arrogant, acrimonious (0.48), versus perseverant
( 0.54), lively, strict, self-confident, hospitable, grateful, sagacious, good character, honest, optimistic ( 0.45)
Factor 3. Sattvic
Well-behaved (0.56), courteous, impartial, abstemious, gentle, understanding, competent, sober, capable, human (0.40), versus obstinate
( 0.46), hard-mouthed, short-tempered, pessimistic, unashamed, sharp-tongued, aggressive, autocratic, angry, jealous ( 0.24)
Factor 4.
Anxious ( 0.54), withdrawn, careless, unsuccessful, dissatisfied, feeble-minded, restless, hesitant, ambivalent ( 0.34), versus divine (0.38),
splendid, cheerful, healthy, smiling, self-praising (0.29)
Factor 5.
Contentious ( 0.52), argumentative, rigid, apprehensive, demanding, deviant ( 0.36), versus idealist (0.44), fatalist, shy, methodical, selfrestrained, absent-minded, talented, progressive (0.33)
Factor 6.
Resolute ( 0.46), assertive, flamboyant, fearless, strong-willed, sensible, brave, active, extrovert ( 0.24) versus introvert (0.34), miser,
subdued, wavering (0.31)
Table 4. Factors based on peer ratings: ipsatized data
Factor 1. Rajasic
Hypocrite ( 0.80), brutish, cunning, flatterer, emotionless, deceptive, bully, cruel, quarrelsome, violent ( 0.54), versus hard-working (0.69),
patriot, well-mannered, ambitious, sociable, helpful, friendly, tender-minded, gracious, devoted (0.57)
Factor 2. Sattvic
Competent (0.52), humane, impartial, understanding, calm, level-headed, simple, committed, sober, soft-spoken, virtuous (0.39), versus
unreliable ( 0.43), arrogant, obstinate, short-tempered, autocratic dissatisfied, rigid, tight-headed ( 0.38)
Factor 3. Tamasic
Uncivilized (0.55), coward, shrewd, inconsiderate, immoral, aimless, mean-minded, mischievous, sinful, indecent (0.42), versus resolute
( 0.51), self-confident, flamboyant, nefarious, dedicated, self-restrained, conservative, responsible, energetic, self-controlled ( 0.36)
Factor 4.
Entertaining (0.63), sweet-tongued, polite, forgiving, resourceful, realist, parsimonious, humble, amiable, loyal (0.45), versus insensitive
( 0.62), resourceless, tyrant, inferior, lazy, suspicious, stubborn ( 0.52)
Factor 5.
Astonished ( 0.52), antagonistic, strong-willed, argumentative, deviant, liar, detached, fearless, daring, extrovert ( 0.30), versus good (0.43),
quiet, introvert, respectable, shy, honest, obedient, fatalist (0.31)
Factor 6.
Unsuccessful ( 0.55), careless, feeble-minded, foolish, silly, anxious, imitative, distracted, dependent, lethargic ( 0.32), versus scholar
(0.38), demanding, investigative, talented, assertive, divine (0.29)
for the various solutions indicated identity for the first three
factors across all solutions. Congruencies are preferably close
to 0.90, in order for the factors to be considered as identical
(Haven & ten Berge, 1977; Lorenzo-Seva & ten Berge, 2006).
We considered 0.87 or 0.88 as close to 0.90. After the third
congruency, there is a clear drop in level for all solutions.
Therefore, no more than three factors should be considered
stable across self and peer ratings.
Relationship between self-based and peer-based factors
and triguna and Big Eight
In order to find out how the psycho-lexically based Hindi trait
structure related to other systems of personality description, we
turned to measures of an internationally established system of
personality description and to a measure of triguna. We related
the six factors for self and those for peer to these systems by
means of markers for those systems, both for raw data and
for ipsatized data.
As there were good reasons to identify the first three
factors for both self and peer ratings in terms of triguna, an
Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
additional check was carried out by using markers of triguna.
For this, a table was used from Frawley (2006, p. 141), in
which a rather detailed description was given of triguna in terms
of characteristic traits. The markers that could be identified on
the basis of Frawley’s table are given in the Appendix. The
correlations among these marker scales were low; for self, they
were 0.14, 0.29 and 0.01, and for peer, they were 0.17,
0.33 and 0.27, for the pairs rajasic–sattvic, rajasic–tamasic
and sattvic–tamasic, respectively.
