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A 36 Trait Personality Rating

Scale
a
E. Lowell Kelly
a
Department of Psychology , Purdue University ,
USA
Published online: 02 Jul 2010.

To cite this article: E. Lowell Kelly (1940) A 36 Trait Personality Rating Scale,
The Journal of Psychology: Interdisciplinary and Applied, 9:1, 97-102, DOI:
10.1080/00223980.1940.9917679

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00223980.1940.9917679

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 Published a s a separate and in T h e Journal of Psychology, 1940, 9, 97-102.

A 36 TRAIT P E R S O N A L I T Y RATING SCALE*l

Department of Psychology, Purdur University

E. LOWELL
KELLY
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Six years ago the author attempted to assemble a test battery to

yield a relatively complete picture of the human -Dersonalitv. As
becomes evident to anyone who makes a similar attempt, there are still
many aspects of personality for which as yet no adequate and usable
tests are available. Hence, in spite of its many defects, a personality
rating scale was included in the battery. A survey of available rating
scales revealed that most of them had been designed for some par-
ticular use and that none met the need at hand, that of providing
supplementary measures of traits which were not measured by the
tests in the battery.2 Accordingly a new scale was devised.
Briefly, the scale is of the graphic type, each trait continuum
being represented on a line five inches long. Since the scale was
designed for use with raters having had little or no experience with
such devices, the instructions were made as explicit as possible and
appeared on the first page of the four page 8% x 11G printed form.
T h e 36 questions are as follows:
1. Is he physically energetic and “peppy”?
2. How intelligent is h e ?
3. How does he meet new social situations?
4. How sociable and friendly is h e ?
5. Is he physically attractive?
6. Is he nervous and “flies off the handle” easily?
7. Is he popular with other people?
8. W h a t is his attitude about religion?
9. How does he meet his appointments?

*Received in the Editorial Office on August 7, 1939, and published im-

mediately a t Provincetown, Massachusetts. Copyright by T h e Journal Press.
‘This scale was devised for use in the writer’s studies on the psychological
factors underlying marital compatibility, financial support for which is being
provided by the Committee for Resarch in Problems of Sex of the National
Research Council.
T h e test battery included: T h e Otis S. A. test, the Bernreuter Personality
Inventory, the Bell Adjustment Inventory, T h e Allport-Vernon Scale of
Values, the Strong Vocational Interest Blank, and two Remmers Generalized
Attitude Scales to measure attitudes toward church, marriage, divorce,
rearing children, entertaining, keeping house, and care of the lawn.
97
 98 JOURNAL OF PSYCHOLOGY

10. How much initiative does he have; is he a “self-starter”?

11. How courteous is h e ?
12. How jealous is h e ?
13. What sort of voice does he have?
14. How cwperative is he?
15. How cultured is h e ?
16. Is he awkward or graceful in his movements?
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17. How well does he stick to B task?

18. How is he with regard to money?
19. How honest and fair is he?
20. How does he dress?
21. Is he patient?
22. Does he possess common sense?
23. Are his interests wide or n a r r o w ?
24. W h a t is his usual disposition?
25. How conventional is he ?
26. Is he a good sport or a poor one?
27. Is he generally quiet or boisterous ?
28. How sincere is he?
29. W h a t kind of temper does he have?
30. Is he boring or entertaining?
31. How vain is h e ?
32. Is he tactful and diplomatic?
33. Does he have definite ideas which he is sure are right?
34. How good is his sense of humor?
35. Can you count on him to do a thing?
36. How selfish and self-centered is he?

T h e traits included in the scale were chosen by reference to other

available scales, from additional traits suggested by colleagues, and
finally by elimination of those traits for which very low coefficients of
reliability were obtained in a tryout form. T h e 36 traits finally
selected, together with the resulting reliability coefficients of ratings
based on the average of five acquaintances are shown in Table 1.
These coefficients of reliability were obtained by correlating the aver-
age rating of two judges against the average of two others for 33
subjects and predicting the reliability for five judges from the Spear-
man-Brown formula (2). T h e range of the reliability coefficients
from .31 to .86 indicates wide variations in the accuracy with which
different characteristics are rated. I n the printed forms, the items are
arranged in the approximate order of decreasing size of the reliability
coefficients, and the “high” ends of the scales are staggered in order to
reduce the “halo effect.”
 E. LOWELL KELLY 99

TABLE 1
TRAIT
IN TERMS
OF QUESTION’ ASKEDRATER
No. in Coef. of
Scale Reliability
2. H o w intelligent is s h e ? .86
3. H o w does she meet new social situations? .84
4. H o w social is she? .79
5. Is she physically attractive? .78
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6. Is she nervous? .77

