Studies in the Mentality of Literates: 3. Conceptual Structure and Nonsense of Personality Testing

In this study, third in a series of studies of the relationships between the dominant type of the Word Meaning Structure (WMS) and various psychic processes, response patterns on personality questionnaires with Likert-type response format of individuals with different levels of education (including adult illiterates) in Brazil (N = 102) and in Estonia (N = 520) were assessed with person oriented methods of data analysis. We found that responses to two personality questionnaires (International Personality Item Pool Questionnaire, IPIP-Q60 and Estonian Collectivism Scale, ESTCOL) are inconsistent and do not correspond to theories that underlie construction and interpretation of such assessment tools. Two novel ways to assess inconsistent response patterns were developed. The Consistency Index (CI) characterizes between-item inconsistency and the Determinacy Index (DI) characterizes within-item inconsistency. The dominant type of the WMS and the level of education were related to both CI and DI. Higher level of between-item inconsistency characterizes everyday conceptual thinkers with lower levels of education and higher level of within-item inconsistency was observed among logical conceptual thinkers with higher levels of education. Systematic relationships between WMS and inconsistent patterns of responses indicate that responses on personality questionnaires cannot be interpreted in terms of personality characteristics. The results of our study also provide further support to the idea that dominant type of the WMS is a pervasive characteristic of the psyche and determines qualitatively possibilities and limits of the psychic processes. The results of this study are in agreement with the idea that WMS defines the "Great Divide."