Because the remaining three factors were somewhat
elusive, yet seemed to convey characteristics of some of the
Big Five dimensions, we used a more comprising system to
enable us to catch the meanings of especially the remaining
two sets of three factors. The markers were selected from
the newly developed eight-factorial-trait system for Dutch
(De Raad & Barelds, 2008). That system comprises not only
Big Five traits but also dimensions representing Virtue,
Competence and Hedonism. The markers of the Big Eight
that could be identified are given in the Appendix.
Unfortunately, for Hedonism, no sufficient markers were
found. The Big Eight marker scales show substantial
Eur. J. Pers. (2013)
DOI: 10.1002/per
J. K. Singh et al.
Table 5. Correlations between first un-rotated raw-data based factor and the six varimax-rotated factors, both raw and ipsatized, and un-rotated
ipsatized factors, for self and peer
6/1
Self ratings
Raw-data based factors, varimax rotated
Ipsatized-data based factors, varimax rotated
Ipsatized-data based factors, un-rotated
Peer ratings
Raw-data based factors, varimax rotated
Ipsatized-data based factors, varimax rotated
Ipsatized-data based factors, un-rotated
6/2
6/6
.37
.30
.09
.44
.19
.04
.15
.08
.02
.08
.00
.05
.59
.61
.96
.60
.46
.16
.46
.46
.07
.28
.30
.00
.04
.18
.01
.06
.16
.00
Table 6. Correlations between factors based on raw data and
ipsatized data, for self and peer ratings
Ipsatized data
1
2
3
4
5
6
(6/1)
(6/2)
(6/3)
(6/4)
(6/5)
(6/6)
99
03
03
07
03
03
04
58
01
78
01
15
01
37
81
34
12
17
00
44
09
17
14
78
06
21
16
24
84
36
02
18
28
17
36
40
(6/2)
(6/1)
(6/3)
(6/5)
(6/6)
(6/4)
97
15
08
02
07
08
09
67
11
51
02
18
05
27
70
02
15
15
10
00
03
12
05
95
03
08
33
12
90
08
08
40
08
81
12
03
Note: decimal points are omitted; to increase readability, correlations
of |0.40| or higher are presented in bold.
Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
6/5
.48
.59
.10
Relationships for raw data
The correlations between the six self-based and six
peer-based factors and both the triguna and the Big Eight
factors are given in Tables 8 and 9, respectively. The first
columns contain the number of marker scales that could be
identified and the Cronbach’s alphas. Especially, Emotional
Stability and also Conventionality were not sufficiently
reliably measured. Both Tables 8 and 9 depict the first three
Hindi factors indeed as the triguna, as expected. The first
Hindi factor for self and the second Hindi factor for peer,
now identified as rajasic, were related to Virtue and
Agreeableness of the Big Eight. As may be observed in the
listing of the rajasic markers in the Appendix, rajasic also
contains references to Honesty, however in a negative sense
(cf. Ashton, Lee, Perugini, et al., 2004), which also agrees
with the contents of both Virtue and Agreeableness of the
Big Eight. The second self-based factor and the first
peer-based factor, identified as tamasic, did not find any
representation in the Big Eight. The type of behaviour
referred to by the tamasic factor is not usually found in trait
studies. Some similarity may be found in studies where
Self ratings
Rajasic
Tamasic
Sattvic
Perseverant and lively
Successful and fatalist
All-rounder and trickster
Peer ratings
Rajasic
Tamasic
Sattvic
Antagonistic and deviant
Feeble-minded and silly
Forgiving and sweet-tongued
6/4
.64
.66
.95
correlations, with an average of 0.54 for self ratings and 0.52
for peer ratings.
