A Psycho-lexical Study of Malay Proverbial Personality Factor Structure Using a Combined Emic-Etic Approach

Aim: This combined emic-etic psycho-lexical study examines the Malay personality factor structure using the Malay proverbs lexicon. Methods: Proverbial personality descriptors were extracted from a dictionary of Malay proverbs (n=3,693) by subject matter experts. The extracted personality descriptors were then rated by the masses on their familiarity (n=1,683). Proverbial personality descriptors (n=200) were, then, analysed using principle component analysis (PCA) in search for the etic-based Malay proverbial personality factor structure. PCA revealed five factors personality factor structure that were tentatively labelled as Evil-Capricious, Quick-tempered, Positive Disposition, Extraversion and Cooperative. This factor structure was then compared with the Malay adjectival personality taxonomy, namely, Nefarious, Emotionality, Virtues, Indulgence, eXtraversion and Accommodative (NEVIXA). The factor structure was further compared with the mainstream Big-5 and Big-6 personality taxonomies. Key Findings: Overall, results have shown that Malay proverbial personality taxonomy is highly similar to the Malay adjectival personality taxonomy, but, different from Big-5 and Big-6 taxonomies. Specifically, only emotionality and extraversion mapped quite well with the Big-5 and Big-6 taxonomies, while, the other four factors are unique to the Malays.

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