The Importance of Distinguishing between Semantic Content and Level of Identification in Traits and Values

Traditional models of personality traits and of human values have frequently pointed to theoretical interconnections between these constructs, which both refer to stable psychological characteristics. Yet, decades of study have yielded no consensus about precisely how these constructs interrelate. The present research takes a significant step forward by empirically examining consequences of matching semantic content between traits and values. As an example of such semantic matching, people can vary in the extent to which they are honest and curious (traits), while varying in the extent to which they believe that it is important to be honest and curious (values). We used alternate forms of the HEXACO-trait model (Ashton et al., 2004) and Schwartz’s (1992) 10-value type model to examine this role of semantic content. As expected, we found that the HEXACO and Schwartz models assess different semantic content from each other. We also predicted and found that both the semantic content of the measures (e.g., honesty vs curiosity) and the type of measurement (i.e., as traits or values) determined relations to other variables (e.g., negative affect, internalization of moral identity). These findings show that greater theoretical precision about the relations between traits and values can be achieved by explicitly distinguishing the models’ axiological starting points and focus of assessment.