Raw data
6/3
behavioural clusters are identified describing a broad area
of aberrant and deceptive behaviour (cf. De Raad, 1999;
Hopper & Bell, 1984). Such behaviours are part and parcel
of everyday communication and behaviour that may not
easily find their way into coherent sets of abstract trait
descriptors. Both Murthy and Kumar’s (2007) and
Krishnan’s (2002) descriptions of tamasic behaviour,
however, suggest that tamasic may indeed capture a broad
array of everyday behaviour that may be functional to
survive in a complex society as in India. Sattvic, the third
factor for both self and peer ratings, seemed to resonate in
all seven of the available Big eight marker scales. For self
ratings, all beta coefficients except for Extraversion and
Virtue were significant (p < .001). There is some collinearity
(see the variance inflation factor [VIF] in Table 8), especially
associated with Agreeableness. Removing Agreeableness
only changed Virtue to become a significant predictor
(p < .002). For peer ratings, the situation was similar, except
for the fact that Extraversion also had a significant beta coefficient. Considering the fact that the marker scale for
Emotional Stability was not very reliable, the conclusion
should be that across self and peer ratings, sattvic is
especially related to Competence, Conscientiousness and
Conventionality. According to Frawley (2006), sattvic
indeed covers a pretty vast area of personality, cutting across
cognitive, temperamental and motivational modalities
(Murthy & Kumar, 2007), namely ‘peace of consciousness’
(inner peace, clarity, inner silence and calm), ‘clarity of
cognition’ (perception, tolerance, truth and cleanliness),
‘control of mind’ (control of senses and desires, ability to
endure pain and detachment from body) and ‘detachment
from ego’ (selflessness, devotion, respect for others and
compassion). Both the marker scale items and the high
loading items on this factor seem to describe the type of
people who respond adequately or even ideally to a broad
Table 7. Congruencies between self and peer for solutions with two
up to seven factors
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
93
94
94
92
93
94
93
88
92
93
93
93
96
91
91
91
87
45
53
50
76
71
69
64
64
67
52
Eur. J. Pers. (2013)
DOI: 10.1002/per
Hindi factors
Table 8. Relations between Hindi factors (raw data and self), triguna and Dutch Big Eight
Hindi factors
Marker scales (N items)
Triguna
B8¶
†
Sattvic (23)
Rajasic‡ (20)
Tamasic§ (21)
Multiple-R
Virtue (12)
Competence (21)
Emotional Stability (6)
Agreeableness (21)
Conscientiousness (10)
Extraversion (8)
Conventionality (10)
Multiple-R
α
0.90
0.94
0.88
0.78
0.79
0.49
0.85
0.70
0.67
0.57
1
2
3
4
5
6
0.09
0.95
0.09
0.97
0.53
0.10
0.16
0.43
0.35
0.03
0.24
0.77
0.02
0.21
0.94
0.94
0.14
0.02
0.19
0.11
0.11
0.06
0.01
0.35
0.94
0.04
0.03
0.95
0.48
0.68
0.57
0.67
0.40
0.43
0.62
0.82
0.12
0.10
0.15
0.19
0.39
0.49
0.36
0.44
0.50
0.41
0.35
0.56
0.09
0.04
0.02
0.10
0.33
0.30
0.09
0.18
0.46
0.30
0.03
0.55
0.03
0.01
0.11
0.12
0.05
0.24
0.02
0.04
0.10
0.42
0.26
0.62
MultipleR
VIF
0.96
0.98
0.96
1.1
1.0
1.1
0.89
0.93
0.73
0.93
0.88
0.79
0.80
3.4
3.6
1.8
4.6
2.8
2.0
1.5
Note: VIF, variance inflation factor.
†
Sattvic person is idealistic, analytical and careful and is guided by truth and illumination.
‡
Rajasic person is restless, envious and ambitious and is guided by passion and motion.
§
Tamasic person is evil-minded, indiscreet and vulgar and is guided by darkness and concealment; to increase readability, correlations of |0.40| or higher are
presented in bold; multiple correlations are in italics.
¶
Big 8 ‘Hedonism’ was not included because of lack of marker items.
variety of situations, and accordingly, this factor taps into the
positive characteristics of a variety of factors.
Of the remaining self-based factors, Endeavor (Factor 4) had
the strongest relations with Competence, Conscientiousness and
Agreeableness, which agrees with the Endeavor interpretation.
