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A Psycho-linguistic Study on Adult Playfulness: Its Hierarchical Structure and Theoretical Considerations

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Abstract

By means of a linguistic corpus analysis, statements were derived that reflect trait-like characteristics of playful adults. These were given to a sample of 240 adults who also completed two measures of adult playfulness. Using Goldberg’s (J Res Pers 40:347–358, 2006) top-down approach, the hierarchical factor structure of playfulness in this data set was examined. A solution with seven factors fits the data well and could be clearly interpreted. The retrieved factors were (1) cheerful-engaged; (2) whimsical; (3) impulsive; (4) intellectual-charming; (5) imaginative; (6) lighthearted; and (7) kind-loving. The two playfulness measures did not cover all of these dimensions. The intellectual-charming and the kind-loving variants of playfulness were less well represented in these instruments. The study contributes to the basic question of what factors underlie playfulness and suggests that there are aspects of adult playfulness that were hitherto less well described.

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Notes

  1. In Peterson and Seligman’s (2004) classification of character strengths and virtues, humor is one of the strengths (assigned to the virtue of transcendence). The authors use playfulness synonymously with humor (see Proyer and Ruch 2011).

  2. The settings for the COSMAS II analysis were the same as in Proyer et al. (2009); i.e., “archive: W–Archiv der geschriebenen Sprache” (archive of written language); “corpus: öffentlich–alle öffentlichen Korpora geschriebener Sprache” (all public corpora in written language).”

  3. Additionally, a canonical correlation has been computed between the set of factors derived from the PIA and the scales of the APS and the total score of the PSA as the second set. Results are not reported here in detail but six significant (p < .01) canonical correlations emerged. The coefficients were .86, .71, .62, .52, .31, and .26, respectively. Together, they demonstrated 55% overlapping variance.

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  1. Section on Personality and Assessment, Department of Psychology, University of Zurich, Binzmühlestrasse 14/Box 7, 8050, Zurich, Switzerland

    René T. Proyer

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Correspondence to René T. Proyer.

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Proyer, R.T. A Psycho-linguistic Study on Adult Playfulness: Its Hierarchical Structure and Theoretical Considerations. J Adult Dev 19, 141–149 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10804-012-9141-7

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