Empirically Derived Personality Types Among Male and Female College Students

Summary

Data on the 16 PF obtained from 130 male and female college students were cluster analyzed to produce an empirical personality typology. Two different clustering algorithms were compared. Seven personality types emerged: 1) Weil-Adjusted Conservative, 2) Ego-Involved Neurotic, 3) Norm Independent, 4) Socially-Detached Neurotic, 5) Superego Controlled, 6) Self-Assured Experimenter, and 7) Tough-Minded Controlled. Not only did the types differ significantly in personality, but they also were found to be significantly different on nine different measures of interpersonal orientation. Since the types did give intuitive insight into the nature of personality as particular combinations of personality traits and also were different on variables other than those used for the classification, the scientific utility of the typological approach received support.