Factors 5 (Achievement) and 6 (Extraversion) were related to
the semantically corresponding Conscientiousness and Extraversion marker scales. Of the remaining peer-based factors, the
Agreeableness factor related indeed to the Agreeableness
marker scales and with Competence. This makes sense as it
was observed earlier that this factor also referred to Extraversion
and some typical extraversion traits are part of the make-up of
Competence. The second remaining peer-based factor, or
‘Strength’, related to Emotional Stability, which made sense.
The last factor, referred to by ‘Conventionality’, had a rather
moderate but still highest correlation with the Conventionality
marker scale.
Relationships for ipsatized data
The relevant correlations for self, peer, the triguna and the
Big Eight are given in Tables 10 and 11, respectively. For
the self ratings, the characterization of the of the first three
Hindi factors is quite similar to the one for the raw data,
albeit that also the fourth Hindi factor had some tamasic
meaning. The first factor has clearly rajasic content and is
related to Virtue and Agreeableness of the Big Eight. The
third Hindi factor is best characterized as sattvic, again with
highest betas for Competence, Conscientiousness and
Conventionality, after leaving out Agreeableness because of
high VIF value. The second Hindi factor for self, related to
Table 9. Relations between Hindi factors (raw data and peer), the triguna and the Dutch Big Eight
Hindi factors
Marker scales (N of items)
Triguna
B8¶
Sattvic† (23)
Rajasic‡ (20)
Tamasic§ (21)
Multiple-R
Virtue (12)
Competence (21)
Emotional Stability (6)
Agreeableness (21)
Conscientiousness (10)
Extraversion (8)
Conventionality (10)
Multiple-R
α
0.89
0.93
0.86
0.75
0.75
0.40
0.83
0.68
0.59
0.57
1
2
3
4
0.23
0.30
0.91
0.91
0.16
0.10
0.09
0.12
0.14
0.07
0.04
0.38
0.16
0.92
0.06
0.95
0.55
0.17
0.32
0.42
0.44
0.03
0.17
0.73
0.63
0.05
0.10
0.65
0.54
0.69
0.52
0.58
0.69
0.62
0.52
0.83
0.44
0.11
0.11
0.44
0.39
0.50
0.08
0.52
0.14
0.22
0.27
0.70
5
0.44
0.13
0.07
0.51
0.02
0.22
0.42
0.25
0.04
0.31
0.31
0.57
6
0.01
0.03
0.19
0.20
0.03
0.09
0.06
0.07
0.08
0.01
0.36
0.48
MultipleR
VIF
0.93
0.98
0.94
1.1
1.1
1.2
0.88
0.90
0.75
0.93
0.84
0.73
0.78
2.7
2.7
1.7
3.9
2.2
1.8
1.4
Note: VIF, variance inflation factor.
†
Sattvic person is idealistic, analytical and careful and is guided by truth and illumination.
‡
Rajasic person is restless, envious and ambitious and is guided by passion and motion.
§
Tamasic person is evil-minded, indiscreet and vulgar and is guided by darkness and concealment; to increase readability, correlations of |0.40| or higher are
presented in bold; multiple correlations are in italics.
¶
Big 8 ‘Hedonism’ was not included because of lack of marker items.
Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Eur. J. Pers. (2013)
DOI: 10.1002/per
J. K. Singh et al.
tamasic, turns out to have some non-dramatic but significant
betas especially for Conscientiousness, and also for
Conventionality. For the peer ratings, the first factor is again
identified best by rajasic characteristics, and the second
factor now combines characteristics of both sattvic and
tamasic, which obscures the overall picture to some extent.
DISCUSSION
Although there was good reason to analyse structures with
six factors for both self and peer ratings, only three factors
turned out to be substantial and stable, substantial in terms
of amount of variance explained and stable in terms of both
interpretability and congruency between self and peer. Those
three factors do not correspond to Big Five factors, nor
should they be confused with the Big Three, but they do have
some correspondence to the so-called triguna, an ancient
system of thinking about personality that is still alive in India
of today, consisting of rajasic (restless and passion), tamasic
(vulgar and concealment) and sattvic (analytical and truth).
