Description

The Adjective Q-SET for Non-Professional Sorters is an assessment tool used to evaluate personality through the use of adjectives. This method enables non-professional raters—such as friends, family members, or colleagues—to describe an individual’s personality traits in a structured and systematic way. The tool includes a set of adjectives that represent various aspects of personality.

Objective

The primary goal of the Adjective Q-SET is to provide an objective and structured approach for assessing personality by non-professional evaluators. This tool is used to gather data about a person’s personality from multiple sources and to enhance understanding of personality in various social and personal contexts.

Analysis

The Adjective Q-SET consists of a list of adjectives that relate to different personality traits. Non-professional raters are asked to sort these adjectives into categories that reflect how well each one describes the person being evaluated. The categories typically range from highly descriptive to not descriptive at all.
Raters are asked to sort the adjectives into a predetermined distribution—often a normal distribution or other structured formats—to ensure a balanced evaluation. This method allows for the assessment of the relative importance of different traits for the individual being evaluated.

Scoring

Scoring in the Adjective Q-SET is typically conducted using a predefined scale with categories such as:
Very characteristic
Moderately characteristic
Neutral/Moderately uncharacteristic
Very uncharacteristic
Evaluators are required to place each adjective into the appropriate category. Final scores for each trait are calculated based on its position within these categories, providing a quantitative measure of personality.

References

Block, J. (1961). The Q-sort method in personality assessment and psychiatric research. Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas Publisher.
Bem, D. J., & Funder, D. C. (1978). Predicting more of the people more of the time: Assessing the personality of situations. Psychological Review, 85(6), 485–501.
John, O. P. (1990). The “Big Five” factor taxonomy: Dimensions of personality in the natural language and in questionnaires. In L. A. Pervin (Ed.), Handbook of personality: Theory and research (pp. 66–100). New York: Guilford Press.
Funder, D. C., & Colvin, C. R. (1991). Explorations in behavioral consistency: Properties of persons, situations, and behaviors. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 60(5), 773–794.
Kammrath, L. K., Mendoza-Denton, R., & Mischel, W. (2005). Incorporating if… then… personality signatures in person perception: Beyond the person-situation dichotomy. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 88(4), 605–618.