THE STRUCTURE OF PERSONALITY JUDGMENTS: COMMENTS ON KUUSINEN'S PAPER AND FURTHER EVIDENCE

Kuusinen (1969) compared the factor structures of individual subjects' ratings of their peers with the structure of peer ratings made by a group of subjects. He concluded that the group structure adequately represented the individual structures and that inter-individual differences were unimportant. This conclusion is challenged in the present paper. It is argued that the between-subject differences in Kuusinen's results were too pronounced to be dismissed as negligible. Data are also presented from a study in which subjects made personality ratings of stereotypic role figures. The factor structure underlying each subject's ratings was determined and compared with that of each other subject. The degree of congruence between the factor structures of pairs of subjects varied and in general only moderate convergence was observed. Implications of these individual differences for the concept of implicit personality theories were discussed.