The remaining three factors for both self and peer ratings
gave traces of Big Five factors (or Big Eight) but did not
do so in a consistent manner. Yet rajasic and sattvic
apparently consumed substantial amounts of variance
referring to Agreeableness (covered by the two marker scales
for Virtue and Agreeableness) and to other Big Five factors,
respectively. Sattvic seemed to capture many characteristics
of Big Five factors in much the same way the Dutch Big
eight factor Competence did: the markers in the Appendix
indeed cover Extraversion (e.g. energetic), Agreeableness
(e.g. helpful), Conscientiousness (e.g. straightforward),
Emotional Stability (e.g. resolute) and Intellect (e.g. gifted).
This ‘consumption’ of Big Five variance by the first three
factors obviously reduces the chance of finding well-delineated
Big Five factors beyond the triguna.
The ‘positive’ pole of rajasic contains high loading traits
indicating a tendency towards maintaining a modest and
polite attitude towards others in order to be acceptable. The
‘negative’ pole contains traits revealing a manipulative
tendency with the desire to please others to gain benefit out
of it. The present rajasic factor showed similarity to
Honesty–Humility (Ashton, Lee, Perugini, et al., 2004),
witness negative adjectives such as flatterer, deceptive,
cunning, busybody and showy. Positive adjectives on this
factor, such as friendly, tender-minded, empathetic and kind,
Table 10. Relations between Hindi factors (ipsatized data, self), Triguna, and Dutch Big Eight
Hindi factors
Marker scales (N items)
Triguna
B8
Sattvic (23)
Rajasic (20)
Tamasic (21)
Multiple-R
Virtue (12)
Competence (21)
Emotional Stability (6)
Agreeableness (21)
Conscientiousness (10)
Extraversion (8)
Conventionality (10)
Multiple-R
1
2
3
4
5
6
Multiple-R
0.12
0.94
0.07
0.96
0.56
0.15
0.20
0.47
0.38
0.06
0.19
0.77
0.10
0.16
0.64
0.65
0.36
0.37
0.15
0.39
0.42
0.22
0.32
0.49
0.73
0.09
0.26
0.77
0.27
0.31
0.25
0.42
0.11
0.08
0.40
0.56
0.05
0.08
0.45
0.46
0.09
0.07
0.20
0.07
0.11
0.18
0.26
0.49
0.10
0.11
0.14
0.19
0.16
0.05
0.15
0.00
0.21
0.09
0.09
0.46
0.28
0.04
0.04
0.29
0.16
0.52
0.41
0.20
0.32
0.65
0.05
0.74
0.80
0.97
0.84
0.76
0.73
0.60
0.77
0.70
0.72
0.61
Note: to increase readability, correlations of |0.40| or higher are presented in bold; multiple correlations are given in italics.
Table 11. Relations between Hindi factors (ipsatized data and peer), triguna and Dutch Big Eight
Hindi factors
Marker scales (N of items)
Triguna
B8
Sattvic (23)
Rajasic (20)
Tamasic (21)
Multiple-R
Virtue (12)
Competence (21)
Emotional Stability (6)
Agreeableness (21)
Conscientiousness (10)
Extraversion (8)
Conventionality (10)
Multiple-R
1
2
3
4
5
6
Multiple-R
0.10
0.93
0.18
0.94
0.48
0.04
0.26
0.33
0.37
0.08
0.25
0.74
0.60
0.07
0.59
0.77
0.22
0.13
0.20
0.36
0.19
0.13
0.29
0.44
0.34
0.06
0.30
0.41
0.35
0.45
0.33
0.35
0.51
0.52
0.32
0.63
0.32
0.20
0.12
0.36
0.38
0.46
0.02
0.47
0.14
0.20
0.19
0.67
0.20
0.16
0.38
0.50
0.09
0.25
0.37
0.13
0.06
0.31
0.13
0.60
0.18
0.02
0.14
0.22
0.15
0.30
0.08
0.11
0.16
0.15
0.16
0.45
0.81
0.97
0.81
0.76
0.77
0.60
0.78
0.70
0.67
0.57
Note: to increase readability, correlations of |0.40| or higher are presented in bold; multiple correlations are given in italics.
Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Eur. J. Pers. (2013)
DOI: 10.1002/per
Hindi factors
represent at least in part the Agreeableness domain
of personality.
