Agreed -- five is the extent of the major superordinates we can carry
into an interpersonal interaction.
And I find the idea of the big five changing with changes in the
culture to be quite compatible with the idea that "the five" represents the
load in the mind of the construer.
Devi has raised a question about how "the five" would emerge from the
processing of the responses of a large set of data from a large set of
participants. I need to work out my response to that -- particularly to the
considerations that are raised by the matter that the investigator builds "the
five" into the items used to gather the responses. Vernon Hamilton, in his
book -- around 1985 (????) does a nice job of dealing with the matter of the
ways in which the respondent and the investigator "collaborate" to produce the
results of a typical "paper and pencil personality assessment device."
I'll get back to you, Devi. I'm just getting back into the groove
after a great weekend in NYC -- still recovering from having found one of the
best Italian restaurants at which I have had the pleasure of the table. I
think that it would be good for everyone's "Italian Food Constructions," if
he/she were to spend an evening at CINQUANTA -- located at 50 East 50th Street.
[That's a bit of advertising on the internet -- but I am really trying to
expand the construct systems of my colleagues.]
Jim Mancuso
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