7. Is she popular with other people? .77
8. W h a t is her attitude about religion? .72
1. Is she physically energetic? .72
9. How does she meet her appointments? .7 1
11. H o w courteous is she? .69
12. H o w jealous is she? .69
13. W h a t sort of a voice has s h e ? .69
14. How cGperative is s h e ? .66
15. H o w cultured is s h e ? .65
16. Is she a w k w a r d ? .65
17. H o w well does she stick to a t a s k ? .65
18. H o w is she with regard to money? .64
19. H o w honest and f a i r is s h e ? .63
31. H o w vain is s h e ? .63
20. H o w does she dress? .61
21. I s she patient? .60
22. Does she possess common sense? .60
23. A r e her interests wide o r n a r r o w ? .60
24. W h a t is her usual disposition? .59
25. H o w conventional is s h e ? .57
26. Is she a good sport? .56
27. I s she generally quiet or boisterous? .56
28. H o w sincere is s h e ? .51
29. W h a t kind of a temper does she h a v e ? .so
30. Is she boring or entertaining? .so
36. H o w selfish is she? .49
10. H o w much initiative does she h a v e ? .49
32. Is she tactful? .49
33. Does she have definite ideas? .48
35. Can you count on her to do a thing? .34
34. H o w good is her sense of h u m o r ? .3 1
’The questions as here listed a r e as they appear in the F form. Identical
questions using “he,” “his,” and “him” a r e used in the M form.

Although available evidence indicates that seven such divisions are

all that are needed on a scale (3, p. SO), the larger number was pro-
vided to permit a rater to discriminate as finely as he felt possible.
T h e 25 divisions have been used in scoring and in all correlational
studies using the scale, but the range of the average ratings of in-
dividuals rarely exceeds 15 points, and the use of these small units
does not greatly increase the labor of scoring and computation.
 100 JOURNAL OF PSYCHOLOGY

Each scale is divided into 25 divisions and so scored by means of a

stencil, but only three points are described on each scale: an adjective
o r phrase at each extreme, and the heading “most pe0p1e”~ in the
middle. It was felt that the term “most people” is more meaningful
to untrained raters than the more technical term, “average”; also it
was thought that it would possibly result in less skewed distributions
of the resulting ratings than is usually obtained with scales of this
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type.
Perhaps it would have been desirable to have provided verbal
descriptions of more points on each of the scales, but after ex-
periencing great difficulty in securing relatively satisfactory descrip-
tions of the opposite ends of the scales, the writer concluded that it
was beyond the scope of his ability, first, to compose such descriptions
of intermediate points on the continua, and secondly to place them at
the correct points on the scale. T h e much used phrases, “above
average,” “below average,” etc., could have been employed, but these
did not seem necessary with the instructions used.
In view of the real difficulty of choosing appropriate names ( 1 ), it
was decided to avoid all mention of “traits” as such and simply to
ask the rater to answer questions about the individual being rated.
T h u s instead of making a trait out of “religiousness,” and asking how
much of this trait a person has, the question is phrased :“Howreligious
is he?” This practice has the disadvantage of requiring separate male
and female forms of the scale, but an attempt to devise a single form
using “the person” instead of “he” and “she” was not satisfactory.
Several thousand of each M and F forms were needed and the two
forms were not a serious disadvantage. T h e M form was printed on
tinted paper, thus making it readily distinguishable from the F form
on white paper.
NORMS
I n connection with another investigation, five ratings have been
obtained for each of 299 men and 299 women, all adults. T h e means
and standard deviations of these ratings might be thought of as con-
stituting norms for a scale of this type, and are presented in Table 2.
Reference to Table 2 shows that the attempts to eliminate the
tendency toward skewedness in ratings was not entirely successful.
For only one item, ‘How religious is he?” is the mean rating below
the theoretical mean of 12.5. W e are forced to conclude either that
T h e author is indebted to Dr. Robert Bernreuter for this suggestion.
 E. LOWELL KELLY 101

TABLE 2
MEANA N D STANDARDDEVIATION
OF THE AVERAGE
OF FIVEJUDGE’S RATINGS
ON
299 MEN AND 299 WOMEN
Men Women
Trait Mean f SE SD Mean f SE SD
1. Pep 15.54 .19 3.30 15.32 .20 3.50
2. Intelligence 16.60 .15 2.64 16.28 .15 2.66
3. Self assurance
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16.32 .18 3.20 16.52 .19 3.36

4. Sociability 17.14 .15 2.62 17.08 .18 3.08
5. Attractiveness 14.20 .17 2.98 15.58 .17 2.86
6. Nervousness 15.58 .24 4.10 14.52 .24 4.16
7. Popularity 15.58 .16 2.76 15.94 .16 2.80
8. Religiousness 10.64 .28 4.76 11.90 .26 4.54
9. Punctuality 15.30 .26 4.46 15.48 .19 3.28
10. Initiative 16.74 .19 3.22 16.46 .21 3.62
11. Courtesy 18.26 .16 2.82 18.58 .16 2.80
12. Jealousy 14.42 .19 3.34 14.56 .20 3.38
13. Voice 15.20 .15 2.62 15.86 .18 3.12
14. Cooperation 17.32 .16 2.72 17.10 .16 2.84
15. Culture 15.50 .14 2.50 16.26 .15 2.66
16. Grace-
awkwardness 13.36 .16 2.80 14.72 .17 2.92
17. Persistence 17.42 .20 3.44 16.72 .18 3.18
18. Generosity 15.10 .18 3.08 15.10 .16 2.81
19. Honesty 19.34 .16 2.70 19.08 .14 2.46
20. Dress 16.36 .21 3.62 17.44 .20 3.40
21. Patience 14.16 .21 3.58 13.40 .20 3.42
22. Common sense 17.56 .17 2.88 17.82 .16 2.80
23. Interests 15.58 .17 2.90 15.54 .18 3.16
24. Disposition 16.94 .15 2.66 17.20 .16 2.82
25. Conventionality 12.64 .19 3.24 12.54 .22 2.81
26. Good sport 17.30 .18 3.06 17.72 .16 2.80
27. Quiet-boisterous 13.46 .22 3.72 13.10 .22 3.78
28. Sincerity 18.64 .16 2.70 18.76 -16 2.70
29. Temper 16.24 .20 3.50 15.92 .19 3.22
30. Entertaining 15.72 .15 2.62 16.30 .15 2.64
31. Vanity 13.72 .22 3.86 13.84 .20 3.48
32. Tact 14.74 .20 3.44 15.34 .20 3.46
33. Tolerance 12.62 .17 3.02 12.84 .17 2.94
34. Sense of humor 17.40 .15 2.60 17.00 .20 2.64
35. Dependability 17.98 .20 3.48 18.00 .18 3.06
3 6. Unselfishness 16.04 .19 3.22 16.08 .18 3.10
__

the groups rated are “above average” on most of the traits, or that
persons tend to rate their acquaintances too high on practically all
traits. T h e latter seems the more tenable conclusion. This tendency
to “over-rate” varies widely from trait to trait, ranging from a mean
rating of about 12.7 for crToZeranceJ’ and “ConventionaZity” to a
mean of 19 for “Honesty.” A similar wide range in the spread of
 102 J O U R N A L O F PSYCHOLOGY

ratings for the various traits will be noted in the reported standard
deviations of the ratings. I t is evident that a rating of let us say 16
for “Pep” does not mean the same as a rating of 16 on “honesty.” All
inter-trait comparisons on a scale of this sort must be on the basis of
percentile or standard scores. For practical situations, the scoring
key itself might be designed to permit direct scoring in “T-Scores”
or percentiles.
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Relatively few significant sex differences appear in Table 2. In

fact only six of the 36 sex differences have a critical ratio of more than
three, and this in spite of the relatively large N for each sex which
tends to reduce the standard errors of the means. T h e women are
rated as slightly more attractive, more nervous, more religious, inore
cultured, more graceful, and as better dressers than the men. Each
of these differences is in the direction which popular opinion would
lead us to expect, but the absolute difference is so small as to make
separate norms for the two sexes unnecessary.
No claim is made that the 36 traits listed are discreet. It is hoped
that a factor analysis now under way, will permit reducing the length
of the scale and still have it yield the same essential information as
now. I n its present form, however, the scale has been found an ex-
tremely useful research tool. It is also helpful in student counselling
of personality problems, in that it enables the counselor to present the
student with a fairly detailed picture of himself as he is seen by his
fellow students.

REFERENCES
1. ALLPORT,G. A., & ODBERT,HENRYS. Trait Names: A Psycho-Lexical
Study. Psychsol. Monog., 1936, 41, No. 211.
2. REMMERS, H. H.,SHOCK, N. W., & KELLY,E. L. A n empirical study of the
validity of the Spearman-Brown Formula as applied to the Purdue
Rating Scale, 1. Educ. Psycho/., 1927, 18, 187-195.
3. SYMONDS. P. S. Diagnosing Personality and Conduct. New York: Cen-
tury, 1931.
Division of Education and Applied Psychology
Purdue University
Lafnyette, Indiana.