The adjectives loading on the sattvic factor convey being
clear minded, being organized, without being distraction and
being in balance with others. This description coincides well
with the main gist of Competence, Conscientiousness,
Conventionality and also Agreeableness (Tables 1 and 2;
see also the relevant markers in the Appendix).
The adjectives that loaded on the tamasic factor reflect a
cynical and destructive tendency, apparently at the cost of
others. Individuals with such traits have little control over
emotions, play the system and play others, often evoked by
impulse. No apparent consistent relations with any of the
Big Five or Big eight were observed.
From a Western perspective, these findings may come as
a surprise, given the fact that, although with variations and
not always fully, the Big Five were often relatively easily
identified in psycho-lexical material (see, however, De Raad,
Barelds, Levert, et al., 2010). Much of what the Big Five is
about what seems to be related to personal initiative, entrepreneurship, self-realization, autonomy and individual responsibility, especially expressed in Extraversion, Conscientiousness
and Intellect or Intellectual Autonomy. According to Hsu
(1985), the concept of personality is a typical expression of the
Western emphasis in individualism. In non-Western civilization,
however, the concept of personality is much less central for the
understanding of behaviour (cf. Triandis, 1995). In Eastern
conceptions, as for example, conveyed in Confucianism and
Buddhism, relational characteristics are much more constitutional of the core of personality (e.g. Church, 2001).
Indians are primarily characterized as collectivists
(Hofstede, 1980; Triandis, 1995), but they also maintain an
individualistic orientation in life with a ‘well-protected
secret’ self that contains highly personal thoughts, feelings
and fantasies (Roland, 1987). The core characteristics of
the Indian psychological make-up are family orientation,
preference for hierarchy and maintenance of personalized
relationship, which are indeed the major dimensions of
collectivism (Sinha et al., 1994). At the same time, in
everyday life, especially outside the family context, Indians
are selfish, display extreme forms of egotism and are said
to lack consideration for others. This pattern of behaviour,
however, sometimes also extends to the family context. These
two faces of Indians indicate a paradox in the Indian mentality
(Sinha, 1999, pp. 23–24), characterized by a co-existence of
contrasting values and behaviour dispositions (Sinha, 1988;
Sinha & Tripathi, 1994).
If personality is shaped under cultural–ecological conditions,
some of this paradoxical nature is possibly playing a role in the
appreciation of personality. Up to a certain extent, this culturally
informed way of evaluating personality may explain the
different Hindi personality trait structure in comparison with
Western findings.
More generally, psychological studies in non-Western
cultures point to a variety of constructs that seem to be
culturally specific. In Japanese culture, for example, persons
‘are often described in an idiom of rashii’ (cf. Markus &
Kitayama, 1998, p. 73), referring to ideal image of a given
social role. Although one student can be distinctively
Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
diligent, and the other can be distinctively spirited, they both
may be student rashii, but they are each rashii in their own
ways (Markus & Kitayama, 1998, p. 73). Individual distinctions are made in a context-contingent way. Another example
is the Chinese renqing, which is a variant of the universal
equity rule, but much more elaborated and more tightly
bound up with ideas of reciprocity than it is in many other
cultures (Hwang, 1987, p. 946). In psychological terms, if
an individual can understand other people’s emotional
responses to various circumstances of life, feeling happy,
sad and so on, then we may say that such a person knows
renqing. Acting out of renqing, obligations of reciprocity
are heavily shaped by the hierarchically structured network
of the culture (Hwang, 1987, p. 953).
Psycho-lexical studies in Asia have shown some
resemblance to Big Five constructs but one-to-one
correspondences between, for example, Chinese trait
dimensions and the Big Five were hard to find (Cheung,
Conger, Hau, Lew, et al., 1992; Yang & Bond, 1990; Yik
& Bond, 1993; cf. Church, Reyes, Katigbak, & Grimm,
1997). In a comparison of 14 trait taxonomies, most of
Western origin, but including Tagalog (Church et al.,
1997), it was found for structures with two up to six factors,
that Tagalog had the most deviant structure for all
distinguished factors in the comparisons.
One might object that the present study used a relatively
small set of trait terms to obtain ratings, namely 295. It is true
indeed that the majority of psycho-lexically based studies
used 400 to 500 traits, but in some cases, smaller numbers
of trait descriptors were used with excellent results (Caprara
& Perugini, 1994: 285 terms; Szarota, 1996: 287 terms).
Therefore, we do not consider the number of adjectives used
in this study as a serious limitation.
The present study used students as participants; to some
extent, this is a limitation of the study, as the structure is
based on a clearly restricted subset of the population.
Compared with other psycho-lexical studies, it is not a
problem, as the majority of these studies were based on
ratings from student-participants. One good reason to use
students is that adjectives are of a somewhat abstract nature,
and they are more easily understood by participants who
have a certain level of education. Yet it remains true that it
is generally advisable to involve non-student participants in
this type of study too.
The main limitation of this study is probably in its deviant
results, not in the procedure that was followed; that
procedure was pretty much along the traditional lines of the
psycho-lexical approach. The results are indeed different if
seen from a Western-oriented Big Five perspective. For
Indians, the findings are quite ‘natural’, as they agree with
the contemporary everyday personological understanding
(e.g. Stempel et al., 2006).
CONCLUSION
The present study mapped the taxonomic structure of personality using personality descriptive adjectives of the Hindi
language. The findings indicate support for a three-dimensional
Eur. J. Pers. (2013)
DOI: 10.1002/per
J. K. Singh et al.
system covering the so-called triguna, with sattvic (goodness,
harmony and essence), rajasic (passion, mobility and energy)
and tamasic (dullness, indifference and inertia). These three
factors, explaining the largest bulk of the variance, are not the
Big Three. Only the additional set of three smaller factors
reminisce of the Big Three or of the related Big Five factors,
namely Extraversion, Agreeableness and Conscientiousness,
but from self to peer, these findings were far from stable.
So, although the present findings lend support for a
relatively strong three-dimensional structure, they do not
provide support for the Big Three.
Although the procedure in this study agrees with the
principles of other psycho-lexically performed studies, and
the list of trait terms extracted from the Hindi lexicon may
be expected to cover the domain of the Hindi trait lexicon
rather well, the findings lend more support to a strong
cultural influence in terms of differences in appreciation of
the trait items than to an understanding in terms of a robust
cross-culturally replicable system of traits (cf. Heine &
Buchtel, 2009).
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APPENDIX
Markers of triguna
Sattvic: well-behaved, impartial, competent, gentleman,
organized, understanding, virtuous, capable, caring, adored,
scholar, calm, humane, committed, gentle, civilized, sober,
realist, harmonious, simple, resourceful, level-headed
Tamasic: crooked, restless, arrogant, neglected, egoist, frustrated, a-social, intolerant, disorganized, mean-minded, orthodox, snobbish, mischievous, dissatisfied (2×), self-destructive,
obstinate, prudish, unsuccessful, irritable, indecent
Rajasic: hypocrite, flatterer, cunning, deceptive, busybody,
insensitive, violent, bully, cruel, showy, boastful, quarrelsome,
foul-mouthed, versus ambitious, friendly, hard-working,
well-mannered, smart, sociable, knowledgeable
Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Markers of Big Eight
Virtue: friendly, loyal, good, good character, civilized,
honest, polite, kind, benevolent, gentle, respectable, virtuous
Competence: capable, competent, energetic, entertaining,
flamboyant, gifted, helpful, imaginative, impartial, leader,
open-minded, optimist, realist, resolute, resourceful,
sagacious, scholar, splendid, straightforward
Emotional Stability: balanced, calm, self-controlled,
grownup, strong, strong willed
Agreeableness: amiable, caring, contented, cooperative,
empathetic, forgiving, generous, gentleman, grateful,
harmonious, humane, humble, peace-loving, pious, religious,
responsible, sociable, soft-spoken, sweet-tongued, sympathizer,
tender-minded
Conscientiousness: ambitious, dedicated, disciplined,
efficient, hard-working, methodical, organized, perseverant,
persistent, workaholic
Hedonism: none
Extraversion: active, assertive, cheerful, extroverted,
lively, smiling, spontaneous, witty
Conventionality: adaptive, fatalist, devout, dependent,
lethargic, obedient, ritualistic, simple, traditionalist,
well-behaved
Eur. J. Pers. (2013)
DOI: 10.1002/per