INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES IN PERCEIVED TRAIT RELATIONSHIPS AS A FUNCTION OF DIMENSIONAL SALIENCE.

Two studies were conducted to examine the applicability of Carroll and Chang's INDSCAL model to trait similarity data. The model assumes that all individuals use the same configuration of dimensions in making perceptual judgments but differ in the weight or salience of each dimension. In the two studies correlations of .81 and .71 were obtained between the 4-dimensional INDSCAL solutions and subjects' scalar products data. High canonical correlations were found between the INDSCAL stimulus dimensions and those obtained by Kruskal's non-metric procedure. Results also indicated that the dimensions obtained using 20 traits were closely comparable to those obtained when the same traits were embedded in the context of 60 other traits. Clustering subjects on the basis of their dimensional salience profiles yielded five groups which were distinguished by patiterns of dimensional relationships on three discriminant factors.