Webbâs (1915) study was his Doctor of Science thesis for the University of London. A request for the thesis from the university brings a bound copy of the article. It was published as a Monograph Supplement to the British Journal of Psychology, a format that the journal did not continue for long. The article, with its preface included, is over 100 printed pages long, and has some large fold-out sheets containing correlation matrices. Webbâs (1915) paper is similar in page-numbers length to Charles Spearmanâs (1904) paper in which the latter discovered general cognitive ability (usually known as g). That is relevant, because Spearman was Webbâs doctoral advisor and is mentioned often in the article, the statistical methods are Spearmanâs, and the article may be seen as the discovery of the first general psychological (personality) factor after Spearmanâs g. There are several remarkable things about Webbâs study, in addition to its length, namely its style, the study design, the data collected, the statistical analyses, the results and its latent content. Each of these is now described and discussed in turn.
Style
There are enjoyable literary and historical allusions throughout Webbâs (1915) article. For example, the Preface addressed potential critics of the seemingly intractable topic of human psychological variation using Tennysonâs âFlower in the crannied wallâ. Later, in excoriating pre-scientific conceptions of personality, Webb uses concepts from Francis Baconâs 17th century Novum Organum. For these and other literary-historical references, Webb does not mention the original authors; he expects the reader to know them. In several places, Webbâs (1915, p. 23) writing explicitly recognized that he was taking the study of personality from pre-science to science: âThe present work is guided by the principle that neither casual observation nor dialectical discussion can furnish the groundwork of any empirical science, the decision between the conflicting opinions of descriptive psychologists must rest with definite, and as a rule, quantitative evidence.â
Webbâs (1915) writing often has a critic clearly in mind, and is therefore reminiscent of Spearmanâs style (see Spearman, 1927). For example, as Webb (1915) moved to the very important Chapter V in his paper â âA Second General Factorâ â he had by that stage reviewed past efforts, had collected data and had analysed the intelligence variables (finding g, of course). He was then ready to look for any further general aspects of psychological variation, probably in non-intellectual traits. He wrote (p. 52) as follows:
A few of these unwarranted generalisations [concerning human psychological variation, by past writers] which have been put forward are passion, will, pleasures and pains and their corresponding interests; strength and weakness of activity; speed of activity; vitality (sanguine, choleric, etc.); primary and secondary functions; spontaneity; easy and difficult reactibility ⌠But all that these writers have really done is to observe a personâs actions to have certain characteristics under certain particular conditions. They have never produced, nor even tried to produce, any evidence of the same person exhibiting the same characteristics generally, that is to say, under varied conditions.
That last sentence is a pretty good approximation to what personality traits are. In this part of his paper Webb makes the connection with Spearman clear by stating that the clarity that his own work brings to personality research is like the clarity that the discovery of general intelligence (g) brought to the study of cognitive differences.
Toward the end of Chapter V, Webb (1915) stated his main discovery as an hypothesis, as follows: âThe evidence thus appears to be decisive; and we therefore venture to put forward the hypothesis: That a second factor, of wide generality, exists; and that this factor is prominent on the âcharacterâ side of mental activity (as distinguished from the purely intellective sideâ (p. 58, italic in the original). Also in this chapter were things one would expect to see in a modern Discussion section (i.e., a reflection on how the research integrates with and develops previous work, and some practical application). Indeed, the practical application is rather fun; it applies Webbâs newly discovered general personality factor of âwâ (persistence of motives) to two highly intelligent thinkers: Isaac Newton (1642â1726/7; a high scorer on w, Webb reckons) and Francis Bacon (1561â1626; a low w scorer, Webb reckons). And Chapter VI continued the âDiscussion sectionâ by addressing limitations in the research undertaken.
In summary, Webbâs (1915) over-100-year-old (at the time of this writing) paper is a good read. It has the excitement of someone writing with awareness that he was among the first to conduct adequate-quality empirical research on important aspects of personhood. It is perhaps expected that one would have to make allowances for limitations in such an old paper in terms of its design, data and analyses. However, bearing in mind how the majority of personality trait studies are conducted today, allowances for limitations mostly would have to be afforded by Webb to todayâs researchers, and not vice versa. Early in the Preface Webb quoted Galtonâs (1883) urging that character should be studied more and that schoolmasters might be well placed to make assessments: âIt would be necessary to approach the subject wholly without prejudice, as a pure matter of observation, just as if the children were the flora and fauna of hitherto undiscovered species in an entirely new landâ (p. v). What did